Mike Mackenzie – passionate, full of ideas – finds it hard to stay in his chair as he talks. Face and body in perpetual motion, driven by intellectual energy, at one point he almost leaps into the air as if to catch the butterfly of a passing notion.
The SNP candidate for Argyll & Bute, Mackenzie is a builder by trade, with his own business and a set of perspectives and values drawn from many points on the political spectrum and harnessed to his informing nationalism.
He deliberately draws the lowest salary in his own company – an admirable sado-masochistic egalitarianism.
He clearly doesn’t believe in big government: ‘Working in community development gave me the perception that many of the arms and agencies of Government that purported to help communities were in fact not part of the solution. They were the problem. Politics seemed to me – and still seems to me, the only route to change this culture and to realign our public agencies so that they become genuine facilitators of the aspirations of the individuals and of the communities they serve’.
And he majors on individual responsibility: ‘As a builder and a businessman I only ever get paid for results. When I have made mistakes I have always paid for them. The buck always stops with me. You can never rest on your laurels and this discipline eventually becomes a way of life’.
Then he thinks: ‘we have lessons to learn from our friends in England’ – a long way from stereotypical SNP attitudes. This relates to his experience when he took a team of builders to work on a project in London. ‘Initially, although I knew we were all good at our respective jobs, I had a bit of trepidation because I thought that London would be well ahead of Scotland in terms of building practice. I found the reverse to be the case. Working there for the first time I gained an understanding of why London was prosperous and that a lot of that was about a ‘can do culture’ and a more sensible and efficient system of regulation than we have in Scotland’.
Here is no rabid, blinkered nationalist. Here is someone whose unequivocal support for Scottish independence is born of a marriage of practicality, the cast of inherited family sensibilities and a sense of identity born from intensive reading on Scottish history.
Of his political affiliation he says: ‘I joined the SNP around twelve years ago because I became increasingly aware that Scotland was not being well governed or managed. It is easy to understand why – with Westminster so far away and with the UK Parties’ representatives in Scotland always looking over their shoulders to London for instructions’.
There was a time when: ‘I was in my early twenties and discovered that I knew nothing about Scottish History. I read avidly to fill in this blank area and in doing so also recalled a lot of childhood memories or stories told by parents, grandparents and relatives. This awakened a sense of identity, of Scottishness and a growing sense that our country had not been well managed on behalf of the people by the faraway Government in London’.
Then: ‘Growing up in Scotland I think we all absorb part of our culture at a subliminal level and perhaps also the attitudes of older family members. My family were not actively nationalist but always had sympathies in this direction’.
His parents left Argyll when Mackenzie was one and a half years old. He chose to come back, ‘determined to do my bit to help bring prosperity to my own country’.
Thirty years ago, although he could have stayed in Glasgow, he and his wife went to live in Easdale, one of the slate islands off Argyll’s mainland west coast. It wasn’t then the energetic, serendipitous and development-minded community it is today. It was genuinely remote and thinly populated.
The Mackenzies’ only concern about this relocation was any potential drawback to the education of their two children. This was a false anxiety. Their son is now a doctor practising and doing voluntary work in Africa. Their daughter, with a double first class honours degree under her belt, is now completing her Ph D at York University and working in academic publishing in Glasgow.
His family understand and support Mike Mackenzie’s political life, which took its current direction at the end of 2007.
Back then, the possibility of British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, calling a general election in October or November was being energetically talked up by Douglas Alexander et al. Opposition parties started to mobilise and Mackenzie was selected as the SNP’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Argyll and Bute. Then Brown bottled out and blamed Alexander for the embarrassment of his very public retreat.
Mackenzie, however, was by then – literally – on the road around the constituency and he hasn’t stopped since. He says this gave him: ‘a wonderful opportunity of travelling extensively throughout the region, meeting thousands of people and really getting to know the issues throughout the constituency. This has been a fascinating experience and I now feel well prepared to represent the people of Argyll and Bute in the Westminster Parliament’.
