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Nice to fire you, to fire you…

Oct 9

Posted by Jeff in Economy, Parties | 18 Comments

How much does job security mean to you? As low as £2k in employment shares if George Osborne gets his way. The big news from the Chancellor’s Conference speech in Birmingham was that, in exchange for giving up your employment rights, you can be entitled to a stake in the company that you work for.

The deal is a prime example of the incongruity of Lib Dems and Tories in a coalition. Right wing Tories take a Romney-esque view that business can get ahead better if it can fire at will while Lib Dems are of the view that employees owning part of the company they work for will ensure higher job satisfaction and better output. George ‘Frankenstein’ Osborne has tried to merge the two policies together and ended up with something that, not quite a monster, but is certainly less than the sum of its parts. If employment legislation is bad (it isn’t), then get rid of it and if owning part of the company you work for is good (it is), then go for it. Don’t try to engineer a grubby quid-pro-quo compromise that will just be a stick for employers to beat their staff with.

‘Make me profits or I’ll fire you’ may be a regular refrain across the UK if this comes through and it’s a sentiment that was echoed by Ruth Davidson’s speech which, again, had worryingly Romney-esque strains.

‘Only 12% of Scots contribute to the country’s wealth’ the Tory leader railed, leaving journalists and bloggers to scamper off and check the rather dody-sounding statistic. Accurate or not, the soundbite rather cold-heartedly writes off the 88% of teachers, dentists, lollipop persons et al as benefit claimant ne’er do wells. At least Mitt had the goodness to limit his gaffe to insulting 47% of the population.

If I work for a bank that’s part-owned by the state but makes good profits, am I an asset to the country or a quasi civil servant liability Ruth? Actually, don’t bother, I’m not interested.

We’re all in this together the Conservatives claimed and yet – If someone’s not up to scratch, sack them; if someone comes into your house, shoot them; if someone promises you unlikely, untold fortunes over the next decade, give them a rail contract. No wonder Ed Miliband has taken the One Nation crown, the Tories have laid it out on a plate for him.

The Conservatives are not making unreasonable points, but they are couching them in far too unseemly tones. Having employment rights and a decent pension shouldn’t be unattainable, neither should having a public sector job and feeling good about yourself.

David Cameron’s on a downward spiral but I do think Ruth Davidson will improve as a leader over time. I’d like to see her move closer to the compassionate conservative, vote blue go green and hug a hoodie Tory mantras from a few years ago, even if now know there was more hoodwink than hoodie at play there. Her speech at conference was too stark, too black and white for any latent Tory tastes that I may have.

I wonder what Murdo Fraser makes of it all. Although maybe making it easier to fire a certain person might be to his (and his party’s) good fortune as the Tories fight for relevance in Scottish politics.

SNP and Labour – parties led like it’s 1999

Sep 19

Posted by James in Parties | 1 Comment

At Westminster, the two and a half main parties can all make an argument for relative youthfulness amongst their leaders. All three men were born in the late 1960s, making those of us born in the early 1970s wonder what we did with our lives. Policemen look a lot younger than they did, too. But I digress.

The Prime Minister is a relative grey-beard now. He’s marginally the oldest of the three, first elected to Parliament eleven years ago, and having run his party since 2005. His deputy and the Leader of the Opposition were both first elected in 2005, and all three come across as more youthful than any of their predecessors since Blair faced Hague.

Closer to home, the Tories and the Lib Dems both abandoned any sense that you need Holyrood experience to lead a Scottish party: both Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie won their regional seats for the first time the same year they took over at the top. She’s the youngest on this list, but even Rennie is slap bang in the middle of the Westminster leadership age bracket. Green co-convenor Patrick Harvie has been at Holyrood significantly longer – coming up for ten years now – but he’s still not 40 (where’s next year’s party, Patrick?).

Conversely, the SNP and Scottish Labour are both led by politicians born in the 1950s, people who have been in and around leadership roles in their parties for a very long time. Johann Lamont chaired her party’s Scottish Executive Committee almost two decades ago, and Alex Salmond became his party’s leader the first time round in 1990. Both were first elected to Holyrood as part of the first cohort in 1999, although the FM took his ball to Westminster for the Scottish Parliament’s second session.

