Wings Over Scotland

As the fallout from Cruddasgate continues, it's instructive to watch the attempts of both the Unionist parties and the media to drag the SNP through the mud along with the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems. The print and online media have both had a stab today, with the Telegraph running a lengthy piece about Alex Salmond inviting lottery winners Chris and Colin Weir for a cup of tea at Bute House before they made a £1m donation to the SNP, and the Caledonian Mercury picking up the same story as part of a Hamish Macdonell op-ed.

The latter is the more interesting, on account of a couple of somewhat contradictory paragraphs in it. About halfway down the column, Macdonell makes this assertion:

"The issue here is not the money or where it comes from. The issue here is the nature of what is being promised by the parties in return for these donations."

And it's a very fair point. Nobody sensible is objecting to people giving money to political parties in itself. Donations are absolutely vital to the continued functioning of our political system as it stands. There are (deeply unpopular) arguments to be made about changing that system to one of public funding, and there are arguments against having political parties (rather than individual members) at all, but neither scenario is currently the case, so parties need donations. Nothing wrong with that.

As Macdonell correctly points out, the issue is whether those donations are being used to influence policy in favour of vested (usually commercial) interests. But if that's the case, what are the Weirs doing in the story? Macdonell's demand that:

"If the UK’s most successful lottery winners are invited in for tea with the first minister before offering the SNP a huge donation, that should be declared."

…makes no sense in the stated context of influence being the issue. There's no suggestion that the Weirs sought to influence any SNP policy. As former SNP activists it's probably fair to assume that they already support most of the party's aims, and it's hard to see what benefit they could possibly be seeking in return, being as they're already sitting on a bank account with 160 million quid in it.

We have no argument with the broad thrust of the CalMerc piece. We're all in favour of transparency when it comes to donations. But then, the SNP made no secret of the Weirs' donation – indeed, it'd be fair to say they shouted it from the rooftops. So whether the First Minister entertained them to a cuppa and a Caramel Wafer beforehand is neither here nor there. Actively soliciting contributions is not in itself the slightest bit underhand – every party does it openly every day.

The Weirs have no place in any story about dodgy donations. They are not a business, and are not seeking favours in return for their money. They are Scottish citizens and residents, not foreigners prohibited by law from giving money to politicial parties. And the First Minister, it seems, actively sought them out, rather than them paying for access to him in order to lobby the Scottish Government for their own ends.

But just as with the expenses scandal, the forces of Unionism will not be dissuaded by such trivialities as the relevant facts as they try to haul the SNP into the pit of sleaze alongside the London parties. As ever, we recommend reading the pro-Union press – if you must read it at all – through a very long lens.

The story isn't, of course, that Labour failed to vote against the 50p tax-rate cut when the SNP and Plaid Cymru put forward a motion in the House Of Commons. The truth that it was a "screw-up" is entirely believable in the light of Labour's general ineptitude, and not that big a deal in itself. The rate cut was happening anyway no matter whether Labour voted on the motion or not, and in the flurry of essentially meaningless post-Budget motions, missing out on one of them is pretty insignificant.

Had Labour left it at that, a compliant Scottish media would probably have seen them get away with it altogether, as they'd hoped. (Even now, more than 36 hours later, only the Scotsman has covered it at all, in a tiny little story with no byline buried near the bottom of the Politics section.)

But then Willie Bain stepped in. Late on Tuesday night, the MP for Glasgow North East responded to some criticism of Labour's abstention on Twitter, with an admission of what many in Scotland have long suspected/known – that Labour opposes anything proposed by the SNP, regardless of the merits of the thing in question.

The SNP, unsurprisingly, summed the comment up in uncompromising terms:

“It is clear that Labour hates the SNP much more than it loves Scotland. Even when it came to voting against a Tory tax cut for millionaires, Labour could not put its resentment of the SNP aside in the interests of ordinary working people."

But we'll charitably assume that Bain's extraordinary on-the-record revelation (he hasn't deleted the tweet, though it's impossible to say if that's out of honour or a recognition of the futility of trying to delete internet trails) occurred too late at night for the Scottish press to have picked it up in time for the morning editions. We'll be watching closely, though, to see if tonight's TV and tomorrow's papers consider it in any way newsworthy that Scotland's Labour MPs are now by their own acknowledgement more concerned with pettily fighting the SNP than serving the interests of their voters.

