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Who pays the piper?

Jul 12

Posted by Guest Blog in Holyrood, Parties, Westminster | 8 Comments

Thanks to Andrew Smith for another guest post. Andrew is a Scottish born communications professional in London, who has previously blogged for us about the referendum campaign and, well, the referendum campaign. You can buy his debut novel here, or read his blog at www.blackberrybanter.wordpress.com.

Bagpipes at WestminsterSince the local tremor from the Falkirk Labour Party’s candidate selection became a political earthquake, the issues of party funding and donations have been at the top of the news agenda. Following a difficult week, Ed Miliband had what may have been his best PMQs outing to date, during which he reiterated support for the largest overhaul of the Labour/Trade Union relationship for a generation and called for an individual donor limit of £5000.

SNP MP Pete Wishart berated the entire spectacle of PMQs, tweeting “Hope the Scottish people are observing this rotten Westminster and concluding that we want nothing whatsoever to do with it”, which made me think about whether funding is a Westminster issue or a UK wide one. I tweeted him back to ask if the SNP favours a cap on political donations, but he must have missed it as he didn’t reply: funnily enough neither did any of the other four SNP MPs who I tweeted the same question to.

It could be because they were all away from their desks all day, but the SNP isn’t exactly free of funding controversy. In both 2007 and 2011 roughly 50% of their total election spend was provided by the same person: Brian Souter. Souter’s views on homosexuality caused many to question if he was the sort of person any party should take money from, but that aside there were other issues. The party was accused of changing transport policy shortly after the first donation was made, to one that favoured Souter, and then the Scottish Government nominated him for a knighthood shortly after his second one. In both cases the SNP has denied influence from Souter.

This isn’t an anti-SNP point: their defence is presumably that elections cost money and that Labour has an in-built financial advantage due to union funding. This is fair, their spending in 2005 and 2010 general elections was far lower (£193k and £315k compared to the 1,141,662 in 2011). However, with the possibility of Westminster being reformed it won’t be long before someone suggests Holyrood should have the same debate.

With that in mind I have included some of the points I think are important:

  • The 2007 election saw the SNP outspending Labour by over £250,000 and winning by a solitary seat. Every penny counts!
  • In 2011 the SNP spent £57,449 more on their election campaign than Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Green Party put together.
  • With only £131,938 in 2011, the SGP had the lowest spend for any party with MSPs. Smaller parties lose out on free promotion through TV interviews etc, but if they are outspent by the bigger ones to this extent they are squeezed on the ground too.

Is this a bad thing? I think it is. When wealth distorts elections it only favours the status quo. In one fine swoop Labour has proposed cutting its own trade union funding (quite rightfully in my opinion) and made its position on a donations cap clear. Labour’s future corporate funding will only materialise if it looks like they have any chance of power, and in that instance it raises questions about why business only back winners – what do they want in exchange?

I don’t think anyone is suggesting state funding of political parties (I would ask the government if I could opt out if even 1p found its way into UKIP’s coffers) but in a modern, progressive, 21st century democracy like Scotland it seems like something should be done to address the imbalance.

Vince: your P45 is in the post

Jul 10

Posted by James in Parties, Westminster | 3 Comments

Royal Mail binAll too often since 2010, the left has found itself on the back foot: protesting after fees for English students got trebled (thanks Nick!), protesting after the bedroom tax was introduced, and protesting after the most vulnerable got handed over to the unmerciful ATOS. None of the Coalition’s assaults on the poor and the public services they rely upon have yet been overturned this way, important though protest is.

The occasional win, on the other hand, like the 38 Degrees-led campaign against forestry privatisation in England, came because people took action beforehand. Half a million signatures, some useful polling, and some very vocal pressure on MPs did the job.

With that in mind, surely Royal Mail privatisation must be the next target?

Who, outside this neoliberal coalition, thinks Royal Mail would be better off in private hands? It’s a profitable business, which either reduces taxes/borrowing or allows Ministers to spend more, depending on taste. The competition to which it’s exposed would be ramped up, jeopardising the universal service.

We should be bringing key public assets (starting with the rail network) back into public ownership, not repeating the mistakes of the 1980s and 1990s. As John Harris says, at a Westminster level “we are largely being ruled by people who seem to think that modern government should amount to a school play about the Thatcher years”.

So what kind of action can be taken? The CWU have set up a campaign called Save Our Royal Mail, and I would advise you to sign the petition here. I don’t want to hear about how this will be fine if only we vote Yes in 2014: by then the damage would be done.

But petitions are unlikely to be enough. The CWU will also ballot for industrial action at the end of this month (Green motion in support of that ballot), and everyone who cares about the future of public services in this country, whatever its borders, should support strike action if their members back it. The unions will have a key role to play in defending their workplace and our vital service.

What else can be done? Personally I like the idea of using any Freepost addresses for the Tory Party or their hypocritical Lib Dem sidekicks. Notable Tory blogger Iain Dale supported a Labour campaign that made First Capital Connect pay to be complained about in this way, back in 2008. Roads protesters used to send the companies destroying their environment breeze blocks at their expense. Wouldn’t it be entirely appropriate if Tory or Lib Dem MPs got sent weighty but unthreatening objects to their Freepost addresses, along with mock P45 letters they will have paid to receive, letters which explain why they should think again on this?