Why does this matter? Surely we needn’t sign up to the cult of youth? Of course not. One’s late 50s are a perfectly reasonable time to lead a political party, and experience still counts for a lot. But Holyrood, especially in the dinosaur head-clash between Labour and the SNP, has a sour partisanship that I believe is worse even than the mood at Westminster. Both these leaders have spent two decades glaring at each other across a narrow ideological gap (ignoring the constitution). Could this be an aggravating factor behind this petty-minded debating style? It seems unlikely that the tone could be lifted until these parties are no longer led from the 1999 intake.

Deus Eck’s Machina

Sep 17

Posted by Guest Blog in Constitution, Parties | 7 Comments

A wee guest today from Scandinavian-at-heart BN favourite Dom Hinde.

I am writing this under the assumption that most readers will be aquainted with Dr Who. If you’re in the Scottish Greens, almost definitely so. If you’re an SNP type you probably just watch the Tennant and McCoy episodes and have the Karen Gillan action figure.

At the end of the last series of Dr Who, The Doctor, in a typically dead-end situation (time collapsing around him, almost certain death, and an impending binary choice between dying or allowing the universe to continue) came up with a ruse which tricked everyone, both in story and in real life.

He did what any man in a tight squeeze would do; namely persuade a time-travelling and shape-shifting robot to take his place, meaning that the evil antagonists could kill him stone dead and feel happy, whilst he lived to fight another day with the added bonus of getting to hang around with Karen Gillan for another couple of years. It was also revealed that this had been part of his plan all along, and that all his companions had been strung along in a game of cat and mouse designed to engineer such a scenario.

The use of such a deus ex machina to resolve plots is a device as old as Dr Who itself, and as 2014 gets nearer and nearer, it may well materialise (hopefully with a whooshing sound and some props being blown about) that the Yes/No options we thought we were being offered as an audience are in fact superseded by a mysterious third force.  We can’t know what this third thing is until the last possible moment, otherwise it would ruin the structure of the debate, but expect it to offer a satisfactory conclusion for the hero of our story and the general public.

Despite Alex Salmond’s protestations that he is not out after devo-max (and as the leader of a nationalist party, it stands to reason that independence is really what gets him out of bed in the morning), full sovereignty for the Scottish Parliament remains a minority pursuit. There is a real risk that a Yes/No vote could both kill the independence dream and even reverse the polarity in the process of decentralisation in the UK which has clearly been of benefit to everyone except the Westminster village. Furthermore, a no vote would give fuel to a lacklustre Scottish Labour Party who would feel that it had somehow vindicated their frankly appalling campaign, which lacks ideas and conviction to the extent that it makes Colin Baker era Who look like a milestone in television history.

In a few weeks time the Greens will get together to decide whether or not to officially join the Yes Scotland campaign, and whether or not they should give up their demand for a three option referendum, the middle option of which would be a variation on a devo-max theme. I personally am happy with the Green policy of being pro-independence, but still strongly back three options on the ballot paper. We would be doing Scotland a disservice if we sought a settlement which polarised the population and relied on a fifty-one per cent vote.  If it means garnering sixty-per cent or upwards, then I’m all for devo-max and the innumerable benefits for our democracy which it would entail. I’ll go around Scotland handing out leaflets quicker than a Raston Warrior Robot, and whilst Alex Salmond may be God when it comes to deciding what the ballot paper looks like, I’ll happily be the machine.  In the last series of Doctor Who the Doctor asks his Tardis why it never takes him where he wants to go, to which it replies, “but I always took you where you needed to go”.

Geronimo.

Scottish reshuffle – the good, the bad & the ugly

Sep 5

Posted by James in Holyrood, Parties | 21 Comments

This week reshuffle fever is properly on, and both Cameron and Salmond have carried out the most far-reaching of their respective terms of office – all the more extraordinary in Scotland given the high degree of continuity since 2007.

So what about the Scottish personnel changes? Here’s a personal take on the complete list, and hopefully not too partisan a view. Please do let me know if I’ve got any of the changes of roles wrong too.

First Minister – Alex Salmond (no change)
That would have been a surprise.

