Scottish Labour has, somewhat ironically, 2007 Twitter followers going into today’s cavalcade of tweets aimed at the SNP and its supposed 100 broken promises. It will be interesting to see how many followers there will be come 5pm.
Indeed, if I had the time or organisational savviness, I would suggest a counter-campaign that would actively encourage Tweeters to unfollow @ScottishLabour in protest at their hitherto relentlessly negative campaigning. Halving the number by the end of today would be a challenge but an achievement in itself.
Aside from everything else planned for today, there have been 135 tweets in total from this account so far and they have been riddled with errors and spelling mistakes. With 100 messages to type in 8 hours, it’s graduation day for whoever the young scribe is behind the keyboard.
The big question is whether Labour will succeed with a negative campaign if this tone is to continue. Call me an idealist if you will but ‘vote Labour cos the Scottish Futures Trust is taking a wee bit longer than hoped’ isn’t all that inspiring and certainly not convincing enough to prove that Iain Gray and his team are the right choice for 2011-15. The big idea remains outstanding.
I just hope many party strategists, and indeed individual candidates, can reconsider what the Parliament is there for. There seems to be a lack of focus surrounding what the objective of devolution currently is and we just end up with playground antics instead. Over the past several weeks we’ve seen Wendy Alexander and David McLetchie harrass and harangue visiting academics seemingly for partisan gain, Iain Gray clumsily insult Montenegro just to get one over on the Nats and the SNP administration grind to a halt in readiness for the coming election just to boost its chances of reelection. Where is the consensual politics and the new dawn that we were promised?
Mind you, you get what you vote for in this world and if we want negativity then we already have a frontrunner. There will be 99 red balloons punted up in the air today, (and I say 99 rather than 100 as the ‘dumping of student debt’ goes down as a bona fide broken promise for me). These balloons will either take Labour to new heights or get snagged on the lower branches.
If you’re hoping for the latter, and happen to be on Twitter, perhaps not following @ScottishLabour online to reflect how little you follow them offline is worth considering…
#1 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 10:00 am
I am not a tweeter but went on to read what they are saying. The first one said “Give parents the right to request flexible working. #SNPBrokenPromise’.
Have to say that gave me a bit of a shock. Surely the SNP could not have made a commitment to give parents the right to request flexible working, knowing that they couldn’t deliver it? So I went to their manifesto and it said “Getting the right work-life balance is important for families. We want to see all parents and
carers having the right to request flexible working.”
That is clearly not a promise and is worded to reflect the fact that employment legislation is reserved. It simply sets out the SNP’s position on what is a resrved issue.
If this is going to be the calibre of their campaign it’s not simply about being negative, it’s about being fundamentally dishonest.
#2 by Gregor on January 25, 2011 - 10:14 am
Indy, most of it is that. Or they’re counting things twice – apparently they’ve failed to scrap council tax, and failed to introduce local income tax – how is that two broken promises? And how can they be so cheeky when they know it failed because they wouldn’t back it?
The one I found most crazy was the “failure” to match Labour’s school building programme “brick for brick” – because the SNP decided to build more than Labour.
Words fail me at just how utterly ridiculous they can be; I’ve unfollowed them.
#3 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 10:21 am
It does make you wonder Gregor (& Indy), that if they are clearly grasping at straws within the first hour, what howlers will there be later on in the afternoon?
I reckon Labour is really shooting itself in the foot with this ploy. It’s easily fisked and that will live longer in the memory than a few tweets that 2,007 people (or hopefully less!) will see.
It’s also rampantly negative, needless to say.
#4 by Alec Macph on January 25, 2011 - 11:13 am
The trouble with objecting to “negative campaigning” is that it’s a moveable feast. As puerile and ill-informed this particular wheeze now appears to be, it should be unexpected that one campaigning side should seek to dismiss the other… unless you’ll agree that it’s negative campaigning to say Scottish affairs are best in the hands of the SNP (i.e. not in the hands of Labour), ne c’est pas?