If you're finding all the polarised ideological debate about the Budget tax changes a bit hard to follow, Wings over Scotland is here to help. Simply put, what the Chancellor is apparently expecting us all to believe is essentially this:

"Dear Rich McWealthy,

We note that last year you had £40,000 of higher-rate taxable income. Well done you! We asked you to pay tax on that amount at 50% – sending you an invoice for £20,000 – but you employed a clever accountant (who you paid £1000) in order to reduce your tax bill to just £6,000.

This year, however, we see that you again have £40,000 of higher-rate taxable income. As we do not wish to see you flee the country and thereby damage the prospects of economic growth and wealth creation, we have decided to reduce the upper tax rate to 45%, so you'll only have to pay us £18,000 rather than the £20,000 we (with hindsight quite unreasonably) demanded last year.

We are sure that in the light of this new lower rate, you will be happy to send the Treasury a cheque for £18,000 rather than the £6,000 you paid last year, and that since the new rate is so much more agreeable you won't feel the need to procure the services of the clever accountant again (even though he'd still be saving you a whopping £11,000).

Thanks very much in advance for the extra money! We'll be spending it on keeping your local library open, so that all the OAPs and disabled people who can't afford their fuel bills any more will have somewhere to sleep next winter.

Love,
HMRC"

If you're swallowing that one, please get in touch immediately. We have an investment opportunity you're going to be keen to get involved with.

Ed Miliband's speech to the Scottish Labour conference, 2nd March 2012:

"If we believe in the idea of Scotland as a progressive beacon, why would we turn our back on the redistributive union – the United Kingdom?"

John McFall, Baron of Alcluith, Scottish Labour MP until 2010 and ex-chairman of the House Of Commons Treasury Committee, on BBC News at 8.46am, 21st March 2012:

"The North-South divide is getting bigger, not smaller."

When Labour ask you to vote for the status quo of the "redistributive Union" in 2014, readers, remember which direction it is that the party – by its own admission – wants to keep redistributing the UK's money in.

We were struck by a little parable in the Scotsman today, penned by our favourite teller of fireside morality tales Michael Kelly. (Who, as attentive readers will know, only fails to grace our “Zany Comedy Relief” links column due to the lack of any central hub address for his contributions to the paper.)

In what we could most charitably describe as a “there but for the grace of God” scenario, the man whose chairmanship of Celtic took it to within hours of the fate that’s currently befalling Rangers reiterated the tired old lie about how Scotland needs both of the Old Firm, but in the course of the article he also passed on an interesting fact we hadn’t previously known.

“Rangers were once before in financial difficulty. It was in the 1920’s when my grandfather, James Kelly (a former Scotland centre-half), was chairman of Celtic. Rangers had a temporary cash flow problem and their board came out to his house in Blantyre to explain the problem and seek help. Celtic gave them an unconditional short-term loan. The fact that Rangers felt able to ask and that Celtic willingly responded indicates that both clubs were aware of their inter-dependence.”

We couldn’t help but find the 1920s football situation strikingly analogous to the modern political one. Rangers and Celtic are supposedly the bitterest of rivals, and their fans treat each other like diametrically opposed poles, with honour and virtue the sole property of one side and bigotry and hatred found exclusively on the other. Yet when it comes to the crunch, the institutions themselves know which side their bread is buttered, and unhesitatingly come together in their mutual interest. Remind you of any two big political parties at all?

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We greatly enjoyed the intervention of former First Minister and now Lord of Glenscorrodale, Jack McConnell, in the referendum debate last night. Appearing on both Scotland Tonight and Newsnight Scotland, he graced the nation's airwaves to present a statesman-like call for "compromise" on the planning of the vote on Scotland's constitutional question, and generously offering his assistance to the Prime Minister and First Minister in untangling the situation. Our favourite was his explanation of how to compromise on the timing of the poll.

"There are those who are pressing for the referendum to be held this year as quickly as possible, the SNP want it to be held in nearly three years' time – I'm suggesting we compromise on that, let's have an agreement that we hold the referendum in about 18 months' time, maybe 15 months' time."

Now, we're not quite sure who the people allegedly "pressing for the referendum to be held this year" are. We don't know of anyone even remotely sane who's seriously proposed that it could or should be held in 2012 – the UK government's own suggested timetable is for an "early" vote in September 2013. The SNP, meanwhile, want "Autumn 2014", which is widely held to mean October of that year. The SNP have never confirmed that claim, but let's use it for the sake of argument.