Remodelling the unions’ links with Labour

Jul 9

Posted by James in Parties | 2 Comments

Has Ed Miliband’s “Clause Four moment” finally come, with his plans to require union members to opt into Labour support? It’s certainly brave, not least financially, but might it be the right thing to do?

On one level, it’s none of my business what those links are. I’m not a Labour supporter nor, currently, in a union. The Brownite left of the party see the unions as a crucial part of Labour history (which they are) and argue this historic link must be protected. For the Blairite right they are dinosaurs, politically incapable of appealing to Middle England. Both sides regard the other as manipulative and almost entryist (and the first half of that is hard to argue with in either case: although hardly unusual in a political party). But the relationship matters beyond those directly involved. Today’s announcement from the leader looks like an attempt to park the tanks in the sweet spot, not just a triangulated mid-point.

The relationship between the party and the unions remains thoroughly intertwined. More than a third of the places on Labour’s National Executive Committee are officially reserved for the unions. Unions wield 50% of the votes at conference, something which doesn’t feature in Labour’s modest FAQ on such gatherings. In 2011, the unions provided 90%+ of Labour’s funding, although that proportion has fallen away, and will fall much further under this plan.

The unions founded the Labour Party’s predecessor the Labour Representation Committee at the turn of the twentieth century for a good reason. The working classes were barely represented in Parliament, and indeed the universal male franchise was little more than thirty years old. If the mass unions of the time wanted parliamentarians who cared about the grinding conditions of the late Victorian working poor, they would have to get them elected.

“Breaking the link” with the unions, therefore, is about as totemic a possible betrayal as can be imagined for the Labour left, which in the current febrile atmosphere around Falkirk includes the Brownite centre of the party as well as the John McDonnell left. But the current relationship feels wrong from the outside for a number of reasons. In policy terms, Labour hasn’t operated as a party that puts working people first for a very long time, whether you see July 1994 or October 1951 as the end point for that.

Unions (rightly) bemoan the increasing privatisation of the NHS in England, which has proceeded apace under Tory and Labour governments alike for decades now. They got a minimum wage for their members (and the rest of us – thanks guys!) but at a low level, and one that’s fallen behind inflation since 2009. The extent to which Labour are less distressing a prospect for office than the Tories has been eroded and eroded, and I would have thought the recent wholesale adoption of Tory austerity might have led to more outcry from the unions.

So what’s best for union members? What’s best for Labour members? And what’s best for democracy more widely?

For union members, this looks like progress. If they support Labour, which applies to fewer than is usually assumed, they will now get a direct and clearer role in the party’s democracy. Those who don’t support Labour won’t see their money spent trying to elect Labour politicians, which has to be better too. If I’m ever employed by someone other than myself I’ll feel much happier joining a union again and knowing I’m not listed as a Labour supporter thereby. It’ll also put pressure on the unions to be more internally democratic themselves: trade union leaderships of both the left and the right often appear like an out of touch elite, more like the old Soviet nomenklatura than true leaders.

For Labour members, they will see a substantial influx of new but proper members. If Labour’s internal democracy becomes properly one member one vote throughout, with newly empowered individual trade unionists taking part, it might just be revived from the moribund and pointless state it’s in now. This might even genuinely swing Labour a little back from the right-wing anti-worker positions it’s adopted over the last twenty years in particular, because some of those non-Labour supporting union members will be to the left, but probably more will be to the right. (2008 trade unionist voting intentions: 38% Labour, 33% Tory, 14% LD, 16% other)

It’ll also free Labour up to challenge corporate power over politics, if they’re brave enough, as primarily expressed through donations to the Tories. When their individual trade union members have all actively ticked a box that says “I want a proportion of my subs to go to Labour”, it’ll be much easier for them to take on those Tory double standards. Those conference and NEC rules should be next to be reformed, too. That doesn’t mean scrapping union places on the NEC, mind. Whatever the percentage of true members under this scheme have come in through the unions, let them elect that proportion of NEC members if they wish, although direct democracy throughout could also be considered.

Pending the detail, this looks like a smart move, albeit one forced on the Labour leadership by hypocritical media lines run by the Tories and Progress. It looks better for individual trade unionists, worse for their leadership, better for Labour members, worse for those who want them to stick to unpopular Blairite prescriptions, and just possibly better for the country. Although I’m not holding my breath for an improved Labour party after the last 20 years.

Scottish politics’ Old Firm

May 30

Posted by Dom in Activism, Democracy, Environment, Equality, Governance, Local government, Parties, Society | Comments off

A few things have happened to me in the last few weeks which have reminded me of the importance of community to every aspect of our lives, and how this can be a wonderful thing.

