Party tales - 3; The SNP

It seems almost sacreligious to attempt an analysis of the opportunities and pitfalls of the SNP after their tremendous success in the Scottish Election. After all, hasn’t it been ‘historic’, ‘seismic’, ‘ground-shifting’`? They now have what I (and certainly most others) thought was a psephological impossibility - an absolute majority in a (at least partly) proportional house. And they have a clear aim and programme - what could possibly go wrong?

Well, in fact in the seeds of their success could lie a number of problems. And it is clear that the policy and campaigning machine that the SNP created, (There is a good interview with Stephen Noon, SNP policy chief, here.) and which delivered so spectacularly for them this year is also aware of them - or at least some of them. Some of the early statements of Alex Salmond about ‘forgiveness’ make much more sense when that context is recognised.

Firstly of course, the scale of their majority might lead to a couple of problematic developments. Large majorities (and this in a Scottish context is the biggest!), can lead to both arrogance and dismissal of opposition, and/or to the development of an internal opposition. It also means the Scottish Government will now have to deliver on their campaign promises. The four years of ‘recognising-that-we-don’t-have-a-majority’ are over and difficult/uncosted promises must now be implemented. That will be more difficult than people think. The removal of the last local discretion to raise their own funding from our councils in the longer term, may well prove impossible without huge costs. UNISON pointed out early how the then proposed ‘local’ income tax fell short of raising sufficient cash to cover the council tax abolition, here. and the last Scottish Government’s desperate struggle to hide costs suggests there may be other problems.

In terms of the potential for steam-rollering, it is clear from Alex’s statements that he (and his SPADs) are wary of the impact that such an impression would give. Nevertheless, some straws in the wind show they are right to be concerned. The election of Tricia Marwick as Presiding Officer, while not ‘delivered’ by the Government, highlights one problem. The perceived ‘safe’ (for the Government) candidate was elected by the thumping majority over both a candidate from a party which has never supplied a PO, and a ‘awkward’ candidate from the majority party. The warnings about the danger of this were correct - however ill-judged the selection of the warnee was!

And the Government do have a problem here. They want to deliver their programme; they have had four years of frustration which they can now avenge; and they have the delirious clamour from their own members and supporters (many now in Parliament) urging them on. Can they balance that desire for progress/revenge with the public statements about ‘working with other parties/groups’? This has been the downfall of other governments elsewhere, and it is far from clear that, even if Alex himself is on message, other party colleagues will be. No-one has ever mistaken Alex Neil or Kenny Macaskill for shrinking violets!

I think it less likely that there will be the development of an effective internal opposition. While the SNP are less a political party, than an act of faith, and contain political activists from extreme right to left within their midst, most have had too much experience of how media and opposition exploit splits to want to create one. The large number of ‘new’ MSPs will want to maintain their position, and the party faithful - with their eyes on the prize of an independence referendum can be relied on to toe the line. 

One thing that might upset this balance, is if the SNP fundamentalists think their referendum is being watered down by their own. It is clear from judicious leaks from SNP HQ, that the ‘Independence-lite’ option is being seriously considered. A win in the referendum - whatever the question - is clearly seen as essential. If the terms are lite-enough, might it be even a possibility that other parties (not just the Greens and Socialists) may shift to back a ‘Yes’ vote? That might prove a step too far for the Cyber-Nats.

A successful ‘hope-for change’ based campaign also contains dangers, as politicians from Tony Blair through to Barack Obama have discovered. The essence of the SNP’s successful campaign was a positive call for a better Scotland, and it caught a spark. (Pat Kane’s insightful piece on the success of positive campaigns should be read by all party strategists. Push past the psycho-babble, it’s worth it!). Plus the use of very strong public and internal communications also delivered for them.

Now, however the party faces the difficulty of delivering with straitened finances, and of keeping the trust of the voters who voted for them in such large numbers. We already see SNP ministers trying to ‘accentuate the positive’ (Swinney downplaying the high levels of Scottish unemployment blackspots recently for example). And at least one reason for the Scottish Government move to negotiate a strong Scotland Bill must surely be to try and deliver some levers of finance to give them wiggle room.

