An historical lesson for the Liberal Democrats
History has not been kind to the Lib/Lab Pact, the sixteen-month constitutional experiment in which David Steel’s Liberals provided Jim Callaghan’s faltering Labour government with a Parliamentary majority in return for certain concessions. It was, judged one academic survey, “seen by some as a missed opportunity, by others as simply a misjudgement, but by few as a triumph”.
Yet the “agreement”, as Steel preferred to call it, lasted from March 1977 until July 1978 and holds a reasonable claim to success, not just in terms of inter-party co-operation, but in stabilising a then volatile economy and, in the longer term, laying the political groundwork for the more formal Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition of last May.
The parallels, in some respects, are uncanny. Just as the Lib/Lab Pact largely depended upon the almost avuncular relationship between the Boy David and Sunny Jim, today’s Coalition was forged (if not sustained) amid the personal chemistry of David Cameron and Nick Clegg. In policy terms, too, there are echoes of the past in contemporary coalition politics.
Lib Dems may now regret having drawn up such a binding policy agenda, but they made the same mistake in 1977. Then, a key plank of the Pact was a Parliamentary vote on direct elections to the European Parliament due in 1979. The Liberals wanted these to be conducted under proportional representation, and furthermore wanted Labour to compel its MPs to vote “yes”. When they did not, the fallout risked bringing the Pact to a premature end.
That it did not came down to a similar dynamic as that surrounding May’s referendum on the Alternative Vote. In both cases the dominant partner had stuck to the letter (if not the spirit) of what they had agreed, so for the Liberals/Lib Dems to withdraw would have appeared petulant, as well as baffling to an electorate with little interest in constitutional reform. In late 1977 David Steel urged his MPs to hold firm, albeit with considerable difficulty.
Yet while today’s Liberals have arguably failed to learn the lessons of ’77, the Lib/Lab Pact also offers valuable pointers in how to manage withdrawal from a potentially disastrous Parliamentary relationship with another party. A degree of control was crucial. Yes, the Liberals were “propping up” the Labour government in 1977-78, but because it was a Parliamentary agreement rather than a full coalition, Labour understood that Liberal support could be withdrawn at any time.
By May 1978 Steel realised that his increasingly unhappy colleagues meant the Pact could continue no longer. The Daily Mail summed it up as “a squalid little affair”, while The Times reckoned the Pact had been “a brave attempt to establish the conditions in which minority government can be made to work…the Pact may be dying, but another one may be born again.” Crucially, however, it gave the Liberals breathing space ahead of a general election.
The notion of an early “disengagement” actually came from James Callaghan, who had developed an almost paternal concern for Steel. “He explained that should there be an election that year it would be to the Liberals’ advantage if they detached themselves early and fought as a clearly independent party,” recorded the Labour adviser Bernard Donoughue in his diary, “instead of breaking away at the last moment solely because of the election.” Steel concurred on the understanding that an election would follow in October 1978.
Callaghan, of course, had other ideas, and Britain only went to the polls in May 1979 after his government had fallen on a no-confidence motion. But that period gave Steel almost a year in which to distance his battered party from an equally battered Labour government. Although Steel later conceded that “the failure and unpopularity of the Labour government rubbed off on us”, the electorate had more or less forgotten about the Pact by the time they cast their votes.
The Liberals, meanwhile, naturally talked up their achievements in relation to the Pact, issuing impressive looking lists of the concessions they’d gained. “His [Steel’s] technique was to claim credit for the [Labour] Government’s successes,” judged the commentator Alan Watkins, “such as the diminished rate of inflation, but to disclaim responsibility for the Government’s failures.”
Arguably, this strategy had paid off by election time. In the ten by-elections between the making of the Pact and the announcement of its termination, the Liberal share of the vote dropped by an average of 9.5 per cent. Almost a year later, by contrast, the Liberals snatched Liverpool from Labour in another by-election on the eve of the 1979 general election.
The widespread view that the Liberals would be obliterated in that election was also proved wrong. Although their share of the vote fell from 18.3 to 13.8 per cent – a respectable enough showing in the circumstances – the party lost only two of the 13 seats won in October 1974. Furthermore, David Steel was seen to have fought a good, upbeat campaign, his profile having risen as a result of the Lib/Lab Pact.