Fewer, dear boy, fewer [than 2,007].
~alec
#5 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 11:20 am
First of all, genuinely gutted about the less not fewer. I can console myself that I’m not alone though (recall ‘more Nats, less nurses’ anyone?)
Anyway, I call this negative campaigning chiefly because Labour is not messaging what it intends to do in the 2011-15 term and that, surely, is what the coming election should be about.
Indeed, there is a certain irony that Labour aims to win through trashing the SNP’s 2007 promises as it means Labour doesn’t have to promise anything!
There are of course some genuine broken promises in that 100 but I’d much rather a party aimed high and fell short than dared not dream in the first place.
Ending PFI, scrapping Council Tax and reducing class sizes. Labour just looks silly for mocking anyone who is striving to achieve these goals.
#6 by Alec Macph on January 25, 2011 - 11:39 am
Well, it hasn’t exactly happened, has it?
Only the truly naive would assume that manifestos would be obeyed verbatim and every promise fulfilled. When Salmond has presented grand schemes in popularist terms – such as the meaningless “bobbies not boundaries” – then the blame for negativity is a bit 50:50.
~alec
#7 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 11:49 am
I fully agree Alec and I like to think you’re backing up my point.
The question for voters is do they agree with the SNP’s general direction rather than a prescriptive consideration of whether they’ve ticked every box in the manifesto. SFT has gone slower than hoped but are other parties in lockstep with the SNP’s ambition to keep private profit out of public building? Council Tax hasn’t been scrapped because too many parties opposed SNP aims to do so and class size reduction had some legal issues which perhaps should have been foreseen but is it clear what Labour’s policy is on the matter?
I’m just saying, it is easy to carp from the sidelines and, remarkably, Labour seem to be benefitting from that in the polls but at some point they’ll surely have to change strategy and come up with some ideas that are different to the SNP’s and still sell a positive vision for Scotland. Right now I honestly can’t see what that is as the SNP have cemented themselves on the right side of the argument for most policy areas and have pushed a positive argument at every turn.
One party is looking forward and striving for better while the other party is looking backwards and picking holes. That doesn’t strike me as 50:50 on the positivity scales.
#8 by cynicalHighlander on January 25, 2011 - 11:04 am
Just point them here.
• A hospital which charged £52,000 for a job that cost £750. Demolishing a shelter for smokers resulted in the PFI contractor charging £2,600 a year for the “extra cleaningâ€.
#9 by Douglas McLellan on January 25, 2011 - 10:17 am
I think that because Labour cant best Salmond in the Parliament and Gray has no media profile at all they basically have no option but to try negative campaigning.
Sure, the SNP have failed in some areas due to their own choices. Student Debt being one of them and SFT have no exactly set the heather on fire. Other choices they made for political reasons. Not bringing a LIT Bill or Independence Bill into Parliament was a failure. Yes, they would have lost but the commitment would have been met. But the didnt it an attempt to save face and not look bad in the press. Not exactly a positive approach to governing.
Still, at least neither is as bad as Purvis last week attacking the Irish Greens in a lame and stupid attempt to link them to the Scottish Greens. That was such shameful.
#10 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 10:24 am
I just can’t get into the mindset of thinking that you would table a bill, knowing for a fact that it would fail. just so you could say that you had done so. Indeed, I think that is the kind of slightly Alice in Wonderland logic that voters find so bemusing about political debate.
I have to say I am with Annabelle Goldie when it comes to the upcoming campaign. Less bullshit please!
#11 by Douglas McLellan on January 25, 2011 - 10:55 am
I would have done it to honour a manifesto commitment and, when it failed, used it to show the blocking tactics of the opposition. The referendum – denying people the change to have their say. Council Tax reform – no constructive thought on how to change the hated Council Tax.
#12 by Malc on January 25, 2011 - 11:22 am
I agree with Douglas(!).
I do think that provides a stronger hand with the electorate too. We tried and failed (because of the opposition) is better than we didn’t bother trying. In my mind at least.