Deputy First Minister – Nicola Sturgeon (no change)
A change in DFM would have been almost as surprising. Nicola remains Eck’s preferred successor, and her increasingly warm and measured approach is a good balance to his bluster and swagger.

Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth – John Swinney (no change)
Despite not being DFM, this has been a quasi-Prime Ministerial role for John, again balancing the Great Puddin’s Presidential style and ambitions. It’s a broad portfolio, made more manageable by the limits the Scotland Act places on it in terms of revenue (limits the SNP seem determined to stay well clear of, to my frustration). It is also frustrating to me that John, for all his strengths and personal warmth, pursues inactivity on climate change and a regressive tax policy, but a personnel change here would have been destabilising and implausible.

Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing – Alex Neil in, Nicola Sturgeon out
This feels like the first mistake to me. Many folk I respect think Alex Neil is a big hitter, and it’s certainly better for Salmond that he’s comfortably inside the tent. He is also smart and a good performer in the Chamber, especially on the partisan knockabout. But he’s a bruiser and (having had an office next to him for two years) pretty short on people skills. What’s more, Nicola had an opportunity to shine in the Health role, and she took it. While looking better than a Tory Health Secretary is a low bar, she won round many who’d not taken to her earlier in her career. I foresee a much less smooth relationship with the health professionals here.

Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Spending – Nicola Sturgeon in, Alex Neil out
Nicola will bring competence here, and broadening her Ministerial experience may have much to commend it to the collective project, but this swap basically looks like infrastructure wins and health loses.

Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning – Mike Russell (no change)
Although he’s angered the college sector with his merger plans (part of the SNP’s oddly centralist tendencies alongside police force unification), Mike remains one of the SNP’s few true intellectual heavyweights, and this role continues to be a sensible deployment for him. The mess over tuition fees must remain his biggest headache. I understand their position, especially given European law and financial pressures, but the outcome – that rUK students pay fees here but other EU students do not – is profoundly unfair. If I were Mike I might have wanted a horizontal move at least, perhaps.

Cabinet Secretary for Justice – Kenny Macaskill (no change)
This I was very pleased to see. If you’d told me that the best justice ministers I’d see in my lifetime this far would be a SNP one here and a Tory (now departed) in London I would have boggled. But Kenny is an excellent fit for this role, strong on equalities and truly liberal on justice (on minimum sentencing, for example, more liberal than the Lib Dems). The black mark for the “higher power” guff around Megrahi, a decision I nevertheless supported, is only a minor one.

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment – Richard Lochhead (no change)
I’d have liked to see Mike Russell take this on, perhaps, but certainly at least some change. Lochhead is amiable but appears committed primarily to one part of his brief – supporting an anti-conservation position on fisheries that’s not even in the interests of the industry. Not one of the heavy hitters, and not cabinet standard, for my money.

Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs – Fiona Hyslop (no change)
Not well loved by civil servants, but probably the argument for continuity won out here: it’s been the only vaguely turbulent portfolio, given the unfair sacking of Linda Fabiani, then Mike Russell’s spell here. I’d guess she’d be gone at the next reshuffle, whenever that is.

Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism – Fergus Ewing (no change)
A continuing systematic disappointment. The only consolation is that this natural Tory isn’t let anywhere near social policy.

Minister for Local Government and Planning – Derek Mackay (no change)
Expected to be one of the rising stars of the new intake, he’s not impressed as much yet as predicted. I suspect he’ll get there, though.

Minister for Children and Young People – Aileen Campbell (no change)
As with Mackay, great things were expected of the baby of the government, but regular reports from others who’ve dealt with her suggest she’s out of her depth. She’s got an important bill to get through this year, and I hope enough support is available for her through that process. Again, like Mackay, she might get there, but it just might not happen in time.

Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland’s Languages – Alasdair Allan (no change)
Hard-working, level-headed, warm, and the deliverer of Holyrood’s best Tam O’Shanter (to my knowledge), he’s under pressure in his constituency, and this role must be partly with an eye to boosting his profile back home. Even if that wasn’t the case, though, he’s certainly solid Ministerial material.

Minister for Youth Employment – Angela Constance (no change)
Still somewhat under-rated, I think, and could probably have hoped for a promotion.