Politicians rarely learn from history, but a sensible strategy for today’s Liberal Democrats – if only in terms of damage limitation – would be to “disengage” from the Coalition at some point after the 2014 Budget. This would give Nick Clegg a year to talk up achievements like reduced taxation and (assuming it has) an improved economy. Reasserting his party’s independence at that late stage might not work, but opinion polls suggest the party would have little to lose in trying.
DAVID TORRANCE
“New Unionism” or same old thinking?
It has now been more than 100 days since the “Scottish Spring” of 5 May, time enough, one might have thought, for both Nationalists and Unionists to regroup, rethink and respond to the election result. Some chance. While the Scottish Secretary Michael Moore (above) was certainly correct when he said on Wednesday night that the SNP had been “uncharacteristically shy” in setting out exactly what independence means, equally the UK Government has been characteristically vague in making its case for what Scottish Tory leadership contender Murdo Fraser calls the “New Unionism”.
I flatter myself that Murdo pinched the phrase from an article I wrote for the Scotsman a few months back. Alas, at first sight both he and Moore appear to be stuck in black-and-white “separatism-versus-the Union” territory, although on closer examination the Deputy Tory Leader might just be hinting at shades of grey. Anyone expecting some flesh on the bones of the “New Unionism” in the Scottish Secretary’s speech to the David Hume Institute, however, would have been sorely disappointed.
Indeed, as Moore admitted himself, he couldn’t “promise too much by way of comedy, music or theatre”, so all we got was the usual tired old routine about “empowering” Scotland and “reaching our potential”. This, it seems, shall be achieved by doing nothing in particular: sticking with the Scotland Bill and trying to call the SNP’s bluff. In other words, the Coalition seems to be saying, thus far and no further. At no point, for obvious reasons, did the Scottish Secretary acknowledge that his party had once advocated going much further.
To be fair, Moore was correct in his analysis of the SNP’s volte-face when it came to Calman and the resulting Scotland Bill (now en route to the House of Lords). “Rather than develop the arguments [for fiscal autonomy], the Scottish Government has shifted ground and put forward its new agenda,” said Moore. “Had the Nationalists agreed to be part of the Calman process when it began, or even articulated their thinking in a parallel process, they could have made the case for their Six Demands [for greater powers] or indeed for fiscal autonomy.”
The Scottish Secretary’s “six questions” were also reasonably pitched, and the SNP’s dismissive response predictably telling. Indeed, the First Minister’s official spokesman is always a bit nasty about the Secretary of State, calling his latest speech “embarrassing and confused” while referring, once again, to the 2009 Scottish Government white paper for the answers, when in fact that document – by its own admission – did not aim to be either comprehensive or the last word on the subject.
Moore was at least assertive, conceding that his Government had perhaps been too slow in pointing out that “Scotland has two governments – distinct, elected and legitimate”. (The trouble for him is that Scots appear to like one a lot more than the other.) Similarly, the Scottish Secretary revived the hoary old chestnut – much used during the devolution referendum of 1997 – that uncertainty surrounding the referendum “undermines public confidence” and “saps investor confidence”.
This point was echoed in another speech on Thursday night (a coincidence?) in which the Chairman of CBI Scotland, Linda Urquhart, said concern existed about the “possible damage that could be done to Scotland by the uncertainties arising from this commitment and its timing”. Furthermore, she argued, those in Scotland’s business community wanted a “clear result”, with “no second questions which might produce an inconclusive result”. What, I found myself wondering, would be an inconclusive result? And would it be any more “inconclusive” than the 1997 referendum now appeared?
Urquhart’s latter point was also echoed by Murdo Fraser (another coincidence?) in a recent Tory leadership campaign teaser. Looking ahead to his campaign launch on Monday, Fraser argued that Salmond should “put his money where his mouth is and have a single-question referendum. No second question. No Salmond cop-out. Separation, yes or no.” This, he added somewhat optimistically, could “kill independence” and “break the SNP”.