What that means is that Lord McConnell's proposal for a "compromise" date between September 2013 and October 2014 is, um… September 2013. (Or alternatively June 2013, ie three months earlier than even the UK government's preferred date, never mind the Scottish Government's.) No wonder he repeatedly struggled to conceal an embarrassed smirk during the Scotland Tonight interview.

Lord McConnell's other envisaged compromises follow surprisingly similar lines.

NUMBER OF QUESTIONS:
Unionists: one question
SNP: open to second question
Compromise: one question

FRANCHISE:
Unionists: no vote for 16/17-year-olds
SNP: vote for 16/17-year-olds
Compromise: no vote for 16/17-year-olds.

LEGALITY:
Unionists: UK Government must give permission to hold the referendum
SNP: Scottish Government has the right to hold the referendum
Compromise: UK Government must give permission to hold the referendum

And so on and so forth. Amusingly, the noble Lord also still hasn't even conceded that independence gets to be the "Yes" answer in the referendum, putting forward the hilarious "compromise" notion that BOTH sides should get a "Yes" option, astonishingly concluding that this would be an aid to clarity and decisiveness. (Though he subsequently went on to talk of "the Yes and No campaigns" anyway.)

We await the logical outcome of Lord McConnell's thought process – that we should compromise between the SNP's position of having a referendum and the Unionist side's ingrained opposition to the whole idea, by simply not having a referendum at all.

If you’re a bit naive, it can be hard to understand why the parties of the Union are so bitterly opposed to a second question on the referendum ballot. All three of them, after all, claim to want more powers for Scotland (though not yet, and they don’t want to tell us which ones), and after all the fuss they’ve made before it seems odd that they don’t feel the need to get any democratic mandate for them.

It’s also odd because it’s pretty much agreed by everyone on all sides that a second question for, let’s call it Devo-X, would all but completely sink the SNP’s chances of winning a Yes to full independence, whereas in a straight two-way face-off it’s already very close and the numbers (as well as the arguments) are slowly but steadily moving in the Nats’ direction. That appears an awfully big gamble for the No parties to take purely in order to deny the SNP something (more powers, but short of independence) that all the Unionists are supposedly in favour of.

So what’s the real reason? Well, it’s not too hard to figure out.

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The Unionist parties aren’t completely stupid. While we all know that one of their core arguments against independence is that Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to survive without the rest of the UK, they’re not quite daft enough to be caught coming out and bluntly saying it in those terms.

So they were faced with a tricky dilemma with the release of the latest GERS figures last week, which showed that Scotland contributed over £2bn more to the UK economy in the 2009/10 fiscal year than it got back in UK Government spending. (And that figure itself neglects a number of large discrepancies in the figures, where money considered as “Scottish spending” isn’t actually spent in Scotland at all, such as almost a billion pounds on defence alone.)

One approach is to get friendly journalists to print unchallenged quotes and then use them in your headlines. The other, not-unrelated strategy is to spin the figures in such a way that Scotland subsidising the rest of the UK somehow sounds like the exact opposite – or as the Herald’s story put it, “Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat politicians claimed the report proved Scotland was better off within the UK.”

The job of explaining this remarkable distortion of the truth fell to the unfortunate Ken Macintosh, finance spokesman for Scottish Labour, who was shoved onto Newsnight Scotland on March 7th to explain why Scotland having more money on the plus side of its books would be a bad thing. It was a tough line to push, and poor Ken was forced to begin by trying to convince viewers that he didn’t understand the basic concept of how arithmetic works. Let’s break down his comments and see how he did, and what it tells us about the Unionist vision of Scotland, starting with his opening gambit.

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We're a bit confused, readers. We live in the online age, where almost everything that happens is recorded for posterity – whether by a full TV crew or someone with a mobile phone. There can be almost no concerted misrepresentation of events, because no matter how hard spin doctors or biased media sources might try to push a dishonest line, someone somewhere will have what really happened on video.

So we're somewhat bemused as to how there can be such a polarised difference of opinion on whether the SNP wants one or two questions on the ballot paper for its proposed referendum on Scottish independence in 2014. The facts, as presented by the SNP in front of a watching nation and preserved forever on tape and digital memory by a hundred news channels of every and no political colour, seem extremely clear.

