This select gathering is all the Scottish Conservative conference delegates who were interested in discussing the party’s approach to devolving more powers to the Scottish Parliament in the event of a No vote in the independence referendum of 2014.
Readers far more cynical than ourselves may find the picture a useful gauge by which to measure the true degree of interest the Tories have in more powers.
It’s taken 306 years for the people of Scotland to be allowed a democratic voice on the constitution of their country. It’s a thing that was never supposed to happen. The Scottish Parliament’s electoral system was constructed deliberately and explicitly to prevent any party achieving a majority – in theory ensuring that the SNP could never pass a referendum bill – even though the two main UK parties still resolutely defend the First Past The Post system that produces them at Westminster.
This morning’s Daily Record carries a story about Ed Balls’ policy speech on welfare yesterday. Commendably, the Labour-supporting paper isn’t shy of pointing out the implications of Balls’ comments:
“Scots could get welfare benefits at lower rates than people in wealthy parts of England under plans being worked on by Labour. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls yesterday raised the idea of a regional cap on welfare, opening the door to variations in a range of social security benefits.
Balls said the welfare cap of £25,000 a year per household should be higher in London but could be lower in parts of the UK where housing is cheaper.”
We’d have been even more impressed, though, if Wings Over Scotland hadn’t revealed the reality of what Labour’s future plans meant for Scotland almost three weeks ago.
The Scottish media is full today of Gordon Brown’s latest attempted intervention in the independence debate. Scotland on Sunday and the Sunday Herald both report that the former Prime Minister will urge Scots to “ditch the Tories, not the Union” (as the original SoS headline put it before being changed online to the rather more sober “Brown urges Scots not to give up on UK”, presumably out of respect for the gentle sensibilities of the paper’s Conservative-leaning readership).
(We’d like to take a brief moment here to appreciate a couple of beautifully acidic, deadpan lines from the Herald’s piece, written by Paul Hutcheon. Our emphasis.)
“Brown, who led his party to defeat at the last General Election, will be the special guest at an event in Glasgow. Although Labour has a dominant role in the cross-party Better Together campaign, senior party sources last year pushed for a separation to convey Labour’s distinctive message.”
The substance of Brown’s argument, in so far as it can be said to have any, is founded on a lie that was comprehensively disproved on this very website well over a year ago – namely that “if Scottish Labour supporters vote to leave the UK it would mean abandoning colleagues in England to years of Tory rule”.
That proposition is demonstrably untrue (not to mention a remarkably defeatist assertion that Labour can’t now defeat the Tories in England, despite having done so in 1997, 2001 and 2005). But even if it wasn’t, what then?
Extracts from a piece last year on the highly influential Conservative Home:
“Drawn up more than three decades ago by now Lord Barnett the [Barnett] formula distributes taxpayers’ money across the UK. Even Lord Barnett now describes the formula as “unfair”. On both the Left (IPPR) and Right (TaxPayers’ Alliance) there is agreement that the formula is well past its sell-by date. Scotland and Northern Ireland receive a much greater share of UK taxpayers’ money than need in either country would require. The biggest losers are the poorer English regions and Wales.
This seems one of the great no-brainers of British politics. England is losing up to £4.5 billion every year because a Conservative-led government is sending that money to parts of the UK that stubbornly refuse to vote Conservative. So let a [2015] Conservative Prime Minister call for the phased ending of the Barnett formula.”
“Vote No, Get Nothing” is starting to look a little optimistic.
In this site’s view, there are just two things the Yes campaign needs to get across to the Scottish people in order to win the independence referendum. All the quibbling over this detail and that detail, as seen in the No camp’s ridiculous (and so far mythical) “500 questions”, will ultimately come down to two simple facts at the ballot box:
1. There will be NO significant new powers for the Scottish Parliament in the event of a No vote. If anything, the opposite will be true.
2. The Scottish people already want independence. They simply haven’t yet realised that the thing they want is called independence.
Win on those two, and the Yes side will win everything.
We gather a few refreshments are usually taken at party conferences, so given that Eddie Barnes of the Scotsman is in Inverness covering the Scottish Labour gathering, perhaps a hangover explains his rather confused piece for Scotland on Sunday today.
There are three particularly notable passages, which we’ll take you through quickly here so you don’t have to go and read them on the paper’s website.
Scottish Labour’s record time for a policy U-turn was already pretty low. It took less than 24 hours from Johann Lamont’s infamous “something for nothing” speech before her MSPs were hastily popping up in the papers to insist that various universal services were in fact NOT under threat at all. (Despite the fact that the head of the commission investigating them had explicitly said that nothing was off the table.)
But yesterday saw the hapless party set a new personal best.
We hate to harp on. But it may be that there are still some people stuck in a cave somewhere in the Hebrides who think Johann Lamont is the “leader” of a political party called “Scottish Labour” rather than a regional branch manager of one based in London, and who imagine that the findings of her commission on devolution – should there actually be any before the referendum – will become official Labour policy.
The media is in full-on spin mode today, reporting Ruth Davidson’s miraculous Damascene conversion to the principle of “more powers” for the Scottish Parliament, just 18 short months after her Churchill-esque declaration of devolutionary defiance to the effect that the petty tinkering of the Scotland Act was a “line in the sand”.
