Voted No? Time to repent and be saved

This will be my final post until after the New Year, so let me offer very best wishes for the Festive Season and the coming year to my modest but committed readership. I aim to reduce that modesty a bit in 2015. I am slightly disappointed that I have not yet managed to attract some of the zoomier Indieniers whom the Twitterati of a No persuasion seem fated to attract – their colourful style would certainly liven up the comments section. But perhaps sentences longer than 140 characters are a bridge too far for most of them.

Christmas not cancelled after all

In keeping with the spirit of the season for goodwill toward all men (and women), I am signing off 2014 with a good, grumpy rant. Those of you who inhabit the twilight world of social media will likely be aware of the existence of the fiercely pro-Indy website Bella Caledonia. Bella, along with fellow traveller Wings over Scotland, is dedicated to all things pro-independence. Bella doesn’t aim for any political balance or consensus, though in common with Ms Sturgeon she does tend to ignore any hard questions. Instead she has simply cancelled membership of Scotland for the 55% of us who got it so badly wrong back in September.

I have never quite worked out the rationale for sites like Bella, which sprung up like weeds during IndyRef. Most have since succumbed to post-IndyRef ennui, but Bella, and the Wingnut from Bath, soldier on. My personal theory is that while most No voters were confident enough within themselves as to how and why they were voting, the Yes camp needed to talk constantly to each other to reinforce the many Nat myths and prejudices. But of course that may simply be prejudice on my part - you get reasoned debate here, but if you’ve come for impartiality, you’re on the wrong train.

An offer you CAN refuse

Anyway, back to the gorgeous Ms Caledonia. You may or may not have heard that Bella, in keeping with the sentiments of the season, has generously opened her columns to those untouchables who were stupid or evil enough to vote No on 18 September 2014. Yep, all 2.1m of them. Always room in Bella heaven for one more sinner who repents, apparently. To avoid accusations of bias (and because I have a well-developed sense of the ridiculous), it is worth reproducing Bella’s invitation to the 55% sinners in its entirety.

“As we stagger about the burnt-out shell that is post-IndyRef Scotland, we are trying to make sense of it all. So next week we are offering a space for No voters to have their say. Understanding what the hell just happened before we all disappear for Christmas Pudding and box-set bliss is important – so we’ll be giving over space to allow No voters to express themselves now we are three months on. If you voted No – what do you think and feel now?

You might want to apologise. You might feel vindicated. You might have realised you were being lied to all the time. Does the oil price prove we would have been an economic basket case? Or does the pensions revelations prove that propaganda won? Did the Vow wow you? Whether you changed your mind or feel it was the right thing to do, we want to hear from you.”

It is hard to know where to start when de-constructing this hyperbole. “What the hell happened”? What the hell happened was that a democratic vote was held under the conditions and within the generous timescale set by the SNP themselves, and that the Yes vote lost decisively. No mystery there whatsoever, Bella, hen.

And “lied to all