Wings Over Scotland

There's some fairly predictable outrage from Nationalists bouncing around the blogosphere today at the news that control of the Crown Estates will not be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. This anger seems to us to be misplaced.

A pair of recent polls have reinforced what we've known for years – the constitutional settlement preferred by the large majority of the Scottish electorate is so-called "devo max", or Full Fiscal Autonomy, under which the Crown Estate would pass to Holyrood along with all other powers of revenue raising and expenditure. However, the three Unionist parties (or as we should more correctly put it, those who variously prefer to dub themselves Federalists, Unionists and Devolutionists, or FUDs) are all bitterly opposed to offering voters this option in the independence referendum.

With the status quo by some distance the least popular of the three possible arrangements for Scotland's governance, the opposition appears to be hell-bent on forcing Scots to make a straight choice between that and independence. It seems clear to this blog that such a stance can only be good news for supporters of the latter.

Were the UK Government to concede issues like the Crown Estate and Corporation Tax, plainly those who favour greater devolution would see progress being made, and in all likelihood be more content to reject full independence and continue down the gradualist path. But by going all out to signify that the UK will not grant the Scottish Parliament even fairly modest further powers, the Unionist parties can only succeed in driving more and more of those who want devo-max into the independence camp.

For our money, the starker the choice in the referendum is, the better.

The media commentariat – or at least, that majority of it which sits in the Unionist camp – has been in quite the foment ever since David Cameron's refusal to do whatever it was he refused to do at the EU summit this week. (Despite thousands of column inches and airtime minutes having been devoted to hyperbole on the subject this week, nobody actually seems very sure of what, if anything, has or is about to meaningfully change in the lives of the British citizenry as a result.)

In Scotland's press, the consensus is that whatever it was that happened (or possibly didn't happen) is a massive game-changer in the campaign for independence. Pundit after pundit has lined up to hyperbolically proclaim the huge impact that this will have on the referendum, and more broadly on the SNP's thinking with regard to its attitude to Europe. The Scotsman in particular is beside itself with excitement – Eddie Barnes posits some worst-case scenarios including the UK leaving the EU entirely while the paper's twin old Tory buffers Alf Young and Bill Jamieson both tack a few paragraphs of Scottish scaremongering onto the back of a pieces about the ramifications for Britain generally, with Jamieson's ending with the spectacular assertion that "an independent Scotland would be little more than the fetid fag-end of a Vichy vassalage".

Everyone agrees that as a matter of urgency the First Minister must rush back from China with a definitive statement on what this all means for Scotland, its future choice of currency and its future relationship with the EU, lest the electorate be left uninformed on these critical issues when the referendum rolls around in three or four years time. Which, our more alert viewers will probably be pondering, is missing the point by a fair few kilometres.

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Discussion of the intriguing Scottish Social Attitudes survey has been slightly undermined by the fact that the full report itself isn't publicly available. However, the estimable Lallands Peat Worrier has secured access to more of the detail, and picks through it here. Of particular note is the precise wording of some of the questions, which wasn't previously revealed. The deeper conclusion that this blog reads into his analysis is that there seems to be a subtle shift taking place – independence is slowly but measurably becoming the default case in the minds of voters, ie the state people need to be persuaded out of rather than into. (Presented with a proposition under which independence would make no difference to people's finances either way, the response is 47% in favour of independence with 32% against, which to our knowledge is the biggest straight-question margin for "Yes" ever recorded in a full-sized poll.)

As LPW pointedly notes the continued absence of the "positive case for the Union" (and in the light of the relentless continuation of increasingly impotent fearmongering in its stead), that could be a very significant development indeed in the years to come.

There's been so much happening lately that we can barely keep track of it, let alone attend to such trivial matters as real life as well, so let's see if we can get up to speed on the most interesting stuff quickly. It seems like everyone's talking about Scandinavia at the moment, as the SNP revealed that they're keen to see a future Scotland align itself in a slightly more Nordic way than a European one.

The Guardian, Caledonian Mercury and Scotsman have run a fascinating variety of perspectives on the issue lately, and this blog is certainly very comfortable with the idea that an independent Scotland might choose to run its society along such lines rather than follow the neo-liberal path that's done such a good job for Europe lately.