Most of the papers, of course, feign critical analysis by highlighting Davidson’s U-turn. But what we haven’t seen in a single one is any sort of actual examination of the content of Ms Davidson’s speech to a micro-audience of literally several people in what appeared to be the corridor of an Edinburgh hotel yesterday.
We suspect that’s because anyone who did would be very hard-pressed indeed to credibly describe the measures she proposes as representing “more powers” for anything. In fact, they’re the opposite.
A lot of independence supporters are getting excited today about this clip of Labour shadow-cabinet MP Helen Goodman telling the BBC that Labour would keep the bedroom tax. They’re right to highlight it, but most are doing so for the wrong reasons.
Goodman’s position is that Labour WOULD still implement the hated tax, but would only penalise people for over-occupying their housing if they’d been offered smaller accommodation and refused to move. Opponents of Labour are observing the hypocrisy of the party raging against the tax in public while admitting they’d retain it, which is fair enough, but also misses the real point.
twathater on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I wrote a similar comment on the fact that everyone from anywhere is now telling Scots what they can and…” Jun 26, 02:44
Anthem on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Sure about that? I heard it was the English that conquered NI.” Jun 26, 00:22
PhilM on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I’m thinking of retiring to France soon and when I do I’m going to be welcomed by universal acclaim as…” Jun 25, 21:14
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “I’m disappointed, NC, I expected your dog to bark in Scots.” Jun 25, 20:48
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Holiday Relief: “Northcode, a peace-token, with respect and paragraphs… About a year ago I picked up for £4 in a second hand…” Jun 25, 20:25
Northcode on Holiday Relief: “woof woof woof” Jun 25, 20:11
AndrewR on Anatomy Of A Lunatic: “Hatey – “BTW. You seem to have an inaccurate picture of what I support and don’t support.” Sorry, huge apologies,…” Jun 25, 20:05
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Too bad, Fearghas. You’ve failed Northcode’s ideological purity tests and now you must be reclassified yoon. You too Sven. You…” Jun 25, 19:52
Chas on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “794th time. Inching forward to the big 1000. Gaun yersel Alfie boy.” Jun 25, 19:32
Hatey McHateface on Anatomy Of A Lunatic: ““I find myself looking for Hatey’s reactions” Then you must be on the wrong forum. Because of the lack of…” Jun 25, 19:31
Northcode on Holiday Relief: “I don’t detect much in the way of respect emanating from your comment… so let’s not bother with that particular…” Jun 25, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Isn’t NI hoaching with yoons? In the event that demographic change forces unification of the island of Eire, won’t many…” Jun 25, 19:15
Anthem on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I agree totally. Even though the tools are there to dismantle this disgusting, corrupt organisation, the streets and voices are…” Jun 25, 19:04
Hatey McHateface on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Shame. We’ll never know just how good it was. Anyhoo, Xaracen already has today’s Stellar Post Award, although Confused has…” Jun 25, 19:03
Ian McCubbin on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Northern Ireland has no resources do England wants rid of it and it’s people too costly to keep. Contrast that…” Jun 25, 18:51
100%Yes on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I have no doubt in my mind that Swinney is happy for the Holyrood MSP’s to be sacrificed the same…” Jun 25, 18:17
James Jones on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “NI would be looking for reunification, not independence. Eire would have to be willing. Would they? Perhaps, but it’s complicated.…” Jun 25, 18:11
AndrewR on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “not for publication I think I was just modded, for my email about Hatey. Thankyou! Again. He can look after…” Jun 25, 17:55
Callum on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “GTF Seamus GTF Scotland 1 & 2 for me in 2026 for any party that backs national elections as de…” Jun 25, 17:46
Alf Baird on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “This fits well with what postcolonial theory tells us about the decolonization process: https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/05/25/the-three-phases-of-decolonization-lessons-for-scotland/” Jun 25, 17:26
Frank Waring on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Why not organise to have a true independence referendum in, say, 18 months, and raise the money to pay for…” Jun 25, 16:50
Mark Beggan on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “And people talked about MI5 conspiracy. Who needs to conspire when you’ve got Scotlands very own guide to Failure. An…” Jun 25, 16:29
Insider on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “A “soupsong ” ??? Minny, minny, minny, minestrone…. We are the alphabetties…happy girls and boys… Cock-a-leekie (favourite of many MSPs)…” Jun 25, 16:22
Aidan on A different school: “@Xaracen – you aren’t making any recognised form of legal argument that can be engaged with though. You seem to…” Jun 25, 16:15
James on A different school: “Don’t waste your time engaging, James C, these are paid trolls.” Jun 25, 16:07
duncanio on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “After saying “challenging the Westminster parties to concede the principle of consent in letting Scotland determine its own democratic future…” Jun 25, 15:59
Athanasius on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Of course, there is also the fact that Westminster would like nothing more than to actually get rid of Northern…” Jun 25, 15:51
Aidan on A different school: “Without going into too much detail, essentially it gives the Scottish people the ability to act as a check on…” Jun 25, 15:50
AndrewR on Anatomy Of A Lunatic: “Confused: do you know any English people? Or any Muslims for that matter. I find myself looking for Hatey’s reactions…” Jun 25, 15:41
