Nats, Cleggs and Blank Screens

Having managed to catch a bit of the Politics Show Scotland on the iPlayer and get a good old chuckle at Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander contradicting eachother over the thorny issue of fuel duty, I freely admit that my appetite for hearing more of Mr Clegg last night was, well, sated to say the least of it.

However, I learn this morning from a flurry of outraged Lib Dems (okay then - four of them) tweeting to eachother that apparently, their man was given a setpiece interview last night which was carried on ITV. Except for viewers in most of Scotland, that is, where STV found something different to show instead.

Now, I should say that if you're looking for even the slightest shade of Schadenfreude here, you're going to be sorely disappointed because democrat that I am, I'm inclined to agree with them. You won't find here partisan accusations of egotism being thrown at Mr Clegg just because he's been given the rough end of the stick by a broadcaster. He's entitled to be heard, and I can't think of any good reason why his interview was pulled from Scotland, unlike others with David Cameron or Gordon Brown.

Of course, the tempting response would be to point out that since there's going to be a televised election debate between the leaders of the Scottish parties, Lib Dems should just quit whining and accept that Tavish will get his chance to put their case then. However, that would be unworthy and cheap on my part. As it happens, I've got a much better idea for redressing the balance. And if you can imagine a drumroll in the background, here it is...

In order to make up for this democracy-debilitating deficit of Nick Clegg on Scottish screens, why not have a televised debate in Scotland which involves Clegg, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and, let's think now... a representative of the SNP? That way, the Scottish dimension of the UK election can be adequately addressed, Scottish Lib Dems get another opportunity to see their man without having to rely on YouTube or Sky Plus, and the vexed issue of impartiality over the so-called 'Prime Ministerial' debates in Scotland can be laid to rest once and for all.

I think its a winner, and I'm sure it's an issue which can unite Lib Dems and nationalists against the arrogance of broadcasters who ignore the plurality of our great British political system. How's about it, guys? :-)

Britannia Waves Goodbye?

An article written for the Scots Independent:

If there was an orthodoxy on which you could count in Scotland last century, it was that public support for the union, implicit or explicit, could be taken almost as read. After the war, you knew exactly what it was you stood for – God, King and Empire. Britannia ruled the waves – and Britons never, never, never would be slaves.

Despite economic decline and the need for reconstruction, the British were still a force to be reckoned with. We had the A-bomb and a seat at the top table of the new UN Security Council. Although the USA might have been the emerging power as the sun set on the empire, they still, as younger siblings sometimes do, needed our wise guidance and experience to keep them right.

Despite the need for reconstruction at home and US loans to stave off national bankruptcy, Britain was still great. As the Iberian peninsula endured the yoke of fascism and an iron curtain came down to separate Western Europe from the new Soviet satellites in the east, Britain could stand aloof and proud. Throw in a chance to pity the poverty of the Irish, and you could have a vaguely plausible, if smug and misguided view of the world and your place in it.

It's easy to understand the optimism ushered in by the 'new Elizabethan age’. It saw the end of rationing, great technological progress and huge advances in social provision. Following the success of central planning during wartime, big government was better government, and the man in Whitehall always knew best. Macmillan’s ‘winds of change’ may have been blowing, but for many, we had indeed never had it so good.

The loss of corporate control as headquarters moved south may have been a cause of regret, but never managed to fire Scots into a pro-independence state of mind. Perhaps that was due to the lack of progress which the SNP had made in terms of securing a place in the mainstream for its central goal. However, with the soft left in the ascendant, institutions such as the National Coal Board, British Rail, British Leyland, BP, even the National Health Service, could all be pointed to as examples of the import of British policy to our sense of wellbeing and identity.

But that was then. With the ending of 'consensus' politics in the 1970's and the privatisations of the 80's, the British state dimension to Scotland's political economy declined in importance. If Britain's place in the world had seemed secure before, with the benefits of standing together economically, socially and militarily seeming axiomatic to most, then how would it fare if those circumstances were to change?

Given the recent rise of the SNP and consequent support for independence, the answer, it would seem, is not very well. As the case for small independent states pooling sovereignty in a confederal Europe gained ground in Scotland, so too did the more general notion of self government amongst unionists.

For some, it was as a means of halting the gradual SNP advance. For others, it was about stopping the writ of an unpopular Conservative government at the border. What can't be denied is that through devolution itself and the election of an SNP government, a direction of travel towards greater autonomy has been well established over the past decade.

