22/08/2012 Newsnight Scotland

away with it as a result. Thank you Tonight on Newsnight Scotland:

Democracy Aberdeen style. Aberdeen City Council vote to stop

a garden project despite the fact the people of the city approved it

in a referendum. What's the point of these supposed exercises in

democracy if politicians just ignore them?

And I'll be asking the man who's come up with an alternative to Alex

Salmond's referendum question quite what the point of this exercise was.

Good evening. They're the plans that divided a city and involved a

donation of �50 million from one of Scotland's richest men. Today the

long-running debate behind the transformation of Aberdeen's Union

Terrace Gardens took another - seemingly terminal - twist.

Councillors overturned the decision of a referendum and effectively

killed off the �140 million City # Did you go to Aberdeen?

# Tell me what you found # To some, it's the green heart of

the granite city, deserving protection. To others it's

neglected and underused in need of transformation.

Sir Ian Wood, the Aberdeen oil and gas multi-multi-millionaire had a

vision. This will not go ahead unless they want this to happen.

Frankly, it's a project of someone who was born and brought up in

Aberdeen. Sir Ian wanted the gardens raised to street level. He

pledged �50 million of his own money. This design, the Granite Web,

won an international competition judged by a jury including Sir Ian.

It wasn't, as it later emerged, the public's favourite. To be allowed

to raise the rest of the �140 million project cost through a

special loan known as tax incremental financing, the Scottish

Government demanded a show of public support.

A referendum was held. Sir Ian paid for most of it. Labour councilors

were against the referendum and the project, saying the figures didn't

add up. Sir Ian pledged to abide by the result. The debate was

sometimes very heated. It's a proud park in a great city.

Do not destroy it. APPLAUSE

The percentage poll was 52%. Granite Web design won the day with

Aberdeen's residents and a business case was prepared to submit to

Ministers, but then something happened. Labour unexpectedly ended

up with most councilors on the city council after May's local elections.

They campaigned to scrap the City Garden Project. Members of the

council, Lord Provost. And so today they did - at the same time

thinking Sir Ian Wood very much for his generous offer. We've made a

difficult decision, as I say. I think that everybody - I described

earlier the gesture from Sir Ian Wood as the most gracious in my

lifetime, but we have to make some difficult decisions for the city. I

mean, I think there will be a rebuilding process in relationships.

I think it sends out a horrendous signal to the north-east that we've

no courage here. We've no vision. There is no leadership in the

council. We've spent the last seven or eight years developing long-term

plans for this region, but at the point of getting a lot of these

things off the ground, today's decision, in my mind, sets us back

ten, 15 years. Sir Ian withdrew his �50 million immediately, while

saying he was dismayed and disappointed. He added that the

opinions of citizens in Aberdeen Well, live in Aberdeen at the

council headquarters, we have the present Labour leader of the

council, Barney Crockett, who you saw in the film there, and the

former leader of the city council, the SNP's Callum McCaig. Barney

Crockett, what's the point of having a referendum if you then

completely ignore the results? I think, you know, your report

mentioned that the Labour Party were very much opposed to a

referendum as a way of deciding a non-constitutional issue. I think

it's very important that councillors have to be seen to take

the responsibility because, you know, the buck eventually stops

with the council, the council, and through them eventually the

taxpayers have to take the bill at the end, and I think that

councillors have to stand up and be counted. Right. So your message to

the voters of Aberdeen is, we don't give a hoot what you think? No, not

at all. I think that you know, the election - we always said the

elections that should count in a democracy are the elections for the

city council and, you know, we've stuck by that. We have stuck by

what we put to the people. I think going back - you know, the

referendum - I think local democracy is under attack on many

fronts, and I think that you know, the cities in Scotland will be very

important to its economic future, and they have to... The local

democracy, surely, is under attack above all by you when you have

completely ignored the result of a perfectly well-conducted referendum

on precisely this issue. Well, I think the referendum was well

conducted technically, but there was an enormous disparity in the

money that could be spent on advertising, and, you know, the

person who administered the election did compare it to the

super-park-style elections in America where gigantic spending on

advertising can influence the outcomes. Callum McCaig, what do

you make of this? What do you make of this? I think it's - I think the

results day is a sad day for Aberdeen. It's a sad day

economically for the city and democratically. It would be said

that there was no legally binding - my friends and I settled this

divisive issue by asking the public - said we'd be bound by the outcome

of the referendum. I think it's a moral question and about judgments

about democracy. So you think they're wrong to ignore the result

of the referendum? You think they're wrong to ignore the result?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's a very difficult but dangerous

precedent to the public of Aberdeen that we, as elected representatives,

are going to completely ignore your wishes. Labour campaigned in the

referendum as a campaign group - a registered campaign group, so they

legitimised the referendum by taking part in it, and now they

have overturned it today, and I think that is a sad day for the

city. Of course, when you were running the council along with the

Liberal Democrats, you had a public consultation on the proposed garden

site, and you chose to completely ignore the results of your own

consultation. That was one interpretation of events. I think

the simple fact is that the two are completely incompatible. The

referendum asked everyone in Aberdeen purely and simply if they

wanted this to happen. Only Aberdeen residents took part. The

consultation was open to anyone across the world to take part.

