Our friends at the Daily Record have gone a little off the deep end today. We gave them a story that we’re going to oppose the SNP’s cut to the Freight Facilities Grant, a concern we share with everyone from Highland Spring to Aslef via WWF, and that we would work with Labour on this issue, not least because Labour MSP Cathy Jamieson has a very sensible motion up for debate at Member’s Business tonight.
With this move, SNP Ministers are saving just £7m, a sixth of one percent of the money they’re blowing an unnecessary additional bridge over the Forth. Yet all the evidence is this grant is exceptionally effective at shifting freight from road to rail, cutting emissions, helping business and boosting jobs. It’s an utterly perverse cut.
On this basis, though, the Record went for “POLITICAL MARRIAGE OVER RAIL CARRIAGE“, claiming cooperation on this issue hints at a Labour-Green coalition after the election. On one level, if we elect enough Green MSPs that any sort of two-party arrangement is even a possibility we’ll certainly have had an excellent night. Also, we certainly want to appeal to left Labour voters who know that Labour list votes rarely elect anyone, and, like the News of the World piece at the weekend, the editorial was a pretty clear message to those voters that a second vote for the Greens will be effective.
But the idea a joint campaign on rail freight means marriage is adding two and two to make an awful lot more than five. When SNP Ministers came to Parliament with near-zero climate targets, we worked with Labour and the Lib Dems to defeat them twice because we agreed with them, not because we loved them. When we worked with the SNP to try and win the case on minimum pricing, no-one said that foretold wedding bells. Being ready to back a Referendum Bill didn’t make us the SNP’s sweethearts, nor did voting with SNP Ministers and Lib Dem MSPs to abolish tuition fees suggest an awkward threesome.
#1 by Douglas McLellan on January 13, 2011 - 1:04 pm
Methinks you doth protest too much…..
The numbers as they stand suggest we are moving back to a coalition of some type. The Lib Dems are being hammered by their support for going into a coalition so I wonder if the Greens are worried that if they do something similar their own support will also be somewhat vexed so are worriedly distancing themselves from any suggestion that this might happen. It might actually be ok for Patrick Harvie to say he wont go into a coalition anyway. This is because any trade off to get some Green Manifesto commitments enacted would probably mean an unenvironmental issue or two being enacted by a coalition government (i.e. building the new Forth Road Bridge) so would open him up to accusations of hypersonic for criticising the Lib Dems for making compromises.
Also why are the Lib Dems not with you on this?
#2 by Douglas McLellan on January 13, 2011 - 1:06 pm
Hypersonic?! I of course mean hypocrisy.
#3 by Malc on January 13, 2011 - 2:21 pm
What numbers are you looking at Douglas? I suspect they are probably the same ones I’m looking at, but they suggest to me Lab minority, not coalition. But I guess that’s probably just a difference in interpretation. 🙂
#4 by Jeff on January 13, 2011 - 2:05 pm
I agree with Douglas, I don’t really see what your concern is to be honest James. Indeed, a 1st vote – Labour, 2nd vote – Green approach from a large part of the public is probably your best bet for a great result. If the Greens fight too hard to be seen as independent and non-aligned then it could well be to your detriment given how few people will put their first vote to the Greens and given how few pre-election prime-time programmes Patrick will be invited to (unfairly, but that’s the way it is). I don’t see how this Record piece harms your cause whatsoever.
I’m not saying that you should be the Parliament bicycle (for want of a better term) but a bit of puckering up to all parties, letting the public visualise a Labour-Green coalition and an SNP-Green coalition etc, depending on what their first vote is, makes pragmatic sense to me. Even if you’d perhaps feel just a little bit dirty as a result….
#5 by Malc on January 13, 2011 - 2:26 pm
Ruling out coalition in 2007 didn’t really harm the Tories. Okay, they didn’t move forward any, but they didn’t slip back either.
I think – though I’m sure James will correct me if I’m wrong – is that the objection is simply that the Record has decided that because they agree with Labour on ONE issue then coalition is settled, while they’ve ignored agreement with other parties as meaningless.
One further thought. If the Greens were to pitch a “1st vote Lab/ 2nd vote Green” strategy (which I know you are not suggesting, merely commenting that it wouldn’t be so bad) then they’d alienate the LARGEST block of voters from 2007 (the SNP voters) who may have considered voting for them. Maybe go with that in Glasgow/ West and aim for a “1st vote SNP, 2nd vote Green” in NE/ Highlands? Tricky needle to thread though, I agree.
#6 by Daniel on January 13, 2011 - 2:53 pm
The last point is a good one. I don’t see what would be wrong with targeting both SNP & Labour voters – surely a fair few of the 80,000 or so Labour list voters in Glasgow would prefer a Green to the SNP and the same could perhaps be said for SNP supporters up north?
#7 by Malc on January 13, 2011 - 3:36 pm
I would have thought so. But then, as Indy I think has said in a previous post, SNP & Labour VOTERS actually split their votes between the parties… its just that ACTIVISTS would never dream of it. So the Greens might have a problem breaking that cycle.
The only problem with such a strategy (ie – asking two different parties’ voters in different parts of the country to vote for you with their other vote) is just that: that it can’t be a national strategy. So possible… but difficult I think.
#8 by Doug Daniel on January 13, 2011 - 3:54 pm
I can think of perhaps two reasons why the marriage analogy only goes one way. I am of course working on the premise that the Daily Record is a pro-Labour, anti-SNP newspaper here. Which, it is.
Firstly, to talk of a marriage between the SNP and Greens would be to imply that not everyone disagrees with the SNP, and hence that perhaps not everything the SNP says is completely wrong. It’s in the interests of pro-Labour media outlets to have us believe that nobody agrees with the SNP, certainly not on anything more than maybe one or two things. The Record would probably prefer any party to win other than the SNP, so their goal is to try and get as many people as possible onto the non-SNP side.
Secondly, by talking of a Labour-Greens marriage, they’re implying that Labour must have credentials that the Greens agree with, thus suggesting that if you’re perhaps a Green supporter at heart, but know that your constituency vote is not going to lead to a Green MSP, then you’d be better placing your vote with Labour rather than the SNP. They’re essentially saying “if you’re going to vote tactically, then vote Labour to get Green”.
That’s my take on it anyway…
#9 by James on January 13, 2011 - 5:34 pm
There is a risk there, true. But I’m reading it as the Record giving the readers an argument for a Labour first vote and a Green second vote. Fingers crossed that’s how it comes across.
#10 by Indy on January 13, 2011 - 3:55 pm
I don’t think I did say that – what I said was that uin my experience most Labour voters have SNP as their second preference and most SNP voters have either previously voted Labour or have Labour as their second preference.
Second preferences, as such, only really come into play in STV votes which is why we started asking the question. Would never suggest to a voter that the regional vote is a second preference – some voters do treat it that way but the parties strongly discourage that point of view.
Even from a Green perspective I am not sure there would be any advantage in promoting the idea of Green as a second preference, as opposed to a second vote Green type of campaign.
#11 by Malc on January 13, 2011 - 4:04 pm
Apologies Indy. Maybe it was someone else’s comment – or indeed some bastardisation of yours that I was thinking of. I don’t think I’ve talked preferences though – and the Greens have always adopted a “2nd vote Green” campaign. Maybe they’ll use it again this time round.
#12 by Indy on January 13, 2011 - 6:24 pm
yes because they don’t stand in constituency seats in most cases – but I assume they want to be peoples first preference for their second vote!