So, if the SNP narrative of Scotland in the world is clear, what then are the unifying ideas, the big imperative behind unionism today? With the role of the central state diminished and shorn of a meaningful international role or a plausible external threat, does anyone know what Britain is for any longer?

Many advocates for continued union struggle for an answer to this, preferring to cast their arguments in terms of past history or the supposed weaknesses which would befall a Scottish state. Vague and uncertain concepts such as 'economies of scale'; being 'greater than the sum of our parts'; or trite slogans about being stronger together are advanced, with seldom anything concrete offered to back up why this may be the case.

For some, their preference for existing structures is largely a default – an attitude developed through osmosis. Even if the matter has been considered to any great degree, it's rare to find much in the way of hostility to the idea of Holyrood assuming greater powers or Scotland becoming independent. In contrast, the political leaders of unionism in Scotland all too often seem better at disparaging the case of their opponents than in articulating a convincing set of arguments of their own.

Even with the recent world financial turmoil, where contentions about the benefits of scale become easier to advance (even if no more accurate), certain political leaders have found themselves unable to resist having a dig at other small countries, most of whom are doing considerably better than the UK. Which is, in part why I found David Cameron's recent assertion that an independent Scotland was perfectly possible to be so interesting.

I've argued for a long time that unionists of all stripes should have no difficulty in ditching the scaremongering to be able to say without equivocation that 'we accept that Scotland makes many great contributions to the UK, and here's why she should continue to do so'. If nothing else, enlightened self-interest ought to suggest that were Scotland to become independent in the near future and they wished to play a significant political role thereafter, the electorate would be unlikely to grant this quickly to those who had been so vehement in their reluctance to assume new responsibilities.

Cameron, of course, is not about to become a supporter of independence and will, I suspect, be a formidable opponent for the SNP if he becomes Prime Minister. However, the change to a more emollient tone and a new found respect for Scotland in Westminster could well start to alter some of the political topography we have become used to fighting around.

The most significant point from this is that if such an approach were maintained, it would remove some of the intellectual barriers which people have to direct engagement in the independence debate. Unionists have nothing to fear from a more mature and honest approach to the constitutional debate in Scotland. And if we're confident in the SNP about the essential logic of our arguments, then neither have we.

A Dave New World?

Well, first things first. Despite the lack of raised voices or blood on the carpet, as a conference speech, it wasn’t bad at all. Comparatively few digs at the opposition, some well-judged bits of tummy-tickling for the delegates… if anything, this was the ‘quiet man’ speech, that Ian Duncan Smith wanted to but failed to deliver.

This was all ‘Trust the People Dave’ comparing himself against Brown the meddling micro-manager. It was mercifully shorn of the revivalist hyperbole that scarred the Prime Minister’s address to the Labour conference last week. But Dave does buzz-words too… I counted at least 40 references to ‘change’, 20 ‘freedoms’ (Mel Gibson would be proud), and 10 mentions each for ‘responsibility’ and ‘family’. Even the references to restricting immigration and pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights were couched in such a way as to appeal to the faithful, without alienating swing voters.

There were 4 ‘It’s time’s (the SNP creative team will be having him electronically tagged for that). Also, which was it? A ‘new world of freedom’, or a ‘new world of insecurity’? And what to make of the double use of ‘You can get it if you really want’ towards the end? Is he a closet Jimmy Cliff fan? Or is his confidence such that he really does believe that the harder they come, the harder they fall?

So what was there for Scotland? Not a lot. Apart from mocking briefly Gordon Brown’s pronunciation of Bournemouth, Scotland didn’t rate a single mention. Nothing on how the Tories might react to the ‘English question’. Further powers, freedoms, responsibilities – all to be entrusted to the lowliest English local authority, but not, apparently, to Holyrood. But then again, as we all know, with just one MP north of the border, it’s not Scotland he needs to win if he’s to become Prime Minister.

Anyway, the coverage tomorrow will mostly be concerned with one thing – does this make it more or less likely that Brown will call an election? Up until last week, I was prepared to say that he wouldn’t go for it – that it was a ploy to discomfit the Tories and nothing more. Not now – Brown would probably edge it over Cameron right now for the affections of Mr & Mrs Middle England, but on the strength of today’s performance from Cameron, I can’t see that position surviving indefinitely.