Last Sunday I joined tens of thousands of other Hibs fans at the Scottish Cup Final in Glasgow. To see half the stadium singing Sunshine on Leith – a crowd made up of people who you recognised from bars and shops and the local swimming pool – underlined what a powerful thing community can be. Hibs went down 3-0 to a Celtic side with a global fanbase and several times more money composed of players from across the globe.  A defeat, but one which cemented the feeling that Leith is a very special place with a very specific identity and community.

A few days later came another defeat dished out by the big boys, but this time it was Edinburgh and not Glasgow putting an end to a long and hard fought campaign. The City of Edinburgh council’s Labour/SNP administration made the decision to sell the local fun pool to a private developer instead of the preferred community option that it should be taken over by a community organisation and run on a non-profit basis with a public subsidy. The council have opted to sell it to a property developer with plans for a generic indoor play zone, despite the area already having indoor play facilities.

Now, to return to the question of Hibernian FC, it has a fine tradition of producing footballers who are then purchased for apparently irresistible  money by Glasgow teams, the rationale being that the payoff is too good to refuse and that it will help the team build and move on in the long term.

As long as I have been a supporter of Hibernian FC this has demonstrably failed to happen, and I am worried that the same will be true of the Leith Waterworld saga. Were that one million pounds ploughed directly back into the local area it would be welcome, but it won’t be. That one million pounds could cover the whole of Leith in safe cycle and walking projects to keep kids fit, or it could be used for community startups or form the basis of a cooperative energy company which would more or less print money for the community to reinvest. Hell, it could even pay for a few metres of the tram line down Leith Walk, which we are in far greater need of than the poverty-stricken residents of Edinburgh Airport are (on this note it is also worth pointing out the council masterplan to develop the greenbelt land around the tram line by the airport when we have a huge number of brownfield sites which are either underdeveloped, underused or contain housing so bad it should probably be torn down anyway).

Leith is not a suburb of Edinburgh – it is a cosmopolitan place in its own right full of wonderful people. We have been let down by decision makers who do not know what the needs and desires of the local community are, in a failure of both democracy and common sense. The decision has cemented people’s dissatisfaction with structures of governance which view our assets as belonging to the city chambers and not to the people of our communities. We may not to be able to afford Leigh Griffiths, but we can definitely afford to invest in our collective resources.

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The Aberdeen Donside by-election

May 7

Posted by James in Elections, Holyrood, Parties | 2 Comments

Brian Adam MSPThe sad death of Brian Adam MSP just under a fortnight ago means the first Holyrood by-election of this session, and only the sixth since the Parliament was established. Only in the first of those, the 2000 contest for Ayr, did a seat change hands.

This is a particularly crucial vote for Holyrood’s numbers, given that the SNP have lost five of the 69 they elected in 2011, one to the PO’s chair, two on principle, one to a complete absence of principle, and now, regrettably, Brian. If they fail to retain this seat they will theoretically be a minority administration again.

The 2011 result in Aberdeen Donside was hardly close, though – Brian had a majority of more than 7,000 and a margin of more than 25% over his Labour challenger, Barney Crockett, now leader of Aberdeen Council.

Labour held the predecessor seat in 1999, narrowly lost it to Brian in 2003 (he served in the first session as a regional MSP), and lost it by 15% to him in 2007. So the trend-lines here seem clear. The 2011 result was as follows:

Party Candidate Votes +/– % +/–
SNP Brian Adam * 14709 +2544 55.4 +10.6
Labour Barney Crockett 7615 -999 28.5 -3.2
Conservative Ross Thomson 2166 +139 8.1 +0.6
Liberal Democrat Millie McLeod 1606 -2734 6.0 -10.0
Independent David Henderson # 317 +317 1.2 +1.2
National Front Christopher Willett # 213 +213 0.8 +0.8
Majority 7175 Turnout 26707 Swing +6.9% SNP hold

And it’s certainly no more than a two-horse race, assuming it’s that, with the Tories and Lib Dems scoring less than 10% each in 2011. It’s also the worst part of the North-east for the Greens, should the local branch choose to stand – we polled just 2.5% on the list in this seat that year. If I were Labour I would be inclined to throw the kitchen sink at this campaign – the symbolic power of depriving the SNP of their majority would be hard to over-estimate, unlikely as that result would be.

In terms of candidates, the totally unsubstantiated rumour I’m hearing from the area is that Mark McDonald MSP, the final SNP member elected from the North-east regional list, may choose to do what Richard Lochhead and Mary Scanlon did in 2006 – resign a list seat to fight for a constituency, perhaps against Cllr Willie Young for Labour.

If Mark were to stand, and if he were to win as would be expected, the actual new face at Holyrood would be Christian Allard, sixth from the SNP’s 2011 regional list. Curiously, Mr Allard is the last candidate on that list not yet at Holyrood, given the SNP’s extraordinary success in the North-east, so any subsequent vacancy on their list before 2016 would then go unfilled.

Anyway, RIP Brian. I knew him pretty well from his 2007-2011 role (which from a Green perspective was mostly deputising for Bruce Crawford when the SNP needed Green votes in the Chamber), and he was tireless, totally committed to the cause, and always warm even when he was being blunt. He loved elections, too. Let’s hope this is a good one, much as it’d be better if it wasn’t happening at all.