Minister for Parliamentary Business – Joe Fitzpatrick in, Bruce Crawford and Brian Adam out
Bruce is leaving on personal grounds and in some sad circumstances, but he is a major loss to the Government. Back when this was a hard job, during minority 2007-11, he worked the opposition parties, including us, with warmth, honesty, and as much openness as the position permitted. We knew his role was at least in part to make us like him, and it worked. He’s one of the non-Greens I personally miss now I’m out of the Big Hoose. It’s fortunate that Fitzpatrick doesn’t have as much to do in this role (hence perhaps the more junior title and the assumption of the whip’s position too) because he’s primarily notable for his loyalty and desire for office.

Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs – Roseanna Cunningham (no change)
The more I’ve seen Roseanna in action and on Twitter, the less I’ve taken to her. A bullying tone, an inability to listen, and a true sense that “we are the masters now” is how the SNP should operate. But I see why she couldn’t be moved down or out, given the SNP’s internal politics.

Minister for Environment and Climate Change – Paul Wheelhouse in, Stewart Stevenson out
This could be a major chink of light on some core concerns for Greens. Stevenson is his own biggest fan, and his adulation is misplaced. He never understood how other policy (e.g. on energy or transport) could and should be used effectively to tackle climate change, nor did he ever show any sign of interest in making alternatives to the car more affordable and accessible. Wheelhouse is one of the best of the 2011 intake, I believe he will listen, and frankly almost anyone would have been better here.

Minister for Transport and Veterans – Keith Brown losing housing, gaining veterans
It’s the weirdest portfolio, designed for Keith in particular. Despite substantial policy differences I’d obviously have with him, he’s nobody’s fool and it wouldn’t have made sense to have taken transport away him. Safe pair of hands.

Minister for Welfare and Housing – Margaret Burgess in, part of Keith Brown’s old role
I’m afraid I have to plead even more ignorance here than usual – she’s one of the 2011 intake that hadn’t really impinged on my consciousness.

Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport – Shona Robison (no change)
EDIT: Apologies, I missed Shona out the first time. Extremely competent without necessarily having found an inspirational voice. Hard to see her making a mess of Ministerial responsibilities around the Games, which must already be the lion’s share of her Ministerial responsibilities. Again, no reason for a change here, and another prospect for promotion next time.

Minister for Public Health – Michael Matheson (no change)
One of the lower-profile stalwarts of the original 1999 intake: a plugger-away rather than a star.

Minister for External Affairs and International Development – Humza Yousaf in (new role)
Last but by no means least, if Humza hadn’t been promoted in any reshuffle I’d have been astonished. As a future FM, surely, this is just the next step, and an interesting role despite the limitations of devolution. Three more promotions to go?

The SNP should cease to be after a 2014 Yes victory

Sep 3

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, Ideology, Parties | 45 Comments

If the SNP resolved to disband in the aftermath of a Yes vote, would it be more likely to win in 2014?

It’s Nick Clegg’s fault really, but what isn’t these days. The No2AV campaign successfully, if malevolently, turned the referendum on the Alternative Vote into a referendum on the Lib Dem leader rather than on the issue itself. Faced with having to personally win over more than 50% of the voting electorate, Clegg and his proposed improvements to the UK’s voting system were doomed before the debate had even gotten off the ground. 

The SNP could and should learn from this. After all, it is facing the same opposition that so ruthlessly put the Deputy Prime Minister to the sword. Given the chance, they don’t take prisoners and will leave you tied in knots before you even realise that you are done for.

Take the NATO debate. The SNP is getting publicly bogged down in what its own party policy is rather than facilitating a national discussion on whether Scotland should make this decision on its own in the first place. The Scottish media, naturally, is leading everyone a merry dance in portraying this as an independent Scotland’s de facto NATO policy rather than just one party’s. It is the same, or at least similar, for policy areas such as nuclear power, tuition fees, currency and foreign relations. The SNP speaks for Scotland when, for once, it doesn’t want to. 

There is, of course, every chance that it would be a Labour (or a non-SNP coalition) that makes up an independent Scotland’s first Government. What would our country’s policies be then? Well, we don’t know because every unionist party is wisely keeping schtum and letting the SNP twist in the strengthening southernly breeze.