His views on the system in which he would serve are trenchant. He says: ‘Like all empires, the British one has faded and the British State has failed to evolve. The hangover of the glory days and grandeur of empire has left a mindset that is resistant to change’. Hard to argue with that one, whatever your politics.
He lays the same charge of ‘failure to evolve’ against the House of Commons, saying: ‘Tradition is a fine thing but its retention can become quite absurd when we have a Parliament that is hamstrung by archaic practices and procedures. Again this shows a mindset that is wedded to the past and suffers from tunnel vision, fear of change and resistance to the opportunities of the future’.
In terms of the performance of the successive Labour administrations at Westminster, he says ‘… the most disappointing thing is that the gap between rich and poor in this country has widened considerably throughout their period of office. This is not only about their departure from core values but there is a considerable body of evidence that more equal societies perform much better across the whole range of indicators’.
A passionate advocate of a responsible attitude to the environment, Mackenzie is opposed to the continuation of Trident, committed to renewable energies and to measures and actions, which slow climate change.
He is no predictable green, though. A truth-sayer and perhaps sometimes a soothsayer, he asks how on earth the authorities have lost the climate change campaign – as evidenced by the widespread lack of individual lifestyle changes? As he says, it’s not that there hasn’t been enough media attention.
Ecologically committed as he is, he is neither blind to nor silent on what he sees as misdirections. One such has been the authoritarian campaign to replace the traditional incandescent light bulbs with long-life light bulbs. Public resistance to these has been born not only on cost grounds but because the quality of light they emit is thinner and colder; and because – as with their use in exterior security sensor lights, they are dangerous in the lag time before they brighten.
Mackenzie is opposed to these bulbs – they contain chemicals that are environmentally harming in disposal – and to the UK Government’s forcing of them upon the public by the removal from sale of incandescent bulbs.
He also sees the unreliability of ground source heat pumps and the cost of solar panels – which leads to very long payback periods in annual savings – as factors that quite reasonably turn the public off making a change from traditional power sources.
His general thesis is that we’ve tried to do too much too soon, offering untried and unstable new technologies whose costs and frequent failures have been damaging to the necessary change of habits in energy generation and consumption.
He also feels that the authorities too often use what he calls ‘bad science’ in their efforts to convince the public on this and other matters. By ‘bad science’ he means poorly evidenced and subjective argument. His view is that the intelligence of the public must be trusted and that they have the right to be given the facts and an objective assessment of a situation. This enables people to make up their own minds on an issue rather than being made passive receptors of what is often little more than skewed assurances on decisions already taken.
In these terms he respected former Labour First Minister Jack McConnell’s objectivity is saying that Scotland could economically stand alone while, in his view, unionism was the better route. He is also sympathetic to McConnell over his treatment by Gordon Brown, who forced a retreat from McConnell’s more reasoned argument.
On the subject of Argyll, his eyes are open to the scale of what has to be done here. While the engine of this has to be a move towards the ‘can do’ and the ambitious and away from the humble towards an assertiveness rooted in the wealth of resources in Argyll, there are Munros to be scaled.
Mackenzie instances the fact that Argyll’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a whacking 25% lower than the Scottish average, itself below that of the UK. The UK’s GDP is running at 2.3 while Scotland’s is at 1.8, almost 22% lower. The SNP aim is to equalise Scotland’s GDP with that of the UK – but in Argyll there is a real case for massive economic regeneration, given how far astray we already are from the Scottish norm.
Then to the question of Argyll’s roads. Here too is an honest account of the position. Thirty years ago Argyll’s roads were the best in Scotland. Now they are the worst. It has been established that it will now require £150 million to bring Argyll’s roads – and this excludes the trunk roads – up to standard, with a further £12 million per annum needed for annual maintenance to keep them that way.
This is the level of dereliction of duty at all levels of Government which has brought Argyll’s transport infrastructure to so low a point. When we mention a lack of confidence that the current Scottish Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson, is likely to make much of a difference on this, Mackenzie launches a loyal defence whose failure to convince bears no relation to the energy of his efforts.