Fraser’s “New Unionism”, meanwhile, would “provide financial devolution to the Scottish Parliament”. “A New Unionism that calls for a more decentralised United Kingdom,” he said, “at ease with itself, knowing that the whole will always be greater than the sum of the parts.” He “strongly” supported the “principles of financial devolution” but doesn’t say how far he’d go, simply restating support for the UK Government’s Scotland Bill while rejecting outright “full fiscal freedom”.
Now on this point I can only assume Murdo is treading carefully, wary of offending potential supporters as he campaigns to succeed Annabel Goldie as leader. But there does seem to be a little tension within his campaign, between, for example, his running mate Elizabeth Smith, whose recent (and rather vague) ConservativeHome article did not even mention financial devolution, and prominent backers such as former Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson, who outlined a vision of a Parliament “truly and properly accountable to the people of Scotland in ways that they currently are not” (in other words, fiscal autonomous).
Nevertheless, I believe both Murdo and Linda Urquhart have made a tactical mistake in pressing Salmond to have a single-question referendum, not least because if he ignores them and holds a two-question poll (as looks likely) it will make them both look a bit silly. And what then? Do they boycott the second question? It simply isn’t credible, and they’d both be much better urging a third question and trying to influence what it might ask. That way the Scottish Conservatives would – for the first time in 35 years – be on the right side of the constitutional debate.
The same question ought to be asked of Jackson Carlaw and Ruth Davidson, the other pretenders for the Scottish Tory crown: if Alex Salmond were to hold a two-question referendum, how would you vote on each one? It doesn’t take a political genius to figure out that the SNP leader will use the referendum to divide and conquer the Unionist parties if he possibly can, but if they have any sense they won’t let him. That certainly requires fresh thinking, but thus far the “New Unionism” looks suspiciously like the old.
DAVID TORRANCE
“A no change leader – regardless of who it is – is political death.”
The battle to succeed Annabel Goldie as leader of the Scottish Conservative Party is still something of a phoney war. No candidate has yet to declare formally (Jackson Carlaw only did so during a newspaper interview), although at least three have spent the summer campaigning informally. But, like all phoney wars, it will lead eventually to full-scale warfare. And somebody might get hurt.
What’s interesting is how quickly the leading figures in this phoney war have changed. Long ago it was assumed by most who knew anything about the party that it would be a straight fight between Carlaw and Murdo Fraser, the incumbent deputy leader, and that the latter would win. Then, towards the end of the last Holyrood term there was a brief groundswell behind the South of Scotland MSP Derek Brownlee that ended, of course, when he failed to be returned at the 2011 election.
Now there’s another apparent groundswell, this time behind newly elected Glasgow list MSP Ruth Davidson. On this front I must declare an interest: asked on Newsnight Scotland some time ago whether she would stand I replied “no”, arguing it wasn’t credible for a fledgling MSP to become leader so quickly. I still believe that was true at the time, but a lot has changed in the interim. The failure of Jackson Carlaw’s campaign to gain any momentum (always important in a battle) has opened up the field to another candidate.
Basically, the Edinburgh and London-based leadership of the Conservative Party have decided to throw their weight behind Davidson. Part of this is about control (Carlaw and Fraser are less likely to follow orders), but there’s also a recognition that Ruth would be the ultimate counter-intuitive candidate: female, represents Glasgow, openly gay and – crucially in this superficial age – good on the telly. While Murdo has lots of unfortunate 1980s-vintage baggage, Ruth has none. And like David Cameron in 2005, Davidson is being presented as the “change” candidate.
All her publicity to date has been about Ruth personally, so I suspect she’s trying not to get pinned down on policy. In this respect, Davidson remains a blank slate, a good thing as far as her backers are concerned but bad, I would contend, for the future of the party. Asked in a recent interview to explain her brand of Conservatism, Davidson name-checked all the usual “progressives” – including Disraeli – but told us nothing of any substance about where she stood. I also understand that she’s assured at least some supporters that on the constitutional question she will be “thus far and no further”.
In other words, the powers in the Scotland Bill will be it. Naturally, a candidate enjoying strong support from London couldn’t possibly advocate something like fiscal autonomy (or even federalism) for fear of making life difficult for Dave. This is what potentially sets Murdo Fraser apart from the other two likely candidates; for Jackson Carlaw has already made it known he doesn’t want any more powers. Indeed, I suspect he’d happily dump the Scotland Bill. This, in short, is crazy. As a senior Scottish Tory remarked to me recently: “A no change leader – regardless of who it is – is political death.”
