A month ago Martin Ford was a fairly anonymous, quietly efficient and widely respected chair of the Infrastructures Planning Committee at Aberdeenshire Council. Today he was sacked from his job as chair of that committee by a vote that included a very large number of abstentions. Sacked – not for bringing the Council into disrepute by immoral, dishonest or otherwise disreputable behaviour, but because he acted within agreed and established Council standing orders and used his casting vote.

The problem is, he used it according to his conscience, and his conviction of what was right for the local authority he was elected to represent. He dared to not support a £1 billion pound development on the Aberdeenshire coast. He felt unable to approve a multi-million plan that would, in his view be detrimental to the area. He had the courage / stupidity / wisdom / folly (delete as you think applicable) to defy corporate America. But whether his judgement was right or wrong,(opinions vary wildly) whether he drives a car or not (and he doesn’t), whether he approves airport expansion or not ( he doesn’t), whether he represents business interests and aspirations ( and he clearly doesn’t), he was duly appointed after being locally elected. And now he has been removed in a charade that renders local democratic expression irrelevant. So he is removed; the constitution is to be changed to ensure that, in the opinions of the chief movers, such a ridiculous, unthinkable, outrageously blinkered decision cannot be made again by ensuring that in future the big applications go to the full Council.

Now I can see why people are angry with Mr Ford. I think the Council are entitled to change the constitution. I fully understand how it can be that opinion is deeply divided between business interests (almost unanimously for) and environmental and local concerns (almost unanimously against). But I see no justification for sacking a man who has done nothing wrong; who has not acted irresponsibly (after all his was a casting vote out of 13 – so six others shared whatever hesitations lead folk to vote against such a massive development opportunity. And several of them have spoken of bullying, assault and other personal threats.

But the Trump organisation now feel they are making good progress. Maybe so. But there is a political shabbiness, a moral distaste, an unpleasant odour caused by anxious sweating over filthy lucre, when concerted actions  remove an honourable man from an appointed position, because he acted according to conscience, within the proper procedures and processes, and as a duly elected local government official. I sometimes wonder what it would take for a Scottish Government, of whatever party, but especially one espousing independence(small ‘i’ deliberate) to take seriously the personal and practical cost of believing its own rhetoric. The chair of a local council ‘stood against them’…, ‘and sent them homewards, tae think again’, and his colleagues sacked him. The Scottish nation shaped ‘the democratic intellect’, contributed hugely to the development of a political process where equality, justice and respect were rooted in deep values, – surely we have more political principle, sense of justice and right, and cultural faithfulness than such goings on – but apparently not.

In some cultures to tear your clothes is a sign of grief, a symbolic way of showing that the fabric of life has been ripped apart by circumstances. It is a gesture of both recognition and resistance. The clothes we choose to wear make a statement, they send out social signals of who we are, how we feel about ourselves, and the place we inhabit in the lives of those around us. To rip up our clothes in public isn’t such a common protest in a culture which either pays silly money for designer labels, or pays silly money for  the ultra cheap.

So when an Archibishop of the Church of England, cuts up his dog-collar on a prime time Sunday Morning TV programme, we know we are seeing something extraordinary. Archbishop Sentamu spoke with passionate. prophetic bluntness about the regime of Robert Mugabe, the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe, and called for people to pray, march and protext. As he cut up his dog collar, which is a public sign of his identity, he vowed not to wear it again till Mugabe is gone. Just as the Mugabe regime has cut up people’s identity and taken it away, so the Archbishop of York in word and action, criticises, judges and names the political and economic evils that poison the life of the people of Zimbabwe.

I have nothing but admiration for this man, for his moral courage and the way he brings his own cultural heritage to his vocation as Archbishop. He is in the tradition of great lovers of Africa such as Aggrey of Ghana, Trevor Huddleston, Alan Paton, Desmond Tutu in speaking truth to power, and symbolising in action the hunger for righteousness that should drive those who follow Jesus and who pray and work for the Kingdom of God. In a culture saturated with political spin, verbal evasiveness and moral ambiguity, and with many politicians and cultural voices being heard in the stereophonic tones of self-preservation and self promotion, there is something ethically bracing and culturally hopeful about an Archbishop whose moral outrage is given theological force at vocational cost.