The issue of devolved borrowing powers for Scotland may be germane here and Mackenzie points to the indefensible illogicality of Local Authorities having borrowing powers while the Scottish Government does not.
In general, Mackenzie’s view of Argyll and Bute is that is has been through a period of what he calls ‘badly managed decline’. His two years of exposure to the breadth of Argyll and its issues has now put him in a position where he feels confident in speaking about the picture he has come to see. He says, with an evident set of his jaw, that he will be speaking out more from now on – and that, if he is not successful in his attempt to take the Argyll & Bute Westminster seat, he will not be going away.
On being at Westminster, he bases the intended pattern of the life he will lead there on the fact that the SNP, as a point of principle, does not vote on issues relating to England. This means that formal business in the House of Commons will occupy less of his time, leaving him able to commute to Easdale where his wife will remain.
To make this lifestyle possible – and to support the sort of entrepreneurial development that is imperative for Argyll and the Highlands and Islands, he says that Scotland must have a minimum of 80 mbps broadband speed. Without a competitively capable communications infrastructure, he sees Scotland as condemned to decline. And so say all of us.
Should his general election campaign be a successful one, he sees the emergence of a very strong team for the development of Argyll in the bringing together of himself and his SNP colleague Jim Mather, MSP for Argyll & Bute and Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism.
Both have come to politics from successful careers in business, giving them insights and skills in the areas where Argyll must grow. Mackenzie sees great strength in Mather’s emergence from the high end of the business world alongside his own background in the small business environment. He has huge respect for Mather’s non-confrontational and inclusive approach, methodically gathering and listening to people in all sectors of Argyll’s economic spectrum. This is clearly an operational model Mackenzie intends to replicate.
Asked what role he intends to play at Westminster, he says that he will serve in any role required of him but that his overarching intent is to serve Argyll & Bute.
So what makes him laugh? He says: ‘I am sometimes criticized for being too serious. This is probably a side effect of leading a very busy life but I enjoy comedy in most of its forms and comedians from John Cleese to Ali G’. This makes sense when he goes on to say that he has no time for television. Good as they were – are – these programmes have grown a bit of a beard.
His greatest ease comes from his pleasure in his place – Easdale. As a founder member of the island’s community development company, he says: ‘I have been privileged to play a role in the regeneration of this small community’.
His idea of a perfect day is fuelled by the resources of this place in which he has chosen to live: ‘An ideal summer’s day would be to work during the day and go out sailing in the evening, catch a couple of mackerel and cook and eat them there and then as the sun is setting’.
The texture of his interior life is perhaps woven from the lives and achievements of those who inspire him. He talks of: ‘John Kenneth Galbraith – I greatly value his ability to communicate complex ideas in simple language and also to relate these ideas to the real world.
‘I admire Robert Louis Stevenson who produced wonderful literature whilst battling poor health and Walter Scott who laboured at his writing desk until the end of his life to pay off his creditors – and succeeded a week or two after his death.
‘Frank Lloyd Wright inspires me with his architecture as does Frank Gehry and Norman Foster. And I am inspired by Alan Stevenson and the lighthouses he built and by the engineering work of Thomas Telford.
‘I like the poetry of Burns and Robert Frost and the plays of Shakespeare. The list is really too long to catalogue.’
One would have thought that by now, as we talked, Mackenzie would have been spent and more relaxed in his seat. But no. Still the coiled spring, rocketing into ideas and plans for Argyll and for Scotland.
His energy may be kept running at peak by the daily run that has long been his practice but it is formidable and it is focused on driving Argyll forward. Come the election he will discover how many passengers have chosen him to drive the bus.
Mike Mackenzie’s articles in the For Argyll Political Challenge
- Round 1: Mike Mackenzie on Scotland and the UK financial crisis
- Round 2: Mike Mackenzie on The future for energy production in Scotland
- Round 3: Mike Mackenzie on Argyll and the defence establishment
- Round 4: Mike Mackenzie on Developing Argyll’s economy
- Round 5: Mike Mackenzie on Marketing Argyll
- Round 6: Mike Mackenzie on Young people and Argyll
All photographs accompanying this article are by coyright holder, Rebecca Martin and may not be reproduced without permission.