To win the referendum, the SNP is having to jump through two hoops: 

Hoop 1 – to soften up enough people to the very idea of independence
Hoop 2 – to effectively win the first independent Scotland election on domestic policy two years before it takes place. And with a clear 50% of the vote. 

You simply can’t succeed with odds stacked so heavily against you. No wonder Alex Salmond has summoned all of his political nous to try getting a Devo Max option onto the ballot slip, but that is not going to happen. After all, why should the unionists give the SNP an easy way out when they can win a single question referendum at walking pace and potentially blow the SNP’s formidable machine to smithereens?

The fight that needs to be fought is the first of the two hoops above and in order to stop hoop number two even being a consideration in the public’s mind, the SNP needs to take itself out of the game entirely, and I do mean entirely. I am proposing that the SNP would cease to be after Autumn 2014 if it is a Yes victory with all SNP MSPs immediately being Independents in the Parliament and all party employees made redundant soon after, unless able to be kept on by the aforementioned MSPs.

This would, needless to say, be unfortunate for those involved but there may even be a further, subtle advantage to this. The McChattering classes openly speculating where Sturgeon, MacAskill, Russell et al would go, how many new parties may spring up in place of the mothballed SNP and what sort of policy shakeup this would mean for Scotland across all parties. It would be a fascinating discussion at an already exciting juncture in Scottish politics and the more people speculate, the more they’ll want to know the answers, answers that can only come with a Yes vote. 

Let’s be honest, the SNP would be creaking at the seams if it didn’t have independence to bind it together. The party contains, from top to bottom, would-be Conservatives, Greens, Labourites and even Lib Dems. Pull away that Saltire-emblazoned big-top canvas and Nats would be tumbling out in all manner of directions.

Perhaps the very onset of independence is the time to let that free for all take place. Why delay the inevitable if it’s win-win?

Another factor to consider in all of this is that a significant slice of the establishment has a deep-seated, irrational hatred of the SNP. Examples abound from Coventry journalists labelling us racists, Tom Harris’ famous ‘hate fest’ comment, Guido Fawkes’ assistant’s “scum” insult and of course the unimaginative classic ‘xenophobe’ charge from MSPs in the Lib Dems and Labour. The SNP’s collective instinct surrounding this problem is to fight back fairly but harder, and that has reaped dividends over the past decade. However, there are times when flight is a smarter choice than fight and robbing the exhaustive list of influential persons across the UK who don’t have a good thing to say about the SNP of their bogeyman may be the smartest means to a particular end.

To take this one step further and for the SNP to actively talk up Johann Lamont as the likely first Prime Minister of an independent Scotland would be the ultimate example of flattering to deceive. How many soft but currently resolutely partisan ‘Labour’ votes could be turned with that inducement alone?

And, needless to say, to take the duplicity to the fullest extent, the SNP could simply reform under a different name and brand in the relatively long period between a Yes victory in Autumn 2014 and the Spring of 2016 when the first elections would likely take place. All is fair in love and war, after all. The Scottish Social Democrats has a nice ring to it, a title that hasn’t done too badly across most of the Nordic countries in the past few decades.

Anyway, if there is a No vote in 2014, this is all largely redundant. The SNP would regroup, lick their wounds and try again in a generation, or sooner if they can engineer it. I see the Quebec Independence Party is set to return to power again, promising a new referendum, a mere 17 years since the last one. Noting that the one before that was only 15 years ago, there’s realistically really not so long for the SNP to have to wait to rebuild their strategy and have another go at this constitutional question. 

Not that many in the SNP will be considering defeat. Indeed, they are presumably willing to leave it all out on the field to get the result they want at the first time of asking. Well, why not make that literally ALL out on the field? Furthermore, to invoke Clegg again, is there a hint of a suggestion that to not stick to the underlying objective of the party and to not disband the SNP after an independence victory smacks a bit too much of a love for the ministerial limousines? We wouldn’t want the SNP staggering on into the era of independence primarily because its once-radical leaders enjoy their privileged lifestyles too much.

No, the longer this moribund excuse for an independence debate continues, the longer the polls remain resolutely rigid and in order to concentrate Scottish minds into delivering its goal, the Scottish National Party might be required to make the ultimate sacrifice.