I for one salute the integrity and righteous anger of the Right Honourable and Most Reverend John Sentamu, Archbishop of York. The pieces of that ruined dog-collar take on sacramental significance, signs of that grace that will always confront the world at its worst.

Go see this gracious act of prophetic protest over here at a paper I don’t often read!

Alex Salmond is furious! The SNP Government have called in Donald Trump’s planning application after it was rejected by a local infrastructure committee. Now just to be clear, the SNP is the party committed to independence, and when it suits, becomes vocal about Scotland‘s beauty, its capacity to be self-sustaining, and the Scottish character trait of independence of mind.

How dare a local authority committee thwart corporate America? Sure the planned site up at Balmedie (see photo) is an area of outstanding beauty. And yes it is recognised as an area of special scientific interest on a world scale. Oh, and yes, it is the stopping point for thousands and thousands of migrating birds. And then, it’s surely too much to ask Mr Trump and his corporate executive go-getters to adjust the plans, to make concessions to local concerns. And then again, having failed to get planning permission because of a casting vote by a single committee convener, Mr Trump magnanimously declines to appeal, leaving the next move to a Scottish Government as independent as a struggling cash-strapped business afraid of losing the big contract.

But a Government isn’t a business – it is an elected body accountable to the people, and required to respect the decisions of democratically elected and locally devolved expressions of government. But Mr Salmond is furious! So let’s move the goalposts and change their dimensions; and let’s add on as much extra time as it takes; and we could show a couple of red cards to the opposition for something or other; oh, and what about ensuring the referee knows who’s paying his match fee. In other words, let’s call this decision in, even if it isn’t appealed, and since Mr Salmond is sidelined cos the proposed development is in his constituency, let’s have an impartial discussion that gets the decision right this time so that Mr Salmond can stop being furious.

If independence means anything other than defining ourselves by who we are not, then there is a serious political and moral-philosophical problem here. The political problem is who owns the word independence and who has the right to define its content and meaning? Is local government allowed to act independently and reflect the local concerns and context in their decision-making; or should every local committee now see its more significant decisions as provisional, hanging on the approval or say-so of Ministers more influenced by dollar-toting developers than local opinion, ecological concerns, or matters of Scottish heritage? Can local committees be treated in such a way that Martin Ford, convener of the offending committee, says unequivocally that members of the committee have been bullied? Will there be a public enquiry we wonder, where wider questions, local voices, and informed discussion can take place? And if there is, will Mr Trump’s spokes-people do the courtesy of attending, listening, and perhaps even modifying plans as requested previously? Or is it a case of money talking, one of the most powerful weapons of economic imperialism, and best resisted with that Scottish character trait – independence, of mind and nation.

The moral-philosophical problem arises when the interests of economic development conflict with the interests of natural heritage and ecological concern. That will always be a complex and contested discussion – as it should be. What is not so clear is whether the SNP Government have any interest, at least in this particular debate, in giving any serious consideration to what such a development would do to a significant and beautiful part of Scotland‘s natural heritage. What chance tern colonies, visiting waders, unique ferns and mosses, 4,000 year old sand dunes, long windswept white sanded beaches and some of the most attractive coastline in Scotland? Just what price would we put on natural beauty?

Then of course there is the question of footprints. I don’t mean the intriguingly lingering prints of beach walkers who have walked these beaches in their thousands for centuries without worrying about yells of ‘four’. I mean the carbon footprints of thousands of golfers jetting in, playing golf and jetting off. I mean the cost in energy and materials of building the project, maintaining it, creating the infrastructure. Again all complex stuff. But how much weight will such issues carry in discussions and decisions once the Ministers ‘call in’ the decision?

Mr Salmond is furious. I’m not too pleased myself.