I heard the analogy used at the weekend that Brown was now like the pilot who was half way down the runway, whom if he didn’t take off, was going to be in considerable difficulties. It’s certainly better than comparing him to the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’. But then, once they were neither up nor down, didn’t they all sing ‘Rule Britannia’ afterwards? The Prime Minister might actually quite like that idea, now I think about it.

Another Lord a' Leaping

The indescretion! Lord Turnbull, a former Head of the Civil Service who spent 4 years at the Treasury as a Permemant Secretary, has chosen to lift the lid on the M.O. of the Chancellor. And, comble de malchance!, has done so just in time to spoil Brown's budget speech tomorrow.

Brown's Treasury, we are told, surprises by "the more or less complete contempt with which other colleagues are held". Brown himself takes a "very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues"; does not allow "serious discussion" with colleagues; and in enhancing Treasury control over domestic policy, had done so "at the expense of any government cohesion and any assessment of strategy".

The Chancellor also has a "Macavity quality - he is not there when there is dirty work to be done". He also uses denial of information as an instrument of power. And just to make sure we all get the message, Turnbull goes on to conclude that "You can choose whether you are impressed or depressed by that, but you cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness of it all."

It's a devastating critique, all the closer to the bone for its echoes of what Brown's opponents in the Labour Party have been saying about him for years. Given Milliband's reluctance to challenge for the leadership , perhaps Blair's favoured successor really is the man charged with responding to, rather than delivering, tomorrow's budget speech.

With friends like these...

The capacity of the Scottish Tories to self-destruct never ceases to amaze. After the wipe-out of 1997; David McLetchie's little confusions over expenses; Annabell Goldie's reluctant leadership and persistant attempts by a grassroots minority to throw the current MSP group overboard; it was difficult, although by no means impossible, to see how they could slip any further.

With an election coming up, the party high-heidyins must have been praying that everyone would just stick to the script and stay gaffe-free until polling day. The last person they would have been expecting to pull the plug on their campaign would have been Shadow Scottish Secretary, David Mundell MP. Alas, on the eve of their Scottish Conference, the Daily Record (I feel nauseous linking to this) has obtained a memo sent by Mundell to party leader David Cameron, which contains a damning assessment of his erstwhile Holyrood colleagues.

According to Mundell, the MSP group suffers from a "simple lack of thinkers". They are 'incapable of coming up with new policies', while "there are more obvious problems than solutions emanating from Scotland from a party point of view." The replacement of Scottish party chairman Peter Duncan should be an "immediate priority". And while "key personnel need to be identified to take on strategic roles...nobody obviously comes to mind".

With friends like these... there are conflicting views amongst Tory bloggers, with Ian Dale supportive, while Conservative Home demands his head on a stick. I think if I were a Tory activist, though, I'd be arranging my holidays to coincide with the elections so I could be as far away as possible from the impending carnage in May.

There's a place for a party of the centre-right in Scotland - but the prospects of anyone being able to hew it from the rotten timbers of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party now look not so much slim as positively skeletal. Independence and cutting the apron strings to the party in London must now be their only hope for recovery.

UPDATE - Widespread praise in the canteen for Annabell Goldie's riposte to Jack McConnell's use of the above memo at First Minister's Questions. 'At least, First Minister, my party's internal memos don't end up being scrutinised by Scotland Yard'.

Splat! Who said that Holyrood had banned bloodsports? :-)

Age Shall Not Weary Him

'What is the point of Menzies Campbell?', is a question with which I've been wrestling for quite a while now. In many ways, it's a question I never thought I'd ever be asking myself, since I'd long had a kind of sneaking regard for him. Sure, whenever matters SNP reared their head, I'd always found his knee-jerk patrician sniffiness to be absolutely insufferable. Otherwise, though, he earned my respect for both looking and sounding like a thoroughly competent MP who knew exactly what he was talking about.

I see in retrospect that mine was quite a rose-tinted view. That sure-footedness, demonstrated in matters of home and international affairs, has never quite been there when it comes to the equally important arenas of economic, health and education policy. In fact, it seems that the very qualities that made him appear so well cut out to be a Home or Foreign Secretary - his dispassionate aloofness and cultivated appearance of somehow being above the vulgar posturing of lesser mortals - are the very same qualities which are now rendering his stewardship of the Lib Dems such a becalmed and uninspiring affair.