LAUGHTER People took part more than once, so

I don't... So we had the Scottish National Party, which ignored the

result of a consultation it set up, accusing the Labour Party of being

undemocratic for ignoring the result of a referendum?

Um, I think the issue today is about the referendum. The citizens

of Aberdeen will see it that they had their vote that they voted in

favour, and the Labour Party said, thank you very much for your

opinion, but we're ignoring them altogether, and we will press ahead

because we know better. I think the important thing about the... What

would you say... Sorry. What would you say to the people who voted -

what would you say to the people who voted in good faith in the

referendum and expected the result to be honoured? Well, I think that

the outcome of the referendum just showed how polarised the city had

become, where it was almost 50/50 - I think 52/48. I think that has

been the most unfortunate thing about this particular projet, that

it's created a level of division in this city that has been unknown for

decades. I think certainly for lake, we're determined to overcome that

division and try and do our best to try and find common ground, and I

think today was as near to a compromise position as could be

reached, and I think the positive side to say about this city is the

economy is particularly strong. We can have a lot of confidence in

that, and I think we can do great things to take this forward. As you

know, Barney Crockett, referendums are something of a topical issue at

the moment. So your advice to your own colleagues would presumably be

that if Labour - if the SNP should win an independence referendum,

Labour should stand in the next Scottish elections saying they're

not in favour of independence, and even if they're a minority

government or part of a coalition, simply scrap the plans? No, I think

the critical thing is that referendums in the UK have only

ever been used for constitutional issues, and that's their rightful

role. If there is a division about the constitutional way forward,

then referendums can be used to make a decisive decision. But in

things that are not constitutional, then the accountability lies with

the level of government that's responsible, and for us in this

particular case, local government responsible. Councilors have to

take the responsibility, and a referendum is a very inappropriate

way. That being said, obviously the referendum did throw up some

problems that might affect other referendums, even constitutional

ones in the future. And Callum McCaig, your advice to Alex Salmond

would presumably be not to make too much fuss about his consultation on

the independence referendum because SNP policy is to ignore public

politicians unless they give - ignore public consultations unless

A think the SNP policy is that we will respect the will of the people

when they are asked a straightforward question. I think

it is interesting that democracy might be fine for Scotland but not

for Aberdeen. I think it would be nice if standards were applied

evenly across the country and I think Aberdonians will field that

they have been let down by this administration who have basically

ignored their views. There's a strong element of Pops and kettles.

If it had gone your way you would have hailed it as a triumph of

democracy! Had the referendum gone against my stated position which

was in favour of this I would have respected that. I believe in

democracy and think it is important that when you ask people you stand

by their answer. The people have spoken unspoken very clearly. I

think appropriately when you have such a divisive issue and that was

the reason for suggesting a referendum. It was not really

something that councillors could decide with any real mandate from

the people. Why not ask the people and see what they have to say. They

said yes. Hang on! Either of you can answer this. Whichever one of

you wants to. What would you say to people in Aberdeen who look at your

performance tonight and say good grief! Is this the best this city

can come up with? I think what we have to do his work together as far

as we can. There is a rebuild in our relationship to be done. An

awful lot of people will be very pleased indeed. We can work

together and I think, you mention Scottish government, I think that

we can approach Scottish government and have a much more progressive

way forward in rebuilding of the relationships that we need to deal

and show what Aberdeen can do. Calum McCague, would you like to

try and answer the question? think it is a difficult position. I

do not think politicians can stand here and say one way or another we

public, you have got to put faith in the public. We gave them the

opportunity to have their say on this matter, we heard their views

on which is kind of them. This has discredited politicians everywhere.