"On a historic day in Edinburgh, as the Scottish Government published its detailed proposals for a referendum to determine the country’s future, the First Minister announced his intention to put a simple question to voters in the autumn of 2014: Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? Mr Salmond’s single question on independence was supported by constitutional experts last night. The UK government also welcomed the clarity of the question he proposes." (Eddie Barnes, The Scotsman)

"Alex Salmond has revealed plans for a single-question independence referendum in 2014, offering voters a straight 'yes' or 'no' choice."
(Andrew Nicoll, The Sun)

"Selkirk’s Tory MSP John Lamont has welcomed Alex Salmond’s preference for a single question in Scotland’s independence referendum"
(Selkirk Weekend Advertiser)

"Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has unveiled the question he wants to ask Scots in a referendum on independence. He said it should be: "Do you agree Scotland should be an independent country?" In a statement to the Scottish Parliament to launch his party's public consultation on the referendum, he told MSP's Scots will be given a "straightforward" and "clear" choice." (James Matthews, Sky News)

"The document will also see Salmond confirm his preference for a single yes-no question on independence in a 2014 referendum."
(Tom Gordon, The Herald)

"As Mr Salmond launched the Scottish Government’s consultation paper on the independence referendum, the document’s centrepiece was the question Scots will be asked in 2014: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” The document, launched on Burns Night, even contains a mock-up of how a single-question ballot paper would appear, with two boxes, marked Yes or No." (Paul Kilbride, the Daily Express)

"Salmond reiterated his Scottish National Party's formal preference for a single question." (Keith Albert, Public Finance)

"Mr. Salmond wants only one question on the ballot paper: Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?"
(Neal Ascherson, the New York Times)

"It is interesting, when you look at the public utterances of people like the Deputy First Minister and the Finance Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, that they have said, clearly, that they prefer a single question themselves. Indeed, the Scottish Government’s own consultation makes that their preference." (Michael Moore, Secretary of State for Scotland)

"The Government has made it clear, as it always has done, that its preference is for a single question on independence."
(John Swinney, Finance Secretary)

"Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson said she was glad that Mr Salmond had set out his preference for a single question on independence."
(Sanya Khetani, Business Insider)

"Our preference is to have a single question."
(Alex Salmond, quoted in Holyrood magazine)

So that all seems pretty straightforward and unambiguous. The First Minister and the SNP have made it clear that their preference is for a single-question referendum with a straight Yes/No answer, and while they're willing to listen to other opinions and consider any alternative, a single question is what they prefer and that's what they're proposing. Right? But wait – what's this?

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The desperate attempts of the Unionist parties to portray Scotland as a country too poor to survive on its own are nothing if not inventive. One might think that the publication of the latest GERS report, showing that Scotland contributes more to the UK Treasury than it receives back in public spending, would be pretty hard to turn into a plus point for the Union. But while Michael Moore’s strategy on behalf of the Con/Dem coalition has been simply to put his fingers in his ears and insist that Scotland would be poorer outside the United Kingdom in flat-out contradiction of the official facts, the Labour “opposition” are trying a rather different spin.

Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman and failed leadership contender Ken Macintosh issued a press release today in which he made the bizarre claim that the GERS figures somehow constituted a positive case for the Union:

“The GERS report published this morning demonstrates the significant benefit to Scotland of being part of the UK. The report shows that public expenditure in Scotland was last year between £11bn and £19bn higher than all the taxes generated in Scotland, including North Sea oil.”

But let’s look at that for a second, and generously gloss over the fact that Macintosh’s figures apparently have an 73% margin of error. (Is it £11bn or £19bn, Ken? That’d be a fairly important difference.) What Macintosh is actually saying is that Scotland, taken as part of the UK as a whole, ran a budget deficit in 2009/10.

Now, in itself (and leaving aside the comically wide range of Macintosh’s “figures”) that’s true. But then, almost every Western economy currently runs a budget deficit. The UK as a whole ran a vast budget deficit over the same period – just under £152bn – and has been doing so for many years, which is why we’re currently experiencing massive cuts, imposed by the Tories and Lib Dems but backed (and largely caused) by Labour. And since the Scottish Government has no borrowing powers and has to balance its own block grant, every penny of that £11bn (or £19bn) “Scottish” deficit in 2009/10 was actually run up by Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems at Westminster.

What McIntosh is in fact saying, then, is that Scotland can’t afford to stay in the UK. The logic of his position is that he’s calling for a further £11bn (or £19bn) of public-spending cuts in Scotland – to be imposed by Westminster, as Holyrood’s budget is fixed and wasn’t responsible for the deficit – so that we’ll be living within our means.