#13 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 11:39 am
I really don’t agree with that. The thing is that, if we had done that, it would be the easiest thing for Labour to find out how much money had been spent preparing a bill (which we knew would fail) and present that as the SNP obsessing over the constitutuon or wasting taxpayers money on a pet project they knew would fail when what they should be concentrating on is protecting jobs and services etc etc,
And I think that would have seemed like common sense to most voters.
#14 by Malc on January 25, 2011 - 12:29 pm
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this, as with so many other things!
Incidentally, can’t Labour do that BETTER (ie – present the SNP as obsessing over the constitution at the taxpayers’ expense) now, given the National Conversation produced… nothing?
#15 by Douglas McLellan on January 25, 2011 - 12:51 pm
Its worse than that. At every conference and speaking opportunity the SNP ministers highlighted the National Conversation. I was at a Care & Repair Conference when the Housing Minister, apropos of nothing, launched into how important the Conversation was. Didn’t even link it to anything relevant on the day.
The collective sagging of shoulders in the room was probably repeated across the nation every time the Conversation was brought up without reason. That probably did more damage to it than anything else.
#16 by Shuna on January 25, 2011 - 10:30 am
can I suggest that they may well be annoyiong people with this today but ONLY those who have bothered to sign up to twitter and are ‘following’ them? A mere 2008 (its gone up!) people at the moment. Most of them will be politically interested and unlikely to be swayed one way or another.
And I really do not think that Labour will be the only party guilty of negative campaigning over the next few months.
#17 by Gregor on January 25, 2011 - 10:38 am
Have you got any more info re: Purvis and the Greens?
Also, some of these are really rather subjective, are they not? Such as the last one which was”Provide leadership on Curriculum for Excellence”?
#18 by James on January 25, 2011 - 10:46 am
Here’s what Purvis said. And Patrick’s riposte.
#19 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 10:40 am
It’s actually quite addictive once you start reading them. The latest one is “Provide leadership on Curriculum for Excellence and cut assessment and bureaucracy. #SNPBrokenPromise #breachoftrust
Like him or loathe him, I think most people would acknowledge that Mike Russell has provided leadership on Curriculum for Excellence. He has provided so much leadership that, last time I looked, some teachers were threatening to go on strike!
Oh dear, I think whoever was given the thankless task of drawing up this list has been struggling a bit.
#20 by Alec Macph on January 25, 2011 - 11:01 am
The Montenegrins have every right to be touchy about their country’s recent history, but Gray was right about Salmond’s crass comparison of Scotland to it.
~alec
#21 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 11:06 am
Fair enough. The clumsiness may well have applied on either side of the equation.
#22 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 11:34 am
Latest is that the SNP broke its promise to dual the A9.
Except the SNP never promised to dual the A9. It’s a really simple matter to open the SNP 2007 manifesto, press control F and then type in A9. What you get is this: “In government the SNP will publish a 10-year plan to transform Scottish road safety. The case put forward by organisations including the AA motoring trust proves that a range of measures – including dualling of key roads, such as the A9 – would contribute to fewer lives being lost.”
Then later on it says: “an SNP led Scottish government will take forward key improvements to nationally significant trunk routes, including among others the A9, A96 and A77. We will work closely with Regional Transport partnerships to ensure long-term planning for future road improvements.”
Also in the manifesto it says: “We will seek national best value for our capital spending, with £1.1 billion of current planned expenditure on EARL and Edinburgh trams redirected.”
So even if you were rash enough to take the comments on the A9 as a commitment to dual it, the SNP’s capital spending plans were in part predicated on re-directing £1.1 billion of spending, including the spending on the trams. Which Labour – backed by the other parties – defeated them on.
#23 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 11:36 am
I thought the SNP had to ditch plans to improve the A9 after the opposition parties decided the money was better spent on the trams.
Seems a bit rich to criticise the SNP for accepting the will of the Parliament on that one.