Thank you both very much. The pro Unionist parties have come

up with their own recommendation for the question they were like to

see on the independence referendum ballot paper. The panel of experts

task with his projects say it is clearer and more decisive than the

Scottish government suggested one. In a moment I will be talking to

the Chair of the panel, but first here is Raymond Buchanan. What is

in a question? Plenty. Especially if you are deciding the future

direction of a country or a nation or even a state. We know what Alex

Salmond wants to ask voters in the autumn of 2014. It is short and

clear. Let me read it to this chamber. The question is, do you

agree that Scotland should be an independent country? The politics

around the question are straightforward. The pro-union

Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats rejected Mr Salmond's

preferred wording. Instead, they cast a panel with coming up with an

alternative question. Today, they replied with the statement. They

say at the ballot should stay Scotland should become an

independent state. Then invite voters did take I agree or I do not

agree. We came to the conclusion that the shorter at the wording

possible would lead to clear understanding by the voter as to

what the objective was. Not what the arguments were and what all the

pros and cons were, but what the objective was. The objective was

that Scotland should be an independent country or in

independent state. The Scottish government did not exactly dismiss

the findings but they were keen to point out the potential

difficulties this creates the those opposed to independence. A

spokesman said a key point is that the panel's conclusions differ

fundamentally from the newspapers expressed by all three opposition

parties, significantly there is no reference to the United Kingdom in

his proposed question, like the poll commissioned by the anti-

independence campaign as recently as the May. It is in stark contrast

to the statements of all the opposition parties. In January,

Alex Salmond was pretty clear. His preferred words would be on the

ballot. Were ever else happens, but question will be on the ballot

paper. That seems clear, which means the pro-union parties panel

of experts may well have wasted their time. I am joined from our

Edinburgh studio by the Chair of the panel lord Sutherland. What is

wrong with this suggest a question from Alex Salmond? Where we started

from was the question of why the various political parties seem

unable to disagree. That is because somehow each of them thinks that a

particular form of words will favour their view. We are in

independent panel so we went back to first principles and asked

ourselves on first principles, clear, understandable, decisive,

fair and seen to be what is the best question we can come up with?

We looked at international experience on this, there have been

70 are 80 referendums Around the World in the last 40 years and we

looked we could learn from that. You clearly considered that yours

is better than theirs? We went back to first principles. What other

flaws in his one? What I want to say is precisely this. If there is

an argument going on between political parties so they do not

agree what the question is, then that is a distraction from the main

issues which is probably the biggest constitutional question to

face Scotland for 300 years. What kind of state will we be if we are

independent? We came up with what we believe is a genuinely

independent question without bias that can be used as a basis for

going ahead. Fine, but you are being coy about this. I am not

trying to leave you at all! Your commission by three parties that

are opposed to Alex Salmond to make the study so you cannot stand back

and say we do not want to get involved! We were not commission to

come up with a political solution that favoured one group or the

other. We were commissioned... seems a coincidence that the leader

of one of the parties the committee due to do this study no sooner had

you announce your results than they all wrote a letter to Alex Salmond

demanding that that should be the question on a referendum paper.

They followed procedure that they had laid down. The centre would ask

an independent panel to come up with a question and we will accept

their advice. They have accepted it and passed it on to Alex Salmond. I

am sure that Alex Salmond is a man who wants to hear opinions other

than his own, not least from an independent panel, and they have

indicated that they will probably look at this and that is the right

direction. Do you expect of the proposal to be taken up? By hope so.

It is a good proposal but there may be others that can achieve all of

these criteria, but what I want to see is that any proposal that is

finally put forward to the electoral commission meets the

criteria that I think we have general agreement that are

appropriate. Am I right in thinking that most of the evidence seems to

be what question you ask in a referendum does not make much

difference to the outcome? Be it is interesting that there has been a

great fuss about individual words. The international evidence is that

there is little firm conclusion you can draw from the wording.

Sometimes in Leeds in one direction and sometimes another but it is

statistically, not uniformly so, it is not that the words or

unimportant, it makes it all more important that the words need

sensible, commonsense criteria. I do not think anyone has taken

exception to any of that. Did you test your question with focus

groups for example to try and assess whether it was considered to

be a more neutral question than Alex Salmond's. We knew that if a

question gets anywhere it will be afforded to the electoral

commission who are paid by the state and have a constitutional

responsibility to do exactly that. They will do it more thoroughly

than a small panel like ours could do. I am not quite sure how that

will work. As I understand it, the electoral commission is obliged to

road-test questions by a government. The Scottish government is probably

not going to put your question to them and there is no suggestion

that the British government will suggest a question of its own. I am

not sure where that leaves you. perhaps know the Government's

better than me. We are contributing to a debate which is a preliminary

debate. A debate about words of a referendum. We have got to get this

out of the way. At the moment there is an M Paz and that is what we

hope to contribute to breaking. Maybe it will be a different

question, who knows, but let the discussion be over and done with so

that the big issues are become the centre. A I am curious. Would you

like the electoral commission to take up your idea and try it out?

Yes. A do get round the problem that there is no obligation for

them to do that? What I like and in what I have discovered does not

necessarily turn out to be the case, but that is no less reason for

liking it and actually putting the argument forward for it. Thank you.

It a quick look at tomorrow's front pages. A Scotsman, at 14 experts

say just one question. We had just heard that. There is a picture of

Prince Harry. In the Herald, extra financial support for all Scottish

students. In the Scottish Daily Mail, another picture of Prince

Harry. Palace fury at the naked for us. The Guardian has says class