I quite agree with Mr MacKenzie’s views on solar panels and the like. Better by far to ensure that existing homes are properly insulated & that new builds are up to Scandinavian standards.
And all the more reason that the Scottish government has the full kit bag of economic powers to make it happen.
Good luck with your campaign Mike, Argyll needs an MP standing up for Argyll and Scotland.
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solar panels are the latest smokescreen for nationalists to try and hide behind .
the snps reason for being is to smash the united kingdom the most successful partnership in history . talk of solar panels and the like is an attempt to divert the electorates attention from this fact .
fortunately the antics of snp run argyll & bute are helping to highlight what the snp running the show means eg in kintyre 2 recent examples
1. young children 5 years old to 12 years to be denied a school lunch in some of kintyres small rural schools – only the outrage of their parents brought an end to this disgraceful situation
2. campbeltowns most accessible public toilet closed by the snp
clearly what argyll needs are representatives who will fight and expose the snp agenda
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I can just seer the headlines in the Record – “Alex Salmond slams door on Kintyre toilets” or the Daily Mail – “Huge flood of immigrants with loose bowels want to crowd into your toilet because SNP has closed the public ones”
Grow up.
I look forward to a sensible reaction from kintyre1 to anything.
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you may dismiss the concerns of people in kintyre but you will do so at a cost . people here will not vote for a party that treats them with disdain
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80 mbps broadband speed! I dream of such things, after your election Mike I will remind you of this aspiration on a regular basis.
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he couldn’t even get elected to argyll & bute council , he has a cat in hells chance for westminster .snp 4th last election in argyll & bute
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blame the breeetish for everything gerry adams adolf hitler osama bin ladin he’s in good company
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Mike MacKenzie is a primaeval force. He would exhaust if he didn’t constantly enlighten. Whoever interviewed him for this blog has caught the man and the force of him.
Five minutes in his company gives me enough to think of for a week. He is an example of the first man you would hope to meet in a new country.
Why can’t the unionists put up a man or even a commentator worthy of this remarkable native-born and native resident candidate?
Ian Hamilton
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for kintyre1:
Do you really need reminded that Jim Mather won for the SNP in Argyll post the last Westminster election. I also watched the Euro returns at Lochgilphead and the SNP were clear winners by a country mile in Argyll, the Lib Dems are a spent force that have lost their way and the only credible candidate is the SNP’s Mike MacKenzie. The fact he is a good bloke as well is neither here or there. As Alex Salmond said Scotland needs a voice in London and Mike MacKenzie is the man for the job, it’s a no brainer.
The only unanswered question is; can Gary get second place against a very beatable Lib Dem? perhaps not with your help!
I do agree with you, we need to get more local SNP councillors in to Argyll & Bute Council next election they could do with direction and stewardship that kind of stability would provide localy.
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Now I know the answer to Kintyre’s toilet problem –
the election of a clear majority of Councillors for A and B from the SNP!
Then we either get the toilets or everyone can blame them!
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I am not sure which particular postings do more to advance the cause of the Scottish National Party in Argyll & Bute ; the reasoned and rational comments of such political luminiaries as Ian Hamilton and Gerry Fisher or the frankly loony responses of the understandably anonymous Kintyre1.
Surely there must be at least one more rational defender of the Unionist cause than this?
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“He deliberately draws the lowest salary in his own company” To which company does this refer? I understand Mckenzie may have/be involved in more than one, and perhaps dividends aren’t included in this quote either.
I would also like to know where “the daily run that has long been his practice” takes place. No-one living around Easdale seems to have spotted him yet and it’s such a small place, surely he couldn’t be missed.
Maybe it’s all just SNP wishful thinking!