The SNP, on the other hand, would prefer Scotland to control its own finances, make huge savings by cutting things that the Scottish people don’t want (like Trident and PFI), and take full advantage of the likely increase in oil prices over the coming years to pay down our debts and fund investment in renewable resources for the future.

We don’t think it’s hard to spot which of those is the “positive” option.

We’ve noticed a recurring theme in the Secretary of State for Scotland’s speeches in recent months. Eschewing the line favoured by Labour and the Tories that the countries of the Union are “stronger together, weaker apart“, Michael Moore has come up with his own subtle twist on the theme.

“[the single energy market] is a positive example of why we are stronger together and poorer apart.” (3rd March 2012)

“Now, more than ever, this unity is important to protect us as individuals. In short, we are stronger together, and poorer apart.” (30th January 2012)

“This government believes passionately in the United Kingdom. It is a relationship which provides strength and security for all of our citizens – we are stronger together, and poorer apart.” (17th January 2012)

“We must show – we will show – that the nations of our country are stronger together and poorer apart.” (21st September 2011)

“My congratulations go to Johann Lamont on her election as Scottish Labour Leader and to Anas Sarwar on his election as Deputy Leader. I wish them well for the future. I am sure that in the months and years ahead they will add their strong voices to those already making the case that the nations of our country are stronger together and poorer apart.” (17th December 2011)

It’s an interesting angle. We can only assume it’s one Moore has been frantically trying to drum into the public’s mind because he knew the GERS report for 2009/10 was due to show the exact opposite – that Scotland contributes more to the UK’s finances than it gets back, as it has done for years, and that therefore it would be richer as an independent nation even before factoring in any policy changes an independent Holyrood might make (eg saving billions by scrapping Trident and PFI).

We’ll be watching closely to see if Moore keeps punting the same line now that the figures comprehensively disproving his claim are out.

(You’ll see what we did there in a moment.)

Speaking as someone with a certain amount of experience in the field of polemic – and with the death threats, internet hate campaigns and Daily Star doorsteppings to show for it – this writer is always a little disappointed when grown adults fail to grasp how the concept works. We must, I regret to say, begin with the dictionary definition:

polemic (noun)
a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something: his polemic against the cultural relativism of the Sixties [mass noun]: a writer of feminist polemic
(usually polemics) the practice of engaging in controversial debate or dispute: the history of science has become embroiled in religious polemics

Joan McAlpine MSP is rapidly proving herself a subtle master of the form. Writing a new column for the red-top tabloid Daily Record (read, and this isn’t a coincidence, predominantly by Labour voters), she’s immediately got the FUD camp fumingly a-flutter with her debut piece, an interesting analogy comparing the Union to a marriage in which the husband jealously controls the purse strings of the household.

At this point, readers, let us diverge for a moment to offer a professional tip derived from over 20 years of experience. The art of the polemic – at least when deploying it in the manner of the second definition above – is to say something that isn’t actually offensive, in a way that sounds as though it is. With luck, your “mark” will spot a trigger word and immediately embark on a furious kneejerk whinge, having not bothered to actually read the article in question properly or establish any context.

In such a manner can you, for example, gather 30,000 complaints about a comment nobody with even the most basic functioning brain could possibly have misinterpreted – indeed, which the perpetrator both immediately before and immediately afterwards specifically said did not in any way represent his real views.

And what’s the result? The wider public – which didn’t go looking for offence and was therefore able to rationally and calmly see that there was none to be had – just thinks the complainers are cretins and invariably develops a certain sympathy with the perpetrator, even if they weren’t necessarily favourably inclined towards them in general. Jeremy Clarkson gets paid a lot of money, and not by accident.

Most normal people – a grouping which excludes most of us politics nerds – are sick of the modern outrage culture (a relatively new phenomenon facilitated in large part by the internet), in which someone somewhere can be relied on to be offended by anything, and where barely-sentient idiots demand compensation and/or legal remedy for their hurt feelings or the fact that they were too stupid to realise that coffee is generally served hot and is best not poured directly into your lap. Nobody loves a moaner, and especially not a thick one trying to start a storm in an empty coffee cup.

We’ve never met Joan McAlpine, but we promise you that as a professional journalist she knows that fact very well. We’re not even going to bother discussing the specifics of her Record column, because this blog has a pretty bright readership and we wouldn’t insult their intelligence. Let’s just say we’re not expecting either the SNP or the Record to drag her over any hot coals any time soon, okay?