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Cause and effect

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

All the papers today report on the latest developments over the increasingly doomed-looking Scotland Bill. Perhaps the most telling comment in all of them, though, wanders in unassumingly towards the end of the Herald's piece.

Mr Mundell, the country’s only Tory MSP, said: “I do not believe the Scottish election result earlier this year was a mandate to strengthen this Bill.”

One does tend to get the impression that the Tories still don't see the connection between those two things, and we're going to be so bold as to assert that their electoral prospects are unlikely to improve until they do. Earlier on in the article the Herald's Robbie Dinwoodie notes that "the Westminster Ministers’ repeated riposte was to point to the result of the previous May when the pro-Calman parties won their mandate", which is an underestimation of the Scottish electorate so grave that it all but explains the SNP's landslide in May by itself.

Scottish voters know full well that there's next to no point in electing SNP MPs to Westminster. Even if every single Scottish seat went to the nationalists, they would have almost no chance of achieving or influencing anything, since only twice in the last 50 years (and briefly on both occasions) has the entire block of Scottish MPs held the balance of majority at Westminster. Sending SNP members south serves only to dilute the party's talent base, and while the SNP can never admit this in public and have to put forward a candidate in every seat (because to do otherwise would appear defeatist), it's largely a gesture – the difference in the amount of money and effort the party devotes to Westminster and Holyrood campaigning is huge.

The electorate therefore tends to use its vote tactically against the Tories, and as they can't trust Labour and the SNP to work together against a common enemy – witness Labour's venomous, contemptuous response when the Scottish and Welsh nationalists offered their support for a centre-left coalition in 2010 – Scottish voters in Westminster elections therefore quite reasonably back the biggest of the opposition parties. (It speaks volumes for the degree to which Labour has exhausted the patience of its core vote that even despite this, the SNP have now moved well ahead in the polls for voting intentions at the next UK general election.)

The huffy intransigence of the coalition in the face of the Scottish Parliament's attempts to improve the Scotland Bill – with a cleverly-chosen package of suggestions backed not only by the SNP but variously by all three Holyrood opposition parties – shows how little they've grasped about the reasons for the rise of the nationalists. This stubborn resistance already looks like costing them the Scotland Bill (which in its current form is a sneaky attempt to weaken the Scottish Government by quietly reducing its funding while shifting the blame to Holyrood). If they continue with the see-no-evil-hear-no-evil approach, it may cost them Scotland itself.

2 to “Cause and effect”

  1. ButeHouse says:

    There's a lot more in the way of Intelligence required to do well in Scottish Politics these days and I'm afraid comments like Mr Mundell's do not ogre well for the future of him or his Party.
    Within months of the SNP minority Government taking shape I was calling it Intelligent Government and that has been the key feature all the way through till now. It's pointless attacking them on the legitimacy of what they propose for example because they check everything with the Civil servants and Government Lawyers.
    Being very clever himself Salmond is more than happy to surround himself with other clever people as Ministers and Advisors who all have Scotland's welfare at heart. Thus they are doing more in any 12 month period than any other administration did in its entirity.
    Independence is the goal and few would argue that Salmond will miss hisscoring opportunity when the time comes. VOTE YES.

    Reply
  2. Morag says:

    Scottish voters know full well that there's next to no point in electing SNP MPs to Westminster. Even if every single Scottish seat went to the nationalists, they would have almost no chance of achieving or influencing anything.

    You seriously believe this?  The effect of a thumping block of SNP MPs at Westminster would not be in their voting clout, but in the message their presence would send to both the unionist parties and the people of the rest of the UK.
    At its most extreme, a substantial SNP majority could do exactly what the SNP intended to do with such a mandate pre-devolution, and that is walk out of Westminster and start negotiating.  While the modern, referendum-committed SNP is unlikely to do this, 40+ SNP members in Westminster would be a voice for Scotland that would really be heard.  If they were treated to the demeaning schoolboy tricks regularly meted out to the present six, and denied major representation on relevant committees, there would be hell to pay.  That sort of representation would be a game-changer way beyond the simple arithmetic.
    I'd like nothing better right now than for the coalition to fall smack on its arse and for a UK general election to be called.  If the Scots handed the SNP a significant Westminster majority to match their holyrood majority, it would be game over for the union.

    Reply


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