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the daily run will be good practise for his next trip to bute given the decision of snp mep alyn smith to vote against an emergency aid package for scotlands struggling dairy farmers
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Kintyre1,
Heard of a Running Machine? Maybe you should get on one and give the Typing Machine a break.
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Or perhaps you should simpy get on your cycling machine (bike)
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Is below the vote you are referring to?
As you will note there is already a helpful scheme due to come into force soon which was no less helpful than what was voted on last week, the main difference being that these latest vote proposals increase the power of the Commission rather more than they help dairy farmers.
“The Parliament backed European Commission proposals to include milk and dairy products in the ‘Common Market Organisation’ thereby giving hugely increased power to the European Commission to intervene in the milk market, as a condition for an additional 280million euro to be returned to member state governments ostensibly to assist milk producers through the current downturn, though without any guarantees this will actually be the purpose. The Commission proposal also now replaces the previously agreed Milk Fund, which was in any case due to come into force in January, was designed to directly assist producers and did not involve giving any power to the Commission.
Smith, and the Green European Free Alliance Group, voted against the proposals on the grounds that the European Commission has in fact created the crisis by a combination of misguided or tardy action and inaction in the face of clear data the sector is in crisis. The European Commission is as much to blame for the crisis as anything else and to massively increase its powers in this way is more likely to exacerbate the problems of the sector long term. Similarly, there are no guarantees over what the 280million will actually be used for, with many member states having already said they will use the funds for purposes other than direct aid, and attempts by the group to guarantee that the funds would reach farmers were similarly rejected. The vote is all the more illogical given that with the advent of the Lisbon Treaty the Parliament will gain co-decision powers, and the parliament has already approved a 300million milk fund which will commence in January 2010 but have none of the strings attached the Commission proposal involved.
Smith said:
“This was blackmail of the worst sort from the Commission, and it is a shame that a number of my colleagues happily caved in for the sake of a quick headline.
“Essentially the proposal was ‘give us more power and we’ll free up the cash now, even though it is less than you have already allocated to start in two months time’ and it is regrettable that so many in the Parliament went for the short term headline rather than the long term sustainability of Europe’s dairy sector. As sure as eggs are eggs we’ll see this money put to several other uses than supporting farming, the sector will continue to struggle and the Commission having more powers is no guarantee at all that they will use them sensibly. The member state ministers have not even met yet to decide how they will divvy up their booty.
“There is no doubting that Europe’s dairy farming is in crisis, but ‘we must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this’ is a bad logic which we see all too often in EU politics. Unlike the majority of the Parliament, I’m proud that my group took the longer view and rejected these flawed proposals which I truly fear will do little than generate a cheap headline but not actually fix anything at all.”
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i had already read the above on alyn smiths website . i doubt if angry dairy farmers will be impressed . had mr smith won the vote there would have been no emergency funding this year .
quite what proposals the mep and his group have to fix the crisis remain a mystery .
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Maybe they just enjoy running on the spot?
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If I am reading Alyn Smith correctly the result of this vote that so troubles kintyre1 is for a lower level of emergency payment than would have come through the system anyway without strings, does not carry any guarantee that it will be actually be paid to dairy farmers, and strengthens yet again the position of the Commission.Tony will be pleased.
There is universal agreement that our dairy farmers are getting a horrendous deal in bulk milk prices but the problem that we face in every aspect of EC negotiations is that we are represented by UK ministers who have no understanding or sympathy for the different conditions that govern farming, fishing and, for Copenhagen, Climate Change that operate in Scotland. So we end up getting regulations that act against our best interests.
No doubt kintyre1 thinks that this is the fault of Fiona Hyslop but most of us know better.
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alyn smith snp mep sits on the agriculture committee as a scot elected by scots and he voted to deny scotlands dairy farmers an emergency payment this year .had mr smith won the arguement and vote there would have been no payment this year .
to suggest that the problem faced by these farmers is somehow a constitutional one is completely inaccurate . the problem is that a scottish representative has chosen for his own reasons outlined above to deny scottish farmers the opportunity to get some badly needed cash to pay bills and to help them to diversify .
at their recent conference it was clear for all to see the huge differences that exist within the snp over europe and its a great relief to farmers that scotland has not adopted the euro as many in the snp advocate or scotlands farmers would be thousands of pounds a year worse off
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Read the text!