Hamish McDonnell's article in the CalMerc perceptively points out the conflict between the high-tax, high-quality lifestyle of the Scandinavian nations and the low-tax Ireland-style model the SNP have previously advocated, but Donald Adamson writing in Bella Caledonia comes in with a timely piece, ostensibly focusing on some election-result analysis but which ends by suggesting the SNP might stand to gain significantly by making exactly such a move towards the more social-democratic positions occupied by Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

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You know the political landscape of Scotland is in serious turmoil when this happens.

(See here for the whole story.)

"As we get closer to the referendum, people will realise that staying within the Union has substantial benefits for Scotland."
(James Kelly, Labour MSP, December 2011) (at 4m 20s)

"We've got a distinctive argument to make on the power of Scotland inside the United Kingdom."
(Johann Lamont, Labour leadership contender, December 2011) (at 23m 08s)

Sadly, both Mr Kelly and Ms Lamont ran out of time before they could actually explain what these substantial benefits and distinctive arguments were. Oh well.

Still waiting.

Labour's justice spokesman Richard Baker brought one of our favourite songs to mind today, with an outburst (reported in the Herald) that lays bare just exactly how stupid Scottish Labour still thinks the electorate is. A study by the OECD has found that the pay gap between the highest and lowest earners has grown more quickly in the UK than in any other high-income country since 1975, with a particularly sharp rise since 2005. With no detectable shame, Baker was quickly moved to note in response that:

"This survey only confirms what Labour has been saying for months now. Under the Tories the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

We hesitate, readers, to point out anything so blindingly obvious for fear of insulting your intelligence, but… of the six years between 2005 and now, Labour was the UK government for five of them. Of the 36 years between 1975 and the present day, Labour was in charge for almost exactly half (17 out of 36), and for 13 of the last 14.

Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that the lot of the poor didn't improve over that time – as Labour MP and Baker's prospective new leader in Scottish Labour, Tom Harris, has sneeringly reminded us recently, "We weren't set up as some sort of charity to help the poorest in society". But that Baker genuinely appears to believe everyone will already have forgotten Labour's record in power speaks more about the attitude of Scottish Labour than we could ever do.

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There are many good reasons not to envy Scottish Labour members, but the miserable choice they're being offered for their new leader must be near the top of the list right now. Last night's edition of Newsnight Scotland was devoted to a hustings between the three hopeful candidates at the BBC studios in Glasgow, and watching it felt like an intrusion on private grief.

To be fair, the setting didn't do much to portray the candidates in a good light. Newsnight's Raymond Buchanan was a clumsy host, alternately barging in over the top of the three when they were trying to give an answer then letting them waffle on when they were saying nothing at all. The audience was also a limp rag, putting up mostly feeble, long-winded and vague questions capable of inspiring nothing but empty platitudes from the contenders.

(One bloke in a red tie wasted about a minute of the show's limited airtime wittering on incomprehensibly about sport before Buchanan finally cut him off in exasperation, and the final audience contribution was particularly toe-curling. Some studenty girl came out with a half-baked Marxist polemic demanding to know what "direct action" the candidates were going to do about the nasty bankers and such. When Buchanan asked her what sort of direct action she'd like to see taken, she clearly wasn't expecting to be asked to provide a constructive suggestion and just stammered that she wanted to hear the candidates' plans. Even the vacant rhetoric she got in reply was better than the question deserved.)

But even allowing for the difficult circumstances, McIntosh, Lamont and Harris offered little to fire enthusiasm among the comrades, or even to distinguish themselves from each other. The only partial exception was Tom Harris, and we still can't tell if he's serious or just trying to use shock tactics to kick some life and sense into his party. Either way, we're not sure that coming out loudly and proudly in favour of tuition fees and nuclear power stations is the way to lead Labour to glorious recovery in Scotland.

Harris is also a dyed-in-the-wool Nat-basher, a strategy which failed Labour on an epic scale in 2011 and which Lamont and (especially) McIntosh appear to be backing away from as fast as is decent. We know these things because all three spent the vast majority of the broadcast talking not about Labour, or even about the Westminster coalition that's imposing savage austerity cuts on Scotland, but about the SNP.