However it is dressed up though, service cuts and unemployment, are on the agenda, and on the agenda for a large number of the SNP’s ‘new voters’. Obviously one tactic will be (not unfairly) to blame Westminster, but the big business support evident during the election will want some form of ConDem policies (if window-dressed) in Scotland. With an overall majority, and if given extra powers, the blame game may well begin to wear a bit thin. As the STUC has already pointed out, for example - is it such a good idea to devolve corporation tax, so a Scottish Government can further cut money coming in to fund public services? Incidentally it will be interesting to see what Cameron delivers in terms of a strengthened Scotland Bill. What will Tory policy on this be? Give them enough rope or cut Scotland loose?

Oppositions don’t win elections - governments lose them. The last SNP government delivered a competent if uninspiring administration. This meant they were in a good position to ‘not lose’ before the campaign. What the campaign delivered was a scene-change, by successfully sweeping up disaffected voters (from all parties, but mostly from the LibDems), with a positive, but not too specific message.

As the Tories, LibDems (and before them, New Labour) have found however, when voters feel their positive trust in a party has been betrayed, they are very clear and very sophisticated in their ability to express their fury. That could still happen.

Party tales - 2 The Scottish Tories

The announcement of the retiral of Annabel Goldie from the leadership of the Scottish Tories may signal the return of the ‘nasty party’ image that she (and her predecessor David McLetchie) had spent so much time trying to repair. Indeed the manner of her going is almost like the days of Thatcher and the ‘men in suits’. It may also  signal  the retreat of the Tory party back over the border, but this remains to be seen.

Everyone’s favourite auntie - everyone outside the Scottish Tories that is - she finally succumbed when the results showed that what many thought was impossible had happened. Although obscured by the virtually complete melt-down of the LibDem votes, there was a further drop of between 2 and 5% in what was considered the hard core of the Tory vote in Scotland. This may not be even close to the beating meted out to their coalition partners, but people voting for the Tories knew what they are getting and support their economics, unlike those who felt betrayed by the LibDems.

This level of drop may be explicable, given an unpopular Tory government in Westminster, but the Tory party is not given to tolerance of failure. It is ironic, too, as Annabel had probably more than anyone else, begun to rekindle sympathy for the Tories in Scotland.

The future direction of the party now hangs in the balance. Do they continue down the ‘One Nation’ route, which runs the risk of alienating them (in practice, if not in image) from their Westminster colleagues, or do they line up much more ideologically behind their economic liberalism and rekindled Thatcherism?

Of course, given the views of voters here, will any lurch to the right, consolidate them or further damage their electoral prospects in Scotland? How much was the Westminster leadership involved in the ousting of the Scottish leader? It strikes me that there are two possible scenarios. 

One, the party continues in the positive engagement mode at Holyrood, that Annabel had championed. That would at least buy them some time and, who knows, if they made some intercessions on Scotland’s behalf, might even continue the respect-building. Two, the party lurches to the right, readopts a Thatcherite liberal, free market policy line, advocating Westminster ConDem policies in Scotland in the teeth of the bulk of public opinion.

Scenario one, I suggest, is unlikely. Given the size of Alec’s victory, who is there for the Tories to engage with? He doesn’t need them now, and if he wants to pick a fight with Westminster in advance of an Independence referendum, concessions to the Tories in Scotland are unlikely. In any case, if this was to be the course, why drop the pilot? 

And in any case, does David Cameron want to ameliorate his government’s policies for Scotland? Might he not see the sloughing off of a public service-valuing, troublesome, socialist-inclined drag on his reforms as something he quietly welcomes? Certainly there is a clear shift in Scottish business towards the SNP and independence. The Tory-backing Sun advocated a vote for the SNP in the Holyrood elections, and some Tory commentators have openly advocated winding up the Scottish Tories and creating a separate Scottish free-market, right-wing party.

One way of doing this might be to replace Annabel, with a more toe-the-economic line leader, (say Jackson Carlaw or Murdo Fraser) who would more strongly advocate Westminster policies for Scotland. Any resulting unpopularity might make the case for Scottish independence more palatable to Tory backers, and similarly provide the impetus for a ‘new’ right-wing Scottish party.  

