A Call to Ideas
DANIEL JOHNSON argues that the centre-left has a generational opportunity to reframe politics, but it must act to do so.
Being a member of a political party is not always easy. For every moment of triumph there are moments of disappointment, for every feeling of vindication another of upset. And so it seems that for the last few years being a Labour party member, if not part of the wider European left, has been something of a vortex of negativity. Yet I find I am more excited by political possibility than at any time since I joined the Labour party at the age 17 in 1995.
This is not a hubristic and over optimistic response to the local government results or to Francois Hollande being returned as the first socialist president of France in seventeen years. While encouraging, it is clear that the left must do much much more before it starts winning. No, this is an exciting time because the tide of ideas is changing and I believe it is the Left has the potential to provide the answers. Continue reading
Lobbying transparency Scotland bill
Neil Findlay MSP gives us a brief introduction to his new bill: the Lobbying transparency Scotlan
d bill
Over the next few weeks I will be launching the consultation for my Lobbying transparency Scotland bill. The bill aims to create a statutory register of lobbyists with sanctions in place for those who fail to comply with the terms of the register. Lobbying is of course an important part of the democratic process, charities, businesses, trade unions etc. lobby politicians every day. My proposal makes no attempt to stop this and neither it should but what it does do is attempt to shine a light on lobbying activity by making it the responsibility of the organisation doing the lobbying to say who they are lobbying, what they are lobbying about and when and where meeting/s and events took place.
The Scottish parliament is rightly proud of its reputation for openness and transparency it has largely avoided the lobbying scandals experienced by successive Westminster governments. My bill seeks to protect that reputation. After all it is much more difficult to redeem a damaged reputation than it is to put in place systems to prevent damage occurring in the first place. The buzz word amongst politicians at the moment is “preventative spend” I think of this as a further extension of that “preventative approach.” Continue reading
Can anyone really say what an independent Scotland would look like?
What would an independent Scotland look like? Too many assumptions are being made, claims PETER MCFARLANE
I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel the discussion about the constitutional future of this country has stalled. The debate has become caught in a net just as it started to get off the ground. When will it be? What will the question be? Is that question objective? Can there be two questions? Stuck on these points, it feels like we haven’t really got anywhere with it for a long time.
A lot has, however, been said about what an independent Scotland would look like. Evan Williams, in the last post on this blog, talked about the many different countries the SNP have claimed an independent Scotland could emulate ranging from Switzerland to Norway, and as I recall Salmond said something about the Saudi Arabia of renewables at some point.
At first I thought, fair enough, they won the election and so they can have their referendum and talk about it as much as they want. Discuss the question, sure, but can they really say with any real conviction what an independent Scotland would be? They have the right to ask the question, and it probably should have been asked a while ago, but surely that does not give them the right to design this independent state? Continue reading
Beginners Eck-onomics part 2
Noticing a shift in rhetoric, EVAN WILLIAMS looks at the changing SNP narrative on what an independent Scotland’s economy would look like
“Scotland is not oppressed and we have no need to be liberated” A Salmond, 2012
A lot has been written about how a separate Scotland would fare economically. Usually this revolves around assessing tax receipts and expenditure, if tax receipts exceed expenditure it is assumed everything is right with the world and if expenditure exceeds tax receipts wailing and gnashing of teeth ensue. I don’t presume to be better able to make estimates of these numbers than the many others out there – I would assume that factcheck’s look at this last year is not far off the mark. However, there are a couple of real problems with getting too exercised about the numbers for the last few years or the next few years that such analysis concerns itself with.
Firstly. The numbers presuppose that spending and tax receipts would have been and would be in the future basically the same in a separate Scotland than they would be without separation. One of the few things we know for certain is that the SNP want to take charge of corporation tax in order to reduce it. Continue reading
Child Mortality Rates and Politics
JOHN RUDDY looks at child mortality rates in Scotland in the wake of recent comments from Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon
When your wife is expecting your first child, you tend to take a greater than normal interest in things such as infant mortality. So when the Deputy First Minister stands up and claims that children are more likely to die in a part of Scotland – and blames the Labour council for it, I decided to look into it.
Although Glasgow Labour had issued a press release, my first stop, of course was the Scottish Government’s own website. There I found Ms Sturgeon had released a statement only a few weeks ago on the same subject. It also included a helpful link to the latest Government statistics, contained within the Scottish Perinatal and Infant Mortality and Morbidity Report 2010. Here I thought, I would be able to see how safe our baby will be.
Therefore it was strange to see that the Health Minister was saying something completely different. “…the rates of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, perinatal deaths and infant deaths were the lowest ever recorded in Scotland” she was quoted as saying. “The rate of post-natal deaths equalled the lowest ever recorded” she continued. What no mention of the dangers of voting Labour? Continue reading
A consultation response
JACK MCCONNELL shares his response to the current consultations on the independence referendum.