#24 by Alec Macph on January 25, 2011 - 11:50 am
Trams? Do you not mean part of the No. 22 route?
~alec
#25 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 11:52 am
Uh, no, I mean trams.
#26 by Kate on January 25, 2011 - 11:54 am
Hi Jeff
Usually enjoy the blog, but as the election nears you seem to be falling back into you pre-2007 tactical voting ways. Back then you weren’t bothered about positive messages, rather it was all about negative voting to get Scottish Labour candidates out, regardless of their policies, beliefs or principles. Back then it seemed liked the attacks on Labour were unrelenting but that was ok.
The SNP need to grow up and learn that as a government your record will be scrutinised and that this will lead to negative press. In their first year of government SNP attacked Labour’s record at every turn but this seems to be ok.
Labour to an extent is stuck in difficult spot. It only gets press when it’s criticises the government. Where can it field a positive message where it will be picked up? Even when it is, it is either trashed by the government or stolen.
Labour is right to campaign on the SNP’s undeliverable 2007 manifesto. As the election nears we will see policy from Labour. In the meanwhile I trust nothing negative will come from the SNP… Won’t hold my breath.
Jeff looking forward to “in Edinburgh Pentlands vote Tory to ensure you freeze Labour out….”
#27 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 12:20 pm
The SNP is quite happy for its record to be scrutinised. This isn’t scrutiny.
Because today is 100 days from polling day Labour have decided to do a stunt whereby they pick out 100 things they claim the SNP have failed on – or broken their promise on – and tweet them. No doubt the press have been provided with some kind of briefing, so they don’t have to bother reading the actual tweets.
So far so good – the only problem is that, as we are seeing, the actual tweets are rubbish. This is not surprising because how likely would it be that you could go through the SNP manifesto and find exactly 100 broken promises 100 days before the election. They are clearly having to be very, erm, creative? in the broken promises they identify because it was a silly idea in the first place.
The irony of you suggesting that the SNP should “grow up” hardly needs to be pointed out.
#28 by Malc on January 25, 2011 - 12:33 pm
I’m sure Jeff can speak for himself on this, but I for one am equally critical of ALL parties and their negativity. I wouldn’t mind Labour criticising the Scottish Government so much if they were actually providing something constructive at the same time. By all means, trash a Scottish Government policy if you think it is crazy – but say how you would do it better.
“100 ways to bash the SNP” (today’s ploy) is not the same as “100 ways the SNP have gotten it wrong and how we’d put it right”. If it were, I’d listen.
#29 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 12:35 pm
Thanks for that Kate, though I respectfully disagree with most of what you say.
You call it “negative voting”, I call it “tactical voting”, tomato, tomato, potato, potato. However, it was because the SNP were brimming with ideas in 2007 and had run such a positive campaign while Labour had clearly run out of steam that I decided to get involved and start the ‘SNP tactical voting’ approach to the election. I guess that’s not particularly positive but I’d object to anyone saying it was negative.
So you’re simply wrong I’m afraid when you say it was “regardless of their policies, beliefs or principles†that I ‘targeted’ individual constituencies for tacticalo voting. Indeed, it was precisely because the party they were standing for were lacking in all three that I wished the Labour candidate to lose out where possible (if it meant a greater chance of the SNP being the biggest party)
To be honest, I’m less fussed about Labour winning through in 2011. Maybe that’s borne out of the expectation that they will do but I think the reduced funds from Westminster and the spending on the Forth Road Bridge will mean that there is little difference between whoever forms the next administration. I’d rather see the Greens hit double figures than see the SNP returned to Government.
You make a totally fair point that Labour only gets its press when it attacks the Government. Many a journalist has freely admitted that they don’t print good news stories. I still think they could attack the Government while selling a positive vision but maybe I’m just naïve.
Anyway, thanks for the comment, and I hope that Labour policy comes through as the election draws nearer.