Fraser, however, is on the record as supporting not only the Scotland Bill but also fiscal autonomy (indeed I suspect that, like me, he’s a born-again federalist). This, I would argue, is the correct position for the Scottish Tory Party if it’s to have any hope of future relevance and electoral growth, but it also presents Murdo with a problem: most party members can’t stand the idea (although that doesn’t mean they can’t be brought round), so the question is, does he make this intention clear up front, or leave it until he’s been elected leader?
Or perhaps I should have said “if” he’s elected leader, for what’s most worrying for Fraser’s candidacy is the apparent momentum behind Ruth Davidson. She’s already the bookies’ favourite, while several MSPs are talking up her chances, if not openly supporting her; Murdo has only two confirmed backers, his proposed deputy Liz Smith and Alex Johnstone. Even MEP Struan Stevenson, who’s supposed to be a Fraser backer, recently praised Ruth to a fellow blogger. There’s talk, meanwhile, of a comeback for my old STV colleague Michael Crow should Davidson succeed.
The reality, however, is that no one knows how the roughly 8,500-strong Scottish Tory membership will vote, although popular constituency MSPs such as John Lamont, John Scott and Alex Fergusson do have influence over their members (as demonstrated by their successful campaign to have Derek Brownlee ranked number one in the South of Scotland). Importantly, all three are behind Ruth’s candidacy. All Murdo can count on is being a known quantity. As Tory activist Jamie Halcro-Johnston recently Tweeted: “don’t underestimate the Conservatives’ ‘conservative’ membership. They vote for what they know.
Murdo Fraser’s campaign launch will be on Monday 5 September, the first day of the new Holyrood term. Apparently it will be “radical”, a word much used these days and rarely justified. But I suspect Murdo will have to be truly “radical” if he’s to avoid becoming the David Davis of the 2011 Scottish Tory leadership race. He has, in short, little to lose.
DAVID TORRANCE
Something must be done…
There seems to be an emerging consensus – among a group I like to call ‘thinking men’s Nationalists’ – that the SNP is yet to define precisely what it means by ‘independence’. Ewan Crawford commented in the Scotsman that the constitution is ‘one area where work needs to be done’, while in last weekend’s Scotland on Sunday, the former SNP MSP Duncan Hamilton, declared: ‘The SNP will, and must, define and explain independence.’ A task, he added, that would keep the party ‘fully occupied’.
Judging by the reaction, I must be almost alone in thinking it a little bit odd that a party committed to ‘independence’ has yet to explain exactly what it means. It’s rather like the Conservatives winning an election and suddenly having to define what they mean by ‘conservative’, or the Liberal Democrats joining a coalition and having to have a long hard think about ‘liberalism’.
But not quite alone – my STV colleague Bernard Ponsonby recently argued that having a referendum sooner rather than later would expose ‘that no serious thinking has been done on this subject [independence] in over two decades’. ‘Not since Jim Sillars re-orientated (purists would say sold out) policy towards “Independence in Europe” in 1988 has the National Party had a real debate about the country’s constitutional status.’
I don’t mean to name names but I’m pretty sure this comes down to Alex Salmond. He has always been a ‘big picture’ politician rather than one for detailed deliberation; he leaves that to others, but while realising its necessity has always appeared reluctant to get bogged down. Indeed, when I was researching his biography I remember several people telling me that Salmond was almost impatient with figures like Sir Neil MacCormick and Dr Allan Macartney, who did consider the limits of Scottish sovereignty in a changing world.
Salmond reckoned they should have devoted their political energies to taking the fight directly to the SNP’s opponents, chiefly the Labour Party, rather than wasting time theorizing. Both, however, are obviously important tools in modern political warfare, and now that a referendum on ‘independence’ (however defined) is imminent, the latter – the detail of what independence actually means – has suddenly become a lot more important.