Rt Hon Alex Salmond MSP
First Minister of Scotland
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh EH99 1SP
Rt Hon Michael Moore MP
Secretary of State for Scotland
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
Dear Alex and Michael,
I have chosen to respond jointly to your consultations on an independence referendum for Scotland for the sake of consistency but also to urge you both to reach agreement on the details of an independence referendum in the national interest of Scotland.
Clearly, I am commenting on this issue as a former First Minister of Scotland, but, as you are both aware, I was also involved for many years in the Scottish Constitutional Convention and I played a leading role both publicly and behind the scenes in the organisation of the Yes-Yes campaign in the 1997 Scottish Parliament Referendum. I hope my experience, which has influenced this response, is helpful to you both.
A call for clarity on independence
While the SNP demand clarity over what the ‘No’ campaign stands for, PAUL DEVLIN asks what the ‘Yes’ campaign is offering beyond the current platitudes.
It is instructive that recent comment and debate regarding Scotland’s constitutional future has focused intensely on the ramifications of Devolution Plus and Devolution Max, with both arguably being scrutinised more thoroughly than the SNP’s vision of Independence (or Indy Lite as defined by the Devo Plus group).
In fact, after the Devo Plus launch, a spokesman for Alex Salmond said:
“The Devo Plus launch reinforces the need for clarity, in place of the current confusion, about what No in the referendum from the Tories and other anti-independence parties means. This information needs to be in the public domain well before the referendum.”
Implicit in this is the suggestion that such clarity on Independence exists. Moreover, a recent Sunday Herald editorial stated that: “there is clarity on the meaning of independence”. However, while there have been pronouncements that Independence will rid Scotland of poverty and deprivation, the SNP’s position seems to be subtlety moving towards a basic position of it is better to have certain powers than not. Continue reading
The thin line between confidence and arrogance
Alex Salmond’s lack of humility may yet prove his party’s undoing, writes TOM HARRIS
I worked as a press officer for the Labour Party in the run-up to the 1992 general election, based at Keir Hardie House in Glasgow. During the long run-up to the launch of the campaign, we were under strict instructions to be unswervingly triumphant.
So at the end of Labour’s 1991 annual conference in Brighton, the platform party, including Neil Kinnock, our future Prime Minister (it said on our media briefs), led delegates in a rousing/embarrassing (take your pick) rendition of Queen’s “We Are The Champions”. An entirely appropriate song, given the inevitability of our impending return to government after 13 long years in the wilderness (cough!).
And during the election campaign itself, we dropped the word “Shadow” from our spokespersons’ titles; now Donald Dewar was “Labour’s Secretary of State for Scotland” and John Smith was “Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer”. And that’s how they were introduced when they marched onto the stage at Sheffield just before they sat to listen to the opening speech from Kinnock, “Labour’s Prime Minister” (okay, we didn’t go that far. Neither did the electorate, come to think of it…).
Beware of devolutionists bearing gifts
STEPHEN LOW examines the opportunities – and threats – in campaigning for a third option.
It is being asserted, with varying degrees of confidence and plausibility, that the most progressive outcome in the referendum would be the inclusion of and support for some sort enhanced devolution; ‘Devo Max’ in most people’s lexicon.
This is at least arguable, certainly much more arguable than to suggest that support for independence is any sort of left wing policy. But if Devo Max, and the term itself isn’t without problems, is to be considered as the left option then we should examine the potential advantages and pitfalls. The framework for such an examination, for anyone claiming to be on the left, should not be abstract notions like ‘sovereignty or ‘self determination’ but the interest of the working class.
Some of the argument for a Devo Max option is tactical. It allows for a political space between the petty bourgeois chauvinism of the SNP and a reactionary “Your Scottish nationalism is bad. My British patriotism is good” Unionism. Potentially it helps anchor debate in being about “the sort of Scotland we want to see” (fast approaching cliché status) diverting discussion away from “Scotland” and onto peoples actual lives. Continue reading
Reforming Council Tax
In his latest piece, JOHN RUDDY offers a progressive alternative to the current council tax system
There is now widespread agreement that the current system of local government finance is a mess, and needs reform. However, there seems to be little agreement on what should be done. One of the options, and my personal favourite, is a Land Value Tax. The trouble is, this would be difficult to bring in overnight, and of course there is the thorny issue of Council Tax benefit – or rather the disappearance of it.
How about something which could be done relatively quickly, would retain existing benefits for those most in need, and even go some way towards easing the burden of the cuts on local authorities? This could be a temporary measure while much bigger reform is thought through. The suggestion I have is to increase the number of bands at the top end of the council tax scale. Continue reading