PS It’s more likely to be ‘vote Tory to help get 2 Greens voted in on the List’ but, either way, I’m sure those posts are coming.
#30 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 12:39 pm
The SNP has announced today an extra £1billion for the NHS over the next four years if re-elected next May.
So I am not sure if it is true to say that there is little difference between the parties.
#31 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 12:48 pm
Labour would have the same amount of money to spend as the SNP would in the coming year so why wouldn’t they match this commitment of £1bn?
Furthermore, and going off-topic a bit, is throwing money at the NHS the best solution? Haven’t we learned from the past 13 years of Labour’s waste ‘when the sun was shining’. There seems to be too much focus on the consequences of bad choices on diet, exercise and lifestyle rather than pre-empting the solutions. How much of that £1bn could go towards free school meals for example? Or community activity programmes? Initiatives that would stop us needing to spend such a gargantuan amount on health, much of which is probably avoidable.
Throwing money at problems is the easy answer is it not?
#32 by James on January 25, 2011 - 12:51 pm
Particularly when it’s not clear where the money would come from. Existing budgets? Put even more pressure on other areas, especially given that £2bn+ is about to be burnt in a huge bridge-shaped pile?
#33 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 12:56 pm
Well it will be fun to find out won’t it?
#34 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 12:55 pm
How do you know that it won’t go on pre-empting problems?
#35 by James on January 25, 2011 - 1:04 pm
Well, most of the things Jeff rightly cited aren’t NHS expenditure.
#36 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 1:30 pm
True but obviously a lot of healthcare delivered by the NHS is actually pre-emptive – interventions for example, the cervical cancer vaccination, improving access to dentistry and so on.
I think what the SNP commitment amounts to is protecting the NHS Budget as it is. Taking into account inflation etc that will take an addional sum which the SNP has committed to.
The other factor is that the ageing population isue. Free personal care keeps older people in their homes for longer which is cheaper for us as well as better for them. Will Labour commit to maintaining free personal care? I’d like to see them tweeting about that.
#37 by steve on January 25, 2011 - 3:49 pm
Hi Kate, labour’s last Scottish Parliament election campaign was relentlessly negative, don’t break up Britain blah blah. People didn’t warm to that and they lost.
I monitor a fair amount of what goes on in Scottish politics, and I have to say that I have seen far too many labour msps stand up in parliament or conferences and tell bare faced lies for opportunistic party political advantage to trust them with my vote for a while. This includes former ministers who really should know better.
The snp just simply didn’t lie as much in opposition, and their last campaign was positive and progressive in large parts. Admittedly the snp have been timid in government, they should have pushed local income tax harder and brought on the referendum bill when they had a chance, but many of the positive and new things they have wanted to do on justice, alcohol, taxation etc have been blocked by labour.
I’m not an snp or a labour supporter but i’d rather fight the forthcoming election defending the snp’s record in government than labour’s record in opposition.
#38 by Father MacKenzie on January 25, 2011 - 12:06 pm
My girlfriend graduated in 2007. By September she had been contacted and told she would not need to pay anything back.
#39 by Douglas McLellan on January 25, 2011 - 12:27 pm
Type your comment here
That is a first!
#40 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 1:53 pm
Oh! This is the best one yet! The SNP failed to “Seek agreement to repeal the 1701 Act of Settlement ”
They are having a laugh surely! LABOUR WERE THE UK GOVERNMENT BETWEEN 1997 – 2010. They had the power to repeal the Act of Settlement. Why didn’t they?
The Scottish Government (or Executive prior to the SNP) – and Scottish Parliament – made their support for repealing the Act of Settlement very clear.
Now Labour are trying to blame the SNP?
#41 by DougtheDug on January 25, 2011 - 3:48 pm
Indy, not only are Labour dodging and weaving on that one they don’t even understand the issue.
Repealing the English Act of Settlement 1701 means nothing in Scotland and surprisingly is not the primary piece of legislation which deals with the Royal succession in England either.