The parliament has already approved a better deal -Euro300 million to come into effect in January 2010 without the conditional strings that suited the commission. There was no suggestion or danger that payments would be compromised but a better deal was missed through expediency.
I lived for some years in Ayrshire at a time when the fields were full of Ayrshire and Freisian beasts and the creameries were active, productive and profitable. These days are long past but the decline there as in so many other areas is due to the sad and ineffective representation that we have had in the EU where the Scottish voice is always subsumed to the larger and often different British interest.Control in the UK switches from Labour to Tory to Labour and they merge into ineffective clones of each other, posturing about imagined influence in a world that has moved on.
LORD Mandy has stated that he could easily switch and who would doubt it?
Alyn Smith is a member of the Agriculture Committee and is well respected within the farming community in spite of kintyre1′s assertions. In July this year at Ingliston he was awarded an award from The Scottish Farmer magazine for his “outstanding contribution to Scottish Farming”
I attended the Euro debate at the SNP confefence in Inverness a couple of weeks back. Like all the proceedings it was well attended -several sessions saw the 1000 seat auditorium and the 400 seat overspill fully occupied – but the media coverage was predictably poor compared with the attention given to the sparsely attended events at Eastbourne.That debate did not in fact demonstrate significant internal differences although there were some-that is what you have in a democracy. Possibly kintyre1 gets his news from The Scotsman?
I suggest that he should get out more. Travel broadens the mind but, for his own peace of mind, he should avoid situations where he might have to change his Pounds for Euros
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the situation you highlight in ayrshire applies equally well in kintyre , cornwall , the south of england , west wales etc . it is not a scottish problem alone .
for over 10 years now we have had devolved power in scotland and if anything the decisions being reached on dairying in scotland have got more damaging . in part i would say that is down to governments over close relationship with the national farmers union of scotland . there has been more sense spoken by david handley and farmers for action than all the rest put together .
eu decisions are implemented by the scottish government and they are not doing a good job for example farmers could have received the single farm payment in october this year but the scottish government decided to wait till december .
now an mep has voted to deny any help this year – i’d be interested to know what position deputy council leader councillor robert mcintyre from bute takes on this .
finally there can be no doubt that if scotland was using the euro farmers would be considerably worse off this year again as any subsides are converted from euros to pounds in the uk
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Obviously you didn’t read Alyn Smith’s press release – or if you did you didn’t understand it. Hardly surprising.
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i read alyn smiths press release before you put it here .
yesterday first milk , the major milk buyer in argyll & bute announced a price cut to farmers from 1st november of 0.65 pence per litre . for an average herd size that is £6500 pounds in a full year .
the situation is desperate for many and some will be out of business by next year .
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Which has nothing whatever to do with what Alyn Smith’s press release says nor did the way he voted have anything whatever to do with the cut in milk prices.
What point is it you are trying to make – because you’re not making it.
I repeat if you read Alyn Smith’s press release you are either wilfully misrepresenting it or you didn’t understand it .
My money is on the second.
I don’t know what you think you are achieving here but as far as I can see you are starting to seriously irritate a community of poster here who would like to enjoy sensible and informed debate
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it appears the only debate you are interested in having is with like minded nationalists .
if you find me irritating then that is too bad .
i don’t know how mike mckenzie can expect votes from people who have just had their interests damaged by one of his party’s representatives (alyn smith).
if he spoke out against what the mep has done he might have a chance otherwise the antics of argyll & butes snp run council and this mep will have done for his election chances before the campaign gets off the ground
i cant imagine winnie ewing voting against the interests of some of her constituents in this way
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More evidence that you didn’t read or don’t understand Alyn Smith’s press release.
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