This is not to say that Cameron will advocate independence. Indeed, he will be as strongly pro-union in any independence referendum as he was pro FPTP in the AV one. But he is likely to be pragmatic. If there are diminishing returns in a business, it might be better to hive it off. Let’s face it, how many more Westminster seats can the Tories lose?

Party time for all in Scotland? 1 - the Scottish LibDems

Now that the final losing Scottish party leader has had the visit from the ‘men in grey suits’, it is perhaps appropriate to look at what the results might lead to for all our political parties.

For the LibDems it is clearly desperation alley. Tavish’s too-precipitate resignation (from a LibDem party perspective who with any credibility is available to take over?) is surely so he can say more forcefully what he was hinting at in the final days of the campaign. That is that participation in the ‘cuts coalition’ - in particular after a General Election campaign predicated on ‘ a LibDem vote is a vote against Tory cuts’ - is leading to a massive haemorrhage of the LibDem vote, especially in Scotland where it was never the volatile ‘floating voter’ option that it is south of the border.

Ironically this will not lead to a break-up of the coalition. Indeed the spectre of a mass cull of LibDem MPs by the electorate north and south of the border if an election was to be called will concentrate their minds wonderfully. Plus, of course, Nick Clegg knows this is his only chance of a sniff of power - possibly for ever - and is most unlikely to threaten that. Despite his sabre-rattling over the NHS, he is only demanding what Tory cabinet ministers are already planning for the NHS in England & Wales.

In any case he and the rest of the ‘orange-bookers’ in the LibDems are probably more at home with the Tories in the UK Government than they are with the mainly social liberals of the Scottish Party. However, a split in the party is most unlikely at this stage for the reasons above and below!

Is Clegg himself likely to be challenged? After all the party faithful have allegedly only stuck with the strategy of accepting coalition to deliver PR, and this must now be dead for the foreseeable future. But the LibDems have always been capable of ignoring almost diametrically opposed positions of its elected representatives, and this won’t stop now. 

More likely is a quiet drift away of activists, similar to the Labour Party’s losses in the Blair years.

However, it is likely that the Scottish party will take an increasingly separate line from that at Westminster. Who the new leader is will tell us this. Whether it improves the Scottish party’s position is doubtful. It will take more than this to overcome the betrayal their voters feel. In particular voters do not like to be obviously lied to, as Clegg admitted doing when he said on TV that he knew during the General Election campaign that major and urgent cuts were needed, yet continued to call for a LibDem vote to prevent such cuts. Neither will the coalition change tack on its economic policies. 

The Scottish electorate is now very sophisticated. They know how to vote tactically to deliver their message. This time the message has been primarily aimed at the LibDems (and also at Labour), last year it was aimed at the Tories. Who is next in the firing line?

YouGov! What, MeGov?

If opinion polls are to be believed, Labour is heading for an embarrassing dip in votes and seats at the forthcoming Holyrood elections. Some more excitable commentators have even been moved to predict a ‘crushing defeat’*. However, as most activists and politicians know, polls are more useful as weapons than as sources of clear information. They may (as these recent ones undoubtedly will) be used to galvanise Labour’s notoriously sluggish turnout. They will be used to glorify the name of Salmond. But in all cases polls are deceptive. They were when predicting a Labour lead of up to 10 points early in this campaign, they were when predicting a Lib Dem surge in 2010’s Westminster election, and they are now.

Anyone remember last year, the incredulity with which both media and politicians dismissed the TV exit poll, because it gave the lie to the polls’ prediction? For the record that exit poll forecast Con - between 303-306 seats; Lab - between 251 and 262 seats; LibDem - between 69 and 55 seats (the figures were revised as the night went on) The actual result? Con - 306; Lab - 258; LibDem - 57.)

There are at least three reasons why opinion polls need to be treated with caution. Pollsters themselves recognise that,  unless the sample is huge, a margin of error factor of plus or minus 3%. So a poll predicting a 6% lead could equally suggest a neck-and-neck race. But this is well-known (although not well-reported). Less well considered are methodology and sample taking. YouGov for example, selects its respondents from an internet panel of people who have chosen to volunteer for this work in exchange for cash. The company, says it uses demographic information to balance its results, but there are two or three chances for skewing the sample here, and their methodology remains hotly debated.