Conscious that he at least needs to appear to have done his homework in this respect, the First Minister has of late pointed to, and indeed republished, a 2009 Scottish Government paper called ‘Your Scotland, Your Voice’. Having recently re-read this, it is predictably lacking in detail and is a document, by its own admission, that is neither ‘exhaustive’ nor set out to give ‘commitments to future action’.
Its definition of ‘independence’, meanwhile, seems little changed from 1988 – ‘all the rights and responsibilities of a normal independent state’, including ‘foreign affairs, defence and security matters’. There is no mention of ‘independence-lite’, floated by the SNP shortly after the election, or of ‘sharing’ services like defence with the United Kingdom. Still, the party at least has time on its side. A referendum, we are told, will come ‘well into’ this Holyrood term, by which point Salmond will have to have revealed his hand.
DAVID TORRANCE
Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…
SUMMER is an important season for politicians and political parties, a time for reflection, relaxation and, crucially, planning. For the SNP, this summer is its most important yet, for the decisions made in the weeks before the Scottish Parliament reconvenes in September could determine whether an “independence” referendum is won or lost.
Not only do Scottish Government ministers have to put in place a three-year spending plan, they have to take account of the first real-term cuts since devolution in 1999. There is also a legislative programme to frame in time for September. Certain elements of this will look after themselves: the annual budget, the delayed sectarianism bill and the usual miscellaneous legal reforms.
But beyond that, the SNP has to construct a compelling day-to-day narrative. That will be trickier, not only because there isn’t much cash, but because the party’s manifesto – however slickly produced – was virtually a legislation-free zone. Indeed, it included just one commitment that required Parliamentary attention in the form of a bill, and that was the “independence” referendum.
However important, that will be the end to the legislative means of the next three or four years. For if the SNP get that programme wrong, then the Scottish electorate could lose trust in the self-styled National Party of Scotland, and consequently the referendum itself could be lost.
For the moment, the SNP straddles the political terrain: the Coalition is entering potentially tricky waters, Westminster is engulfed by yet another corruption scandal and, closer to home, all three opposition parties are desperately trying to figure out what to do next, while two of them don’t even have permanent leaders.
Importantly, the narrative of the next few years cannot be exclusively constitutional. Demanding more powers and picking fights with Westminster has only limited traction with the punters, and the SNP needs to flesh out its view of Scottish life, its vision of how Scotland will be governed in the run up to a referendum on, as it keeps saying, “moving towards independence”.
The recent recommendations of the Christie Commission could offer a guiding hand in this respect, although the Scottish Government’s policy of no compulsory redundancies makes delivering any radical public sector reform – without the political costly side-effect of job losses – almost impossible. “Cutting” is something Tory and Labour governments do, not SNP administrations, although that convenient dynamic is going to be increasingly difficult to sustain.
Perhaps one of the SNP’s semi-regular strategy meetings will look at all these issues and more. The first, dubbed “Craigellachie” after its location, took place prior to the 2007 Holyrood election, while “Craigellachie II” took place in St Andrews shortly after the SNP formed a minority government. “Craigellachie III”, meanwhile, will take place during August. “We’ve got to think about what we’re going to do next,” says one of those involved. “There will be a real range of people present, although these sorts of meetings are something the Continental political parties are much better at than us.”
It was Angus Robertson, the SNP MP for Moray, who was instrumental in cajoling his party colleagues into holding regular brainstorming sessions. He takes a professional, research-based approach to political campaigning, just as his political mentor Alex Salmond has since becoming involved in national politics in the late 1970s. It is no accident that Robertson is also in charge of the forthcoming referendum campaign.
Now I put independence in inverted commas earlier quite deliberately, for this brings me on to another aspect of SNP strategy over the next few years: defining what “independence” actually means. Salmond et al have already shifted substantially on this, floating the idea of “independence-lite” while pursuing a policy of “safety first” on issues like the monarchy. Party policy used to be a post-independence referendum on who should be head of state in an independent Scotland. Now the Queen shall continue in that role indefinitely.
The party is also weak on defence policy, which it says (although Defence Secretary Liam Fox disagrees) could be “pooled” with the UK Government. Expect this, and a number of other areas, to be firmed up in the months ahead. The party may be reluctant to get bogged down in this sort of detailed fire-fighting, but if it’s to pursue a slick, coherent referendum campaign, then its strategists will have to be prepared for inevitable lines of attack from the opposition.