The right to succession for both the Scottish and English thrones is defined in Article II of the Treaty of Union 1707 as the Treaty of Union applies in both countries. Now that’s a document that British Labour don’t want to go near.
#42 by Allan on January 25, 2011 - 9:53 pm
Well.. they didn’t did they 😉
#43 by Colin on January 26, 2011 - 10:42 am
That one reminds me of the scene from The Last King of Scotland:
“You should have told me not to throw the Asians out!”
“I did!”
“But you didn’t persuade me!”
#44 by Indy on January 25, 2011 - 4:36 pm
Well it’s been an interesting day. The SNP launched their campaign with a poster launch in Edinburgh and a pledge to protect NHS spending over the next 4 years. by allocating every penny of Barnett consequentials generated by real terms increases south of the border to health in Scotland.
Labour launched their campaign by tweeting 100 somewhat dodgy and badly spelled “broken SNP promises”. We’ll see what the press makes of it all tomorow!
#45 by Doug Daniel on January 25, 2011 - 4:59 pm
I really don’t mind people highlighting the fact that the SNP have not managed to do everything they said they wanted to do in their manifesto – after all, neither Labour nor the Lib Dems did so in the previous two sessions, and we currently have a UK Government which has completely ripped up two manifestos and is making everything up on the hoof. The SNP’s perceived failures can usually be explained away when you take parliamentary arithmetic into account, as well as the sheet being well and truly pulled out from under them in 2008, when the credit crunch struck and the financial situation changed dramatically. After all, it was patently obvious many commitments couldn’t be met almost as soon as the 2007 session began, when the SNP were pretty much forced into carrying on with the trams programme, and £650 million that had been ear-marked for better causes was taken out of their planned budgets.
What i do mind is they way they seem to be doing so with such glee and gusto, as if to say “ha ha, Scotland is rubbish and it’s all your fault!” It is nothing but bare-faced cheek to go on about the SNP not getting rid of council tax when Labour don’t even support such a proposal. It’s very warped logic – failing to get rid of council tax is bad, but trying to get rid of council tax in the first place is also bad? I’m sorry, but I’m not very good at this doublethink stuff. Many of these proposals failed to get off the ground precisely because of Labour steadfastly refusing to take their blinkers off and vote for the good of their country, rather than the good of their party, so to stand and point the finger like they are doing is just mindless carping from the sidelines.
Do you think if they fail to get elected this time, Labour will perhaps begin to realise that this sort of negative campaigning is not welcome (or at least shouldn’t be) in the 21st century?
#46 by James on January 25, 2011 - 5:06 pm
Yup, it’s utterly non-credible to say: you failed to get something done which we oppose and either voted against or would have voted against. The Council Tax example is, as you say, an absurd critique.
Issues that didn’t get brought for a vote are disappointing, though, and ones like flatline carbon targets (where the explicit manifesto promise was 3% a year) are genuine let-downs.
#47 by Dan on January 25, 2011 - 5:45 pm
Well their stock is up. 2035 followers
#48 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 6:01 pm
I’ve heard (unverified) accounts that, after an early dip from the 2007, there may have been some jiggery pokery around that number…
#49 by Andrew BOD on January 25, 2011 - 7:00 pm
Jeff
Surely this is just a media stunt. It wouldn’t matter if the detail was completely fabricated (some of it already is.) It doesn’t matter that the SNP formed a majority government and were always going to have limited success- I’m sure many people don’t even know that! Just create an impression that the Government have failed to achieve and some of it will surely stick.
Labour are betting that most voters won’t see through this little fakery, or just go along with them on this one without looking into the detail.
The measure of the SNP will be how it responds.
#50 by Jeff on January 25, 2011 - 7:04 pm
I think you’re right Andrew. Further to that, I think it might be a ploy to rattle the SNP and knock them off their game and, going by some of the responses from official SNP staff on Twitter, I think they may have achieved that aim. Furthermore, the choice of Twitter is clever too as it nobbles the SNP’s claims from 2007 to be the leading party using the internet.
