Yawn ...

Directly-elected health boards? Who cares?

The SNP do, because it was in their manifesto, and they haven't fulfilled any of their manifesto pledges since they scrapped Graduate Endowment, and that was some time ago now. This one probably seems easy enough.

But who else cares?

"The idea of direct elections has the backing of unions but has found little support from health boards themselves."

Unions dig it; the health boards don't. Hmm.

"Sixteen-year-olds will be able to vote in the elections."

Yeah, and who of them is going to vote to elect their local health board? They have Playstations to play, and homework to do, and blue wkd's to serruptitiosly guzzle at underage teen parties. More to the point, this is opposed by the Electoral Commission and has aroused "serious concerns" from the related Scottish Parliamentary committee.

Further still, as Mary Scanlon, Tory health spokesperson, put it:

"Barely a quarter of those who responded to the consultation were in favour of these elections, and only four of Scotland's 32 councils back the plans."

Basically, no one cares! No one will vote! Nobody wants NHS Scotland Ancient-Athens-stylee. Why waste money on these pilots? What insights are they expecting to gain by launching these seven-year pilots, other than that the NHS remains just as frigged if the interfering busybodies have the vote of a few interested townsfolk than if they have no vote at all?

The Lib Dems have the real doozy though, from health spokesman Ross Finnie:

"Liberal Democrats believe that direct elections are not the best way of improving health board accountability. That is why we have called for alternatives like getting local councils more involved in running local health services."

Please, Ross, do tell me all about the general medical expertise and experience of hospital-management endowed upon our country's local councillors. They should leave local health services well alone, and leave it to the people who actually know what they're talking about - i.e. medically-trained personnel. Get the meddling politicians out of there!

SNP Nurses

Now the SNP have been fairly shameless in their exploitation of Scottish nationalism - as regularly illuminated by Scottish Unionist - most recently in attempts to bring about a fairly unnecessary-sounding dot-scotland web domain, and a Scottish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Now I have no quarrel with Scottish nationalists generally; indeed I consider myself one. I love my country, socialist warts and all. It is my personal view that Scotland is better off within the Union, but as a Libertarian I also subscribe to the view of voluntary secession - that if the Scottish people want to secede, they should be allowed to, by voting in a referendum. I would never presume to know that the Union is best for Scotland, and thus enforce my opinion by not letting the voice of the people be heard - it is just my opinion. Hell, I believe if an individual wants to secede from the State and declare his house the Fiefdom of Narnia, he should be allowed to.

So I have sympathy for the independence-driven nationalists out there: they clearly believe in their cause strongly, and if they manage to convince enough people that independence is the right way forward, I may disagree, but I'll accept it. I personally favour a strongly-localised Union with a central UK government basically limited to the core functions of national defence, some tax, immigration etc etc. I think most revenue-raising powers should be localised, as should all primary legislative powers - so I'll watch out the conclusions of the Calman Commission with a keen eye.

But what irks me about the SNP's exploitation of Scottish nationalism is the superfluousness of it. Is there any actual necessity for getting a Scot onto TV singing some crap song alongside the regular Polish, Latvian and Austrian wailers? Is it necessary to demand, as the SNP intend to do in their 2011 census, whether or not you consider your national identity to be either British or Scottish?

There's something almost indoctrinary about it, and in the latter's case, psychologically coercive, as well as intentionally divisive. What about someone like me, who considers himself a legitimate Brit and a legitimate Scot (and half-legitimately Welsh - I was born in Cardiff!)? There's loving-your-country style nationalism, and there's resentment-style nationalism - "we're Scottish and we dae like the English cuz ay Bannockburn"; that kind of thing.

Which is why, call me cynical, but I can't help but consider Nicola Sturgeon's unveiling of new NHS uniforms to be a little suspect:

"The traditional doctors' white coat was consigned to history today as health secretary Nicola Sturgeon unveiled new uniform guidelines for NHS workers.

Medics in Scotland's hospitals and clinics will wear blue tunics instead of white coats."