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There’s only one story in the Scottish political media today. The explosive contents of the Scottish Social Attitudes survey have been seized on with glee by the SNP, leaving the Unionist camp in desperate damage-limitation mode. The news – first broken by the Express – that a whopping 65% of Scottish voters only need to be convinced that independence will benefit them by around £9 a week in order to vote for it has sent Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems into something of a panic, and it’s fascinating to watch both they and the predominantly-Unionist media try to spin it.

Tory Hoose takes the “we see no ships” angle, announcing that the SNP’s natural welcoming of the poll results is “hysterical grandstanding”, while rolling out David McLetchie to pick out a different section of the results and claim that “This is just one of the many polls that shows support for independence is still relatively low.”

The Scotsman goes for a similar approach, with trusty psephologist Prof. John Curtice sent in to find the most negative view of the survey possible, listing a whole slew of cautions and provisos and comparisons of dubious merit, eg pointing out that support for independence is still lower than that for devolution in 1999 (which is about as surprising as finding out that Andy Goram’s favourite fruit is oranges).

The Herald features a quote from Labour’s Margaret Curran that borders on flat-out hilarious in its twisting and turning to find a position from where the figures look bad for the SNP – eventually settling, like Curtice, on a bemusing comparison with 1999, which for all the relation it bears to the current economic and political climate might as well be 1929. The Herald also runs the most perceptive piece in the mainstream media, in which Robbie Dinwoodie observes that the “old scare stories” beloved of the Unionist parties are slowly but surely losing their power over the Scottish electorate.

The BBC, meanwhile, comes up with a fairly snappy at-a-glance summary of the results, but none of the media pick up on some of the survey’s stranger quirks.

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As regular readers will know, as a supporter of independence this blog fervently hopes that Tom Harris wins the contest for the leadership of Scottish Labour. Not only because Comical Tom – a fervent pro-Unionist who has already proclaimed that "I don't want Scotland to run her own affairs" – would be a massive recruiting sergeant for the Yes campaign, but also because he's simply the most entertaining.

It recently dawned on us that by joining Youth Labour for just £1, we could actually help to make such a thing happen by having a vote in the leadership election. We duly filled out the form with some enthusiasm, but were sad to realise that we lived far too far away from any of the hustings to quiz Tom directly. Until, that is, he sportingly hosted a live Q&A session on his website…

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Combined spending in Scotland by the four main parties for both the 2010 UK general election and the 2011 Holyrood general election, in descending order:

LABOUR: £1,785,000

CONSERVATIVES: £1,546,000

SNP: £1,456,000

LIB DEM: £647,000

(Sources: here and here.)

In the wake of a duller-than-usual First Minister's Questions, most of the press today is covering the report released by the Electoral Commission detailing the various parties' spending in the 2011 Holyrood election. The headline soundbite is that the SNP's expenditure was, in the words of The Scotsman, "close to the combined total of the three other largest parties", at £1.14m compared to £1.27m for Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories together.

Predictably enough, Labour seize the opportunity to complain about large donations, with MSP Drew Smith pouting that "the SNP is addicted to big money, reliant on huge donations from a small number of wealthy individuals", in the light of the SNP having received two such large sums in recent months from the will of the former Makar Edwin Morgan and lottery winners Chris and Colin Weir.

We're not aware of Mr Smith having raised any such objections when, for example, Lord Sainsbury donated £2.5m to Labour in 2003 – eclipsing the SNP's two big donations put together – but we'll gladly publish any corrections should he have done so. We're also not sure that Mr Smith's party will enthusiastically welcome his objections to large donations from wealthy individuals, as a cap on such contributions (currently being proposed by the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life) would have slashed Labour's income by 72% over the last five and a half years.

Most of the coverage today notes the growing financial health of the SNP compared to the other parties relative only to the situation in the 2007 Holyrood election, with its spending rising while that of the Unionist parties declines. What we found curious, though, was that none of the papers took the trouble to also make what would seem to be the most obvious comparison in a recent Scottish context – the parties' expenditures in 2011 compared to the 2010 UK General Election.

We had a little dig around on the Electoral Commission's website, and turned up its 2010 report, whose figures reveal some moderately interesting things.

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