12/04/2012 Newsnight Scotland

Thank you. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: Well are you excited

about the local election campaign? Would you be excited if you could

vote for a mayor? Why can't Scotland's cities have their own

version of the Ken and Boris show in London? Also tonight, the Scot

who provided the scientific link between Newton and Einstein. Why is

James Clerk Maxwell so little celebrated in his own land? Good

evening. Three weeks tonight we'll be considering how the election

went. 32 two local authorities, more than 1,000 council seats at

stake and more than �20 billion of taxpayers' money to spend. So why

do so few us seem committed to voting? Would a few mayoral

contests along the lines of the London elections spark some

interest? Here's David Allison. haven't apologised for calling him

a liar. Do you want to? No There is no doubt in certain circumstances a

mayoral election can make entertaining television. Boris

Johnson earning �140,000 as mayor and gets a quarter of a million

from the Daily Telegraph. The only income I will have will be from the

job. He did a write a column when he was mayor for the Independent.

I'm probably the only human being to have read all of columns for

which he was paid, I don't know what. And it was obvious reading

them, why he did not continue in that. While Londoners seem to have

taken to to concept of a city mayor, it has not always worked. In

Hartlepool they have elected and re-elected a man dressed as a

monkey. A throw back to ta -- to the Napoleonic wars when a monkey

was hung as being a French spy. But some in Birmingham will elect a

mayor. In the wake of nine lever, the New York mayor was praised for

holding together the city. I wanted to make sure everything is here

that could be here. Before that, in the 80s when he introduced a zero

tolerance campaign, the power of American mayors prompted thought

here. It is if New York can do it. In 83, Mr Happy while our version

with Michael Kelly taking on a mayor-like role. Others carried on

the high profile approach to help regenerate the city. But now, local

councils can only raise about 10% of the money they spend and often

choice in how they carve up the financial cake is pre-determined by

statutory requirements. We have only just reorganised local

Government with PR and these are the first elections free standing

under that system. So perhaps we need more time before any further

changes are considered. But how may things in Edinburgh have been if

they had had a mayor leading the city through tram problems and

would Aberdeen have got its bypass years ago and would a mayor there

have had a few on the Union Street Gardens development. George

Galloway is elected. George Galloway, once of this parish and

rejected by voters in Glasgow at the Holyrood elections, won't a by-

election in Bradford west two week ago and argued that much of his

success was due to a disconnect between modern politics and the

public. There is a paradigm shift that the Tweedling Dee, Tweedle

dumb and a half, if a backside could have three cliques, they're

sitting in the louse of commons. -- three chex., they're -- cheeks,

they're sitting in the house of commons. They all sands stand for

the same things. So would mayor here mean more tweedsle Dee and

Tweedle dumb, 0 would a system help reinforce local accountability and

reengage the public in local government? I'm joined from

Edinburgh by the Scotsman columnist Joyce McMillan and from London by

Professor Tony Travers of the LSE, one of the architects of the

original plan to create the office of Mayor of London. You're slightly

convince rd you by the case of having mayors here? Not really. If

you look at the issues arising around local government which were

mentioned in the report there, issues to do with the inability of

local government now to raise most of the money it spends, it is look

of autonomy and Tex tent of which it is an agency of central

government, I don't see thousand direct election of a mayor helps.

Its almost as if we're saying the politics of local Government has

died and the only way to get people interested is to turn it into a

celebrity contest. I think that is a patronising way to treat the

electorate. I don't think it improves accountability. It would

wouldn't necessarily be a celebrity competition? Yes the point is

people will be more interested allegedly if there is a face off

between two or three individuals, rather than an actual discussion

around policy and choices made in individual wards and then a mayoral

provost elected by the council. The allegation is that people are not

too dim to get vested in the -- interested in the issues and you

have to have partyys represented by strong and recognisable figures to

get people interested. I do think it is patronising and doesn't

address the problems in the least. Bring us up to date on what is

happening in England. We have the Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone

show. And other cities to elect mayors for the fist time and some

to have refr dumbs on whether to do it. Liverpool has decided to go for

a mayor. That is the first big city. We have other smaller cities,

Leicester in particular, that have gone for elected mayors. Liverpool

will vote about their mayor for the first time. On the same day there

is a referendum in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Brits toll,