Less obvious recently has been the introduction into Scotland of differential swings in local areas. It has been very obvious in Westminster elections that swings vary considerably in different parts of the UK - the increasing Westminster vote for Labour last time being a glaring example . It has been less so within Scotland. I suggest that this is changing, and will make this election virtually impossible to call by extrapolating from opinion polls. It is not just where the disenchanted LibDem votes go. The SNP will surely do best in rural constituencies if that vote does implode, but it may well be different in places like Dunfermline and possibly in Edinburgh. And in the second vote, any shift away from the LibDems will surely benefit the Greens. It seems also clear that the Tory vote will largely hold up - even if only because it has been bumping along the bottom for some time.

It isn’t simply the potential melt down of the LD vote (and in any case I suspect that the polls overestimate this likelihood too.) but the impact of local party politics via local council control. For the first time we have a Scottish Election being fought with councils under a variety of party and coalition controls. This may play out differently in different areas. Again Edinburgh, with the LibDems and SNP in coalition presiding over the debacle of the tram project, and proposals to outsource huge rafts of council services, will LD votes go to their SNP partners? Has the recent controversy over education cuts in Renfrewshire, and the SNP council leader’s climbdown scuppered his chances in Renfrewshire North? What will be the impact of the Aberdeenshire Council LibDem’s public fallout over the Trump development - particularly in the list where Cllr Martin Ford now tops the list for the Greens? 

Of course the final reason that opinion polls never tell the whole story is that they are never told the whole story! The recent YouGov poll for example - even now finds that around 30% of those asked are either uncertain whether they will vote, or certain not to. That is a large undecided area to exclude. (YouGov also has a very low incidence of ‘won’t say’s - almost certainly because their sampling comes from the self-selected panel referred to in para 1).

So, while the trends are important and justify the Labour Party’s attempts to rejuvenate their campaign, the details of recent polls are no more (or less) significant than the earlier ones.

As ever, oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. Only May 5 will tell whether the Scottish electorate is sufficiently annoyed with the SNP government for them to have ‘lost’ this one. I suspect that it is going to be a much closer call than opinion pollsters tell us.

*Peter Kellner in a commentary on his own organisation’s poll

Budget cuts - should we protect bonuses, or the vulnerable?

Just last week a 90 year old lady fell in her kitchen in the morning - gashing her head in the process. She was found by her home carer behind her kitchen door. The home carer immediately phoned for an ambulance and then phoned the lady's daughter, who leapt into her car and drove to reach her mother (approx 20 minutes).

Before the home carer arrived, the lady had come to, and pressed the community alarm buzzer she carried round her neck. They had called back, and, receiving no answer,  immediately contacted the nearest contact for that client. She also leapt in to a car and drove to the house. By the time she arrived, the paramedics were in place, applying emergency treatment and preparing her to be transported to the nearest A&E. She also contacted the lady's daughter - who was on her way.

She was safely taken down stairs (her house was on the first floor), into an ambulance and to hospital. Admitted to A&E within an hour or so of her first discovery, she had stitches inserted in the head wound, and a series of tests were started to ascertain if there were other medical reasons behind the fall. She was admitted to hospital later that day. Within a period of (say) 3 hours that elderly lady had received 4 interventions from  public services - from the Home Carer, and the Community Alarm service to the Paramedics and the Doctors, Nurses and other professionals in the hospital.

Anyone care to estimate how much that kind of intervention would have cost, if it had to be paid for by the individual? Want to suggest that we should hand these over to the private sector, Mr Cameron? One thing's for sure, that lady would not have had the resource to pay for it. Or maybe, someone will suggest that we can't afford this level of care? You, Mr Clegg? Which service would you cut? 

But of course, the commentators might say, we shouldn't cut these essential frontline services - it is the backroom paper-shufflers who we can't afford to sustain. Really? Perhaps the person who trained the home carer, so she knew what to do in an emergency? Or maybe the office staff who keep the contact details up to date in the Community Alarms? The telephonists at the 999 centre who know what questions to ask and where to send the ambulance? Or the medical secretaries, technicians, assistants, porters and cleaners who ensure that tests are carried out, results are delivered to the professionals, and that hospital patients are treated comfortably, with respect, and protected from disease when vulnerable?