Meanwhile, the weeks that followed May’s historic election result demonstrated just how important planning could be. Instead of a dynamic, choreographed 100 days of action – like that which followed the 2007 election result – the Scottish Government appeared to flail from manufactured row to row, while relying upon a series of inter-governmental meetings to give the appearance of constitutional progress.
Most Nationalist advisers are lucky if they get a week’s leave during the long Holyrood summer recess. But then they could be forgiven for not taking things easy this particular summer. For there is so much at stake – and so much to plan – that the Summer of ’11 could go down in history as the one which set the political tone, and electoral context, for one of the most important polls in Scotland’s history.
A (much) shorter version of this blog appeared in yesterday’s Scottish edition of The Times.
DAVID TORRANCE
The Age of Irresponsibility?
The great Marxist historian (although I know he dislikes that description) Eric Hobsbawm sealed his reputation with a trilogy of works about the long 19th century, The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital and The Age of Empire. Perhaps with this in mind, the son of another Marxist intellectual, Ed Miliband, has indirectly coined a similar umbrella term for recent political events.
In what could best be described as an opportunistic speech earlier this week, the Labour leader talked about “three major crises in British public life among people and institutions that wield massive power”. First were the banks, then MPs’ expenses, and now the Press. The common thread running through all three, declared Ed, was “the irresponsibility of the powerful”, or in other words, an Age of Irresponsibility.
Now laying aside the fact that Ed, his party and the previous government in which he played a leading part were heavily involved in all three scandals; I’m not sure this sort of cod historical analysis is very helpful. Although Miliband certainly has a point, that certain people “thought they were beyond the law and responsibility”, all three scandals were, in retrospect, storms in particularly fragile teacups.
In terms of the recession, I’m talking about the bankers rather than the initial financial crisis. That the collective action of the political establishment would fail to seriously curtail bankers was never in doubt, although economic meltdowns such as 2008 tend to linger in the public consciousness: just think of 1926, 1931, 1968 or even 1981. But I’m not so sure about the other two, both of which have been marked by the sort of hysteria only the British political classes can muster.
Much of this, it has to be said, has been led by the media, naturally keen to ensure the world remembers it was them “wot broke the story” in the first place, thus the Daily Telegraph’s sustained publication of stolen information, I mean presentation of material in the public interest, and the Guardian on the Murdoch affair. A case in point was Jonathan Freedland in Saturday’s edition of that holier-than-thou newspaper. Not content with alluding to the fall of Ceausescu in 1989, Freedland (who, ironically, regularly takes ‘The Long View’ on BBC Radio 4) talks in hyperbolic terms of a Murdoch ‘shadow government’.
Mercifully, that same paper’s Simon Jenkins took a more sensible look at recent events, reflecting that the Murdoch story is not a “Berlin Wall moment”, “just daft hysteria”. Of course, he says, phone hacking was a serious error, but Murdoch benefits the British media in other ways. “As after the death of Princess Diana,” wrote Jenkins, every politician and commentator cries: ‘The world will never be the same again.’ The world usually is.”
Which brings me back to Ed’s speech. What of his solution? “Across the country, there is a yearning for a more decent, responsible, principled country,” he said. “It is not only the duty of those with power to exercise responsibility. It is the duty of us all to ensure that they do. We need to restore responsibility as the great British virtue. We need to build a culture from the boardroom to the benefits office.”
Well, good luck to him, but how will history judge this trilogy of irresponsibility? I reckon future historians will probably be tempted to group them together, just as Ed has done, so that the events of 2008-11 will come to be seen as emblematic of early 21st-century Britain. But it’s worth remembering that history is a fickle thing. Who remembers now that The Times ceased publication for a whole year in the late 1970s? Before the “evil” Rupert Murdoch bought it, natch.
The Times of 19 July carried the headline “Public turn against press, police and politicians”, giving details of a Populus poll showing that the recent saga has deepened cynicism among the public. Indeed, all most voters will have gleaned from the Age of Irresponsibility is a general sense that politicians, bankers and journalists are up to no good, but then it was ever thus.