Oddly, he seems to have diminished in stature since assuming the Lib Dem leadership. His perceived lack of support for Charles Kennedy tainted him from the start, as did his many fluffed appearances at Prime Minister's Questions. But never mind the recent fuss about whether he'd dump PR to get into government with Labour. To me, it is his apparent inability to connect with voters or to articulate any kind of coherent policy agenda, which should be causing the most discontent in Lib Dem ranks just now.

They are dropping, slowly but surely, in the polls. Where people liked Charles Kennedy even if they didn't necessarily respect him, Campbell seems to suffer from the reverse. Concerns about his age are raised, to which he now responds with an unbecoming prickliness. Watching him try to address this irrelevant jibe is becoming an increasingly painful sight. Like Gordon Brown trying to convince Middle England that he would make a good Prime Minister, the more Campbell tries to stress his youthfulness, the less it convinces.

Let's be clear, his age is largely irrelevant if we regard it as being an attitude of mind rather than a physical characteristic. In fact, I get the feeling that Campbell was probably middle-aged by his early twenties. And as one of the many politicos spawned by the Glasgow University Union Debating Society in the 1950s, it would have been surprising if he'd turned out any other way.

For all his protestations of having grown up in a Glasgow tenement, Campbell is a politician from the upper-middle classes, imbibed with a paternalistic and slightly patronising sense of noblesse oblige. But what once reassured about Campbell now just grates. And it is this, I think, which is what is hampering him and his party, rather than any questions about age. Like Gordon Brown, a section of voters has decided that they don’t particularly like him. And while voters cite Brown’s ‘Scottishness’ as being his prime draw-back (something which doesn’t seem to affect John Reid), it is Campbell’s age which is being held against him.

Highlighting the most obvious perceived flaw of someone we dislike is an instinct we develop in the playground. It might not be fair and it might be as base as it gets, but as Neil Kinnock, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith all found out, if the voters won’t take to you then electorally-speaking, both you and your party are toast.

The Lib Dems, while often confounding the pundits, have for the past while seemed like a party in search of a role. The charisma of a Paddy Ashdown or a Charles Kennedy has always in the past allowed them to escape the scrutiny they deserved for being all things to all people. With a revitalised Tory Party in England under David Cameron, also no slouch at appearing to be all things to all people, the days of the Lib Dems being able to hoover up the votes of the disenchanted now look to be numbered.

Raindrops on roses

There’s a rather worrying story over on Nick Robinson’s blog. It seems that as part of the bid to make the Conservative Party appear nice, cuddly and ‘in touch’ with the voters, some of David Cameron’s policy wonks are considering how market forces might be used to tackle ‘social bads’.

Enthused by how carbon emissions trading is being advanced as a panacea to global warming, the party’s ‘Social Responsibility Summit’ has apparently come up with a similar wheeze. This time, it’s to ‘enable’ a trading scheme for companies which make alcoholic drinks or fatty foods and so restrict our consumption of said goods.

According to Dave, “It's still at quite a conceptual stage, but clearly emissions trading is working very well at putting a price on carbon, and reducing carbon emissions. So, the argument goes, well why not try and do this with some of the social bads as well as the environmental bads?" We are also invited to contrast this ‘market-oriented’ approach with Gordon Brown’s addiction to ‘state-control’.

I thought New Labour had taught us all there was to know about how to remove personal liberties in the name of freedom. However, it seems that here, in all its foulness, is the equivalent Tory verbal trick. Cameron might be all ‘raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens’ at the moment, but the desire to meddle in people’s lives seems to be as alive and well in the Tories as it is in New Labour.

I’m never entirely happy with the tendency in politics to try and legislate or ban things whenever a social problem rears its head, and that applies to my own party as well. However, trying to restrict the types of food which intelligent grown adults choose to feed themselves is an intrusion too far in my book.

Give us the facts about a healthy lifestyle by all means. But Dave, once we’ve made up our minds for ourselves, regardless of whether or not you approve, please just go away and leave us alone.

London Calling

One time Revolutionary Communist NUS apparatchik turned New Labour luvvie, David Aaronovitch, has an amusingly bile-filled article in today's Times. I really can't be bothered to take his argument to bits (too easy), so here instead is an article I did for last month's Scots Independent newspaper, which kind of preempts his clumsy intervention into the debate.