#51 by NoOffenceAlan on January 25, 2011 - 10:40 pm
This may be an opportunity for the Scottish Lib Dems and the Tories. The SNP/Labour slanging match doesn’t really help Scotland.
#52 by cynicalHighlander on January 25, 2011 - 11:20 pm
OT: Relaunch
It needs an environment input via speakers corner an opportunity to get your voice heard in an ever increasing readership, just a thought.
#53 by Mike on January 25, 2011 - 11:25 pm
Hi Malc/Jeff,
great post. It was interesting watching this today and reflecting on it. It seemed to backfire badly. The relentless tone must have been annoying.
As someone wrote:
‘On @scottishlabour ‘s day of negative, they are leap frogged by @theSNP in followers. Negativity rarely wins the day.’ At time of writing:
2042 followers for Labour
2077 followers for SNP
But maybe Labour were starting from less?
#14 malc writes:
‘given the National Conversation produced… nothing?’ Did it? What did you think it was going to produce? There’s an argument that this post and this blog ARE the national conversation.
Jeff you say: ‘the choice of Twitter is clever too as it nobbles the SNP’s claims from 2007 to be the leading party using the internet.’ But not if it was a flop?
I think the SNPs plans for vertical social media are much subtler and more sophisticated than Labour, but then they have the need. I’m not sure that SNP would be puttibg so much into this if they had the Daily Record and Herald behind them.
..
#54 by Malc on January 26, 2011 - 8:52 am
Mike – of course the NC produced a “chattering classes” discussion of the constitution. But something substantial? Clear, hang-your-hat-on legislative outcome? I think not. That’s what I meant.
Also – bear in mind, it was a comment in the context of what the electorate have seen from this government in relation to the NC, and the electorate have seen no substantive outcome – in other words, nothing.
#55 by Jeff on January 26, 2011 - 9:40 am
Thanks Mike, and I certainly agree that the SNP is more adept at new media but with most not really paying that much attention to the medium, perhaps it is the crass, cack-handed approaches that resonate, for right or wrong reasons.
It may have been a flop (and I agree there) but it may muddy the water over who is ‘best online’ (not that it should matter who is of course).
#56 by Mike on January 26, 2011 - 10:00 am
Yes – the better reponse might have absolute radio silence.
Malc – not sure if the National Conversation was ever a policy-generator but I do think that conversation is happening possibly despite of rather than because of SG actions – and despite of rather than because of dead tree media bias.
Not sure that Calman / Scotland Bill is the talk of the steamie though. Most people still recovering from Christmas gearing up for the onslaught of austerity measures brought to you courtesy of NuLab financial de-regulation and the cabinet of millionaires.
#57 by Malc on January 26, 2011 - 12:14 pm
Mike – “not sure if the National Conversation was ever a policy-generator”.
Um…. I cannot possibly agree with that. It was a consultation – as set out in the SNP’s 2007 manifesto – with the explicit aim of producing legislation resulting in a referendum. It was supposed to be the precursor to something substantial, which is why they were able to use (albeit limited) public money funding it. And that it most certainly has not produced.
#58 by Indy on January 26, 2011 - 3:20 pm
Well the SNP has definitely won the press war. The mainstream media (i.e the media that most people read and watch lol) seem to have pretty much ignored the 100 broken promises thing.
#59 by Jeff on January 26, 2011 - 3:37 pm
I was pleased to see the same Indy. Press team earned their crust yesterday (even if a v small minority including me see increased NHS spending as a bad thing!)
#60 by Johanna Miranda on January 31, 2011 - 12:26 pm
Labours plans amount to the possibility of limited tax raising power of three pence in the pound..What weve said all along and will continue to say is that this will go no way in being able to address the social and economic problems facing Scotland. They have to keep flying the devolution flag in order to beat us during the elections..Personally Im convinced that Labour will never deliver a devolved Scottish parliament. I believe there will always be more pressing demands on an incoming Labour government.