DAVID TORRANCE
Does Ed still ‘get’ Scotland?
During last year’s (UK) leadership contest, Ed Miliband was promoted as someone who ‘got’ Scotland. The London-based party, he said on campaigning forays north of the border, should learn from the 2010 general election result in which the Scottish Labour Party managed to increase its share of the vote by three per cent.
What a difference a year made. As Alex Salmond still delights in pointing out, Miliband embarked on a campaign ‘trail of doom’. ‘Every single seat he visited,’ boasts the First Minister, ‘we won’. ‘Miliband is the weakest Labour leader I’ve seen in my political career,’ added Salmond in a recent interview with Prospect. ‘He’s not Neil Kinnock, who to be fair was actually a good motivator for the Labour party.’
Salmond’s cynicism, however, has been overtaken by events. As Andrew Rawnsley points out in his Observer column (‘Ten days in which we saw Ed Miliband throw off his L-plates’), the Leader of the Opposition has finally found an issue with which to establish his authority as Labour’s new chief. Although still far from being ‘the next Prime Minister’, Miliband is at least being taken seriously.
And so he should be, for as a new biography by Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre ably demonstrates, there’s a lot more to ‘Ed’ than first appears. Writing books about serving politicians is a tricky business, but Messrs Hasan and Macintyre have pulled it off; diligently researched and well written, Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader provides some much-needed context to a politician yet to make a tangible impression on the British electorate.
The book is particularly strong on more contemporary events, and the chapters covering last year’s general election and Miliband’s decision to run for the leadership are well sourced and informative. It’s also good on Ed and Scotland. Rarely is Scotland a problem for Labour leaders, supplying a reliable block of usually loyal MPs and, since the 1980s, a steady stream of talent.
‘Has Ed grasped the magnitude, or significance, of the Scottish crisis?’ the authors ask. The answer is probably not. Not only did Miliband misjudge – along with the party generally – the recent Holyrood election, saying the outcome was about ‘sending a message to Westminster’, but Ed’s response to the result, bouncing Scottish Labour into a ‘root and branch review’, simply vindicated the SNP’s repeated attacks on what it calls ‘London Labour’.
As the political philosopher John Gray pointed out in his Guardian review of the book, Miliband is also ‘dangerously exposed to events’. ‘Labour’s weak showing in Scotland reveals what could be a massive vulnerability,’ wrote Gray. ‘Even maximal devolution could trigger a redistribution of seats at Westminster that would leave Labour beached on the margins of politics.’
To prevent that, Miliband needs to tread carefully. As ever, it’s easier to identify problems than solutions, but sorting out lines of command would at least be a start. Although I reckon the problem is usually overstated (did any voters seriously doubt Iain Gray was leader of the Scottish Labour Party?), being ‘the Leader of the Scottish Labour Group in the Scottish Parliament’ is a nonsense, especially in the fourth term of a Parliament Labour was instrumental in creating.
It will, of course, take more than that, much more. I have to confess I remain unconvinced by Ed Miliband as a political leader. To me, he retains the appearance of a talented apparatchik who finds himself leading rather than advising. That could change, particular in light of recent events, but ‘Ed’ still has a lot to prove, not least in the fluid environment of Scottish politics.
DAVID TORRANCE
Constructive Conservatism or cynical statecraft?
A belated blog on two interesting interventions by Conservatives in the constitutional debate, one constructive, the other not so constructive. That both come from Prime Ministers (one former, the other present) makes them all the more important. First up – with the constructive intervention – was Sir John Major, who said in a recent speech:
“Why not devolve all responsibilities except foreign policy, defence and management of the economy? Why not let Scotland have wider tax-raising powers to pay for their policies and, in return, abolish the present block grant settlement, reduce Scottish representation in the Commons, and cut the legislative burden at Westminster?”
Since I’ve argued for much the same elsewhere (although I’m more ostentatiously federalist), it will come as no surprise that I think Sir John is spot on. The Scottish political commentator Gerry Hassan recently posted an interesting analysis of the speech, correctly pointing out that historically the Conservatives have been much better at reformulating the Union than Labour. Gerry, however, concludes on a slightly cynical note:
“The Tories are moving on the union, doing what they do best, being pragmatic and conciliatory on the surface, while doing all they can to maintain the union which is central to their politics and identity, and just as crucially, maintain the bastardised nature of the British state. It won’t work, because constitutional change has consequences for the political centre, but don’t write off the Tories genius at reform to postpone more fundamental reform. They have been at it a rather long time.”