'Over the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying the BBC series on Suez. I’m not usually a fan of docu-drama, but this has been superb, bringing home how General Nasser brought the post-imperial delusions of the British ruling classes back down to earth with an almighty crash.

'In the SNP, we tackle daily many of the delusions that live on when making the Independence case. ‘Scotland’s voice would be puny’, it is said. ‘Being British is the only way to retain influence in the world’. At this we can laugh, setting recent abject failures in British diplomacy and the brittle posturing of Tony Blair against the positive roles played by much smaller European states.

'Something I find much harder to thole, though, is the faux-sophisticate sneering of the London-based left when it comes to the SNP. Perhaps this is because otherwise, we might have a fair amount in common with them when it comes to policy. However, I disdain utterly their self-proclaimed monopoly of concern when it comes to internationalism, social justice and the vitality of our civic society.

'Their dislike of the Conservatives just about allowed them to stomach devolution. A historic wrong was being righted, they told themselves around Hampstead dinner tables. Anyway, surely it will bring us closer together and what with Europe becoming more powerful and everything… sorry, I’m being terribly rude here. Shall I open another bottle of Chianti?

'And that was about as much thought as most ever gave it. However, with the unpopularity of Scottish Labour and the apparent momentum behind Independence, Hampstead has awoken. It seems discombobulated, neither understanding nor liking what it sees in the SNP. Perceiving a threat, instead of engaging with the debate it reaches for the comfortable and familiar anti-nationalist clichés so beloved by the 57 varieties of Brit left.

'Thus, we are now being treated to a series of articles telling us how Scottish nationalism is backward looking and exclusive, unlike the ‘given’ opposites of Britishness. Being British lets us share a greater destiny, we are told, instead of being isolated little Scotlanders, festering in the petty resentments of narrow nationalism.

'As a credo, it’s marked by fuddled thinking, rampant double standards and fraudulent assertions of conceptual superiority. It’s amazing how cosmopolitan citizens of the world, who would no more consider themselves isolated from Paris than from Pinner, can still somehow see Scottish Independence as isolation. ‘Britishness good, Scottish nationalism bad’ bleat the sheep, in an attempt to drown out any dissenting voices.

'Hugh MacDiarmid referred to the contradictory aspects of our character as the 'Caledonian Antisyzygy’. Perhaps its time to consider the Metro-Left Antisyzygy: the home of diversity which sees cultural difference as a threat. The force for good which undermines international law. The upholder of non-proliferation shaping to replace Trident. The guarantor of economic prosperity headed for a £700bn national debt by 2010.

'Devolution, Blairism and ‘Cool Britannia’ were the last roll of the dice for Britain. But far from killing the SNP stone dead, devolution has for many made Independence easier to contemplate. Blairism, meanwhile, is now being seen for the ephemeral cult of personality it always was. And as for the latter… despite the best efforts of Blairite thinktanks, it died an agonizing and lonely death somewhere between Noel Gallagher’s champagne glass and the fatuity of the Millennium Dome.

'With his sweeping majorities, Blair had the chance to reinvent Britain by introducing a written constitution, a bill of rights, scrapping the Lords, reforming the voting system and encouraging regional government in England. Instead, he seized the levers of centralised executive power with a Gollum-esque glee. Having enjoyed almost a decade of absolute power, Labour can hardly complain in future if the Tories decide to play by the same rules.

'An even vaguely competent Cameron leadership will surely see New Labour smashed on the rocks of English public contempt. Normal service will be restored, and the whine will resume once more that we need to stick together so we can return Labour to government.

'Well, I'm a democrat. If England votes Tory, as far as I'm concerned, that's who should govern England. No ifs, no buts. If the Metro-Left don't like the idea of the tyranny of the minority, they should be clamouring for PR to be introduced while they still have the chance, then buckle up tight for the kind of realignments we have already seen in Scotland.

'Approaching the 300th year of union, we find ourselves shackled to a decorative and decadent power centre increasingly irrelevant to the people it tries to govern. It is insulting to suggest that either England or Scotland needs the other as a bolt-on accessory to ensure its good conduct and high standing in the world. I’d like to think that in the SNP, our sights are set higher than that – would that these modern day Habsburgs could say the same'.