Sheffield and other cities and the polls suggest that Birmingham

probably Leeds, possibly Sheffield and conceivably Bristol at least

will decide to go for mayors. Thus creating a galaxy of them in

England, rather than just one big one in London and a medium size one

in Leicester. What is your view of the experience there so far. Do you

think it has, as Joyce McMillan suggested, just become celebrities

substituting for politics, or has it got people more engaged in the

process? The London contest may not be absolutely representative. The

Ken versus Boris show is pretty celebrity-driven. But actually in

other places, it has not been like that. It probably won't be like

that in Liverpool. In Birmingham, assuming they do vote to have the a

mayor, there is evidence that MP will want to leave Parliament such

as Liam Byrne, serious MPs, who would like to join the fray,

perhaps to become mayor in Birmingham. I do agree with skrois

in the sense that -- joiz in the sense that we want more power for

local government. What seev seen in London is the office of mayor pulls

power from central government in London and in this is case, but

does create pressure to draw power down from the centre and I think it

probably would help in delivering more power at the local level.

do you think of that? Isn't there an rgment to say that having a

figurehead would increase the profile of cities like Aberdeen or

Dundee? The thing is we do have figureheads. Either this is about

getting celebrities into politics, because they fancy the job and so

it is about celebrity culture. Or it is about politics. In which case,

what is wrong the current system. You know there have been tremendous

civic leaders elected. The most famous mayor in the history of the

UK, Joseph Chamberlain were not directsly elected. He was elected

by councillors. There was a time when that system could produce

really major leaders and before we do this move, before we stick this

stick plaster on a our local democracy I would like to see more

analysis of why that is not happening now. Why don't we have

civic leaders of that statedure emerging through the system of

elections. And choice by the council. And I don't think it is

because there is no direct elections. I think its is because

there is not enough power there and the similar is wrong. There would

be situations sometimes where maybe a good or effective directly

elected mayor could bully the Government into devolving more

power and where that workers well and goods. But it is a desperate

last throw and not based on a real and si of what has gone wrong with

Let's forget London, because London is like New York, whoever becomes

the mayor of London is going to become a very powerful political

figure, given the size of London relative to the rest of the UK. But

outside of London, doesn't she have a point? You couldn't get a bus

ticket between us on our views about Britain losing power over

time, but I think the way that politics has had to adapt to the

media age that we are in, and I take the point about celebrities,

but having a visible figurehead is an element in getting your city

really noticed, and I think there is a challenge here for cities in

Britain that perhaps do not choose to have a mayor. Let's say

Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, possibly liveable decide not to

have a net, they... Then Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen might get a bit

nervous. The mayor of partner Paul -- Hartlepool S C was a mass got at

Hartlepool FC. He has been re- elected twice. He precisely makes

the point. When mares were new --, when Stuart Drummond was first

elected, it was seen as a bit of a joke, but he has been re-elected

twice, I think, and is seen as a serious mayor, and in Middlesbrough,

Watford and other places in England and some London boroughs, it has

worked perfectly well, and hasn't led to the sky at forming a --

falling in. I am curious. You talk about the diminution in terms of

the local authorities, but there has not been much popular reaction

to that. You complain about it, but the population at large do not

particularly seen to beat up an -- up in arms about it. No. I think

there is something quite broken about the system. If you ask people

in principle whether they want local power, then getting them

anything interested could -- getting anyone interested in

anything bigger -- smaller than a national election is difficult,

because they see it as something that happens in the media rather

than on their street. It is very profound. It is about the reduction

of politics to a gladiatorial spectator sport, or show business.