Gerry is not alone in automatically assuming that whenever a “Tory” (in Scotland, the word is generally spat rather than spoken) compromises on the Union then they’re up to no good. Indeed, whenever the SNP shift on independence – as they’ve done several times since 1988’s “Independence in Europe”, it is written up admiringly as clever politics, but whenever a Unionist does so, it’s condemned as cynical statecraft.
This paradox was highlighted by a gushing SNP press release in which Angus Robertson, the SNP MP responsible for the referendum campaign, praised Sir John’s “positive unionist alternative”, in contrast with the Liberal Democrats (and here Angus is spot on) “who have stranded themselves on a unionist beach failing to even promote their own constitutional policies”.
Now, a decade or so ago the SNP would have dismissed “devo-max” (which is essentially what Sir John is proposing) as a cynical Unionist ploy; that it is now lauded as “positive” demonstrates how much the SNP have shifted in the constitutional debate. Ironically Alex Salmond, in concentrating on beefing up the Scottish Parliament’s devolved powers, has now met a former Conservative Prime Minister halfway. As Mrs Thatcher once remarked, “it’s a funny old world”.
Which brings me to the second intervention, that of David Cameron in an interview with the Spectator (a journal that has suddenly made a point of asking almost everyone it interviews about Scotland). “I want to treat the first minister and his government with respect, I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said, “but if the whole of the next few years becomes about tussling rather than governing, then there may be a moment where we have to say, OK, we need to answer this question properly.”
In other words, Westminster might hold its own referendum on independence, although Dave was careful to add the caveat: “But I don’t think we’re there at the moment.” Either way, this apparent belief (and I’m told it remains the prevailing Westminster mindset) that London could somehow intervene in the forthcoming referendum is, frankly, nuts. Unionists of all varieties would do better to listen to Sir John Major rather than David Cameron.
DAVID TORRANCE
The SNP and press regulation
The First Minister was widely quoted in the Sunday papers saying that Westminster had “presided over a systematic failure to regulate the press”, just as it had “totally failed to provide proper regulation of the financial sector”. For good measure, Eck added a customary dig: “The question has to be asked if Westminster can regulate anything properly.”
For once, Alex Salmond appears to accept that the proverbial ball is in the Westminster court when it comes to press regulation, yet a cursory glance at the Scotland Act, 1998, would suggest otherwise. Under Schedule 5 (“Reserved Matters”), Head K (“Media and Culture”), only broadcasting is listed. I quote: “Section K1. The subject-matter of the Broadcasting Act 1990 and the Broadcasting Act 1996.” In other words, “The British Broadcasting Corporation.”
Now, given that the 1998 Act (unlike its 1978 predecessor) was drafted so that anything not specifically listed as “reserved” would therefore be “devolved”, it would appear that regulation of the press already falls within the Scottish Parliament/Government’s remit.
Interestingly, in response to my last blog on Salmond’s meeting with James Murdoch earlier this year, the First Minister’s official spokesman reminded journalists (by email) that the Scottish Government had, in September 2007, floated the idea of a specifically Scottish press complaints commission.
“Clearly Scotland has a distinct media, including a distinctive press, so there are logical arguments in favour of this development,” said a source close to Salmond at the time. “Given Scotland’s distinct press and increasingly distinct news agenda, there is an argument for this to be looked at and addressed, and ministers welcome an investigation.”
Nothing, as far as I know, came of this idea, but to reiterate – given Westminster’s “systematic failure” to regulate the press, why doesn’t the First Minister do it himself and, while he’s at it, launch an investigation into the Scottish News of the World (now defunct) while he’s at it?
Perhaps it’s something for this September’s Holyrood legislative programme…
DAVID TORRANCE
Update on SNP and NI
A mea culpa: Alex Salmond’s meeting with James Murdoch wasn’t in February, but the month before that in London.