It is clear to me, that the kind of policies being proposed by Gideon Osborne and his cronies would lead directly to that lady being put at risk. And I, for one, am not prepared to see that happen without a fight. And more than that, I am proud of a civilisation that  decides that elderly ladies (and the rest of us) deserve that level of service. Those that would denigrate that service, and those who provide it,  are not worthy to be called civilised.

This is especially so, as we can quite clearly afford it. Those who have most continue to increase their earnings and widen the gap between them and the low paid. It is way beyond time that they plough some of that back into providing a civilised level of public service. Other sources of money might include the banks - who let us not forget - had their own 'emergency service' from the rest of us not so long ago. Time to start paying that back, I think. The STUC's 'There is a Better Way' campaign gives more detail about the real economics of this country. http://www.thereisabetterway.org/ 

This may seem a trifle personal, and it is. The lady in question is the mother of my partner of 35 years. We are both deeply grateful for the service that has so far been available, and deeply fearful for what is likely to be left after Cameron, Clegg and the other Tories have had their way. We have a chance in next year's Scottish Parliament Elections to send a message to these politicians. Let’s take it.

Feet of Clegg

Lord Wallace of Tankerness, Jim Wallace to you and me (and I suspect, to him), last week, sounded a loud call to the Scottish Liberal Democrat troops - if that is not too collective a name for Liberal Democrats - to keep united and campaign strongly for the Scottish Elections coming up in nine months time. There was more than a hint of desperation about his call, and that isn’t surprising given the party’s reported opinion poll slump since Nick Clegg hitched their wagon to the Tory Cuts machine.

It is instructive to remember that a mere 3.5 months ago, those same opinion polls were showing Liberal Democrats in second (and even first) place, following Mr Clegg’s reported ‘surge’ after the TV debates. As some of us suspected, the 34 per cents etc. were always going to be somewhat wide of the mark, (but don’t be surprised if the media still report this ‘surge’ as if it did in fact happen), but the 14% average that we now see is poor even if you accept the top figure was inflated.

However a more pressing worry for the LibDems in Scotland is that the support of many of their party leaders for ‘market forces’ and cutting the public sector is now becoming apparent. The ‘economic Liberals’ were always there, but managed to shelter behind the more cuddly ‘social Liberal’ image. Now they are in charge, they are flinging themselves enthusiastically behind Messrs Cameron and Osborne in the ‘New Tory’ attempt to destroy our services. This will not play well in Scotland.

Another concern is that MSP candidates cannot rely on the General Election mantra ‘vote for us, or you’ll get the Tories’. Quite apart from the fact that everyone who fell for that now knows that their vote DID get them the Tories, the Scottish Parliament seats held by the SLD are mostly not threatened by Tories. Out of 11 FPTP seats, (another irony is that the SLD have done rather well from FPTP in Scotland) in only one, Fife NE, are the Tories second. 

A third worry for Jim Wallace, Tavish Scott and other prominent (but very quiet) SLD leaders is their UK leader’s admission (in Nick Robinson’s BBC programme on the coalition negotiations) that he knew that huge, immediate cuts to services would be needed during the election campaign. The trouble is not that he changed his mind, but that he kept quiet about it and continued to campaign AGAINST Tory ‘immediate cuts’ economic policies, only to embrace them enthusiastically once a whiff of power beckoned. Isn’t that the sort of tactic of the old cynical party politician? his supporters will be inclined to ask. We thought we were voting for a new way in politics!

So, as Labour and the SNP battle it out to defend Scotland against the Tory cuts, where does this leave the Scottish Liberal Democrats? Attacking the cuts in Scotland while supporting them in Westminster will be a very difficult double bluff to pull off - even for such past masters of the tactic. It may well be that after 5 May 2011, Scottish Liberal Democrats (even the economic Liberals) may find out that their golden leader who has delivered them a hand on the wheel of power, has feet of Clegg.