Rather than something that actually reflects everyone's day-to-day life

on the street. I am not 100 % sure about having direct leak elected

mayors. They are individual circumstances where it can work,

and maybe Hartlepool is one of those examples. But it does not get

to the systemic point. Even in London, it is not clear that having

a mayor has had led to a revival of municipal politics we had in the

1920s and 1930s? No, and she is right that the local authorities

have been diminished. But the turnout in the last mayoral

election was 45 %, quite high by any local election standard. And

there was a damp -- there wasn't an opinion poll -- there was an

opinion poll suggesting that most Londoners like the idea of an

elected mayor. That is pretty successful. Thank you both very

much. Edinburgh's International Science Festival is moving into its

final weekend, but before it ends, there is going to beat and we

creation of an event that happened at 150 years ago. A colour

photograph was created. He is the link between Newton and Einstein,

Genius is an over-used word, but not in the case of James Clerk

Maxwell. The ranks among the three greatest physicist of all time.

Einstein famously said that he did not stand on Newton's shoulders but

Clark Maxwell's shoulders. shifted the focus from Newton's

classical universe to the theories of relativity. Almost in passing,

he created the first colour Here is Maxwell -- here is how he

set out to do it. He tickets Ruth three coloured filters. Each was

black-and-white but each was different. He predicted each image

through the... This week at the Edinburgh Science Festival, he will

be creating -- they will be created and the photograph again. We now

see the parts of the ribbon generated in red light. If we do

the same thing of the green image, we now see the combination of red

and green, which you can see some yellow in there. In other places,

we still see red or green. Finally, if we now remove the blue filter

shade, we see the ribbon as it was, roughly speaking, how I was

protected by Max role and Sutton. You can see red, green and blue

there. That is how all, as Maxwell It was to deliver -- illustrate,

technology, something that had not been worked with before. This was

Maxwell showing how people saw the world. 151 years later, it is more

relevant than ever. What is the relevance to the 21st century? The

picture you are looking at now is broken down into the three colours,

red, green and blue, which is what Maxwell first used. That is at the

beginning. Maxwell's genius was expressed in four elegant equations.

It showed that directors T, light and make his is an were essentially

the same stuff. The speed of light was a cosmic speed limit. From that

came the modern world. His work underpins all of modern

communications, electronics and technology. Every display the you

look at every single day, every tablet, smart phone and PC. Yet,

what most people have heard of Max -- Newton and Einstein, Maxwell

does not have the same level of recognition. When Einstein came to

Glasgow, they wanted to link him in the addressed to Lord Kelvin, and

he said, no thank you. I want to relate to Clerk Maxwell, because of

the special theory of relativity. He also did a lot of work in

statistical mechanics, and that brought probability and uncertainty

into the world, the certain world of Newtonian dynamics. Maxwell was

really the father, the progenitor In preparing to recreate the first

public showing of a colour photo, Peter Reid has uncovered to facts.

It was not made of tartan, and it was taken upside-down. But

Let's have a look at the front Let's have a look at the front

pages. �4 billion back whole leaves a gaping pensions deficit. Ian

Botham campaigns to raise funds for leukaemia with Neil Lennon. Daily

Mail, fury as NHS is forced to go pulled from bus campaign after

A chilly weekend coming up, but there will be some son tried to

compensate. It will be mostly across the southern half of the UK.

There will be some heavy and thundery showers coming. I would

not rule out a thunderstorm. 13 or 14 been the best of the sunshine.

More showers and today -- than today. We have had a lot of

sunshine, but that may not be the case in the afternoon. A light

breeze across the southern half of the UK, with a strong breeze

further north, and a chilly one too. Temperatures could be back down to

8-ten degrees. In Scotland, it could be cold enough for the

showers to fall as snow. It gets ever Calder through the weekend.

Temperatures struggling to get out of single figures. Showers across

the North will fall as wintry rain. Possibly snow. Some sunshine across

many areas on Saturday. It will not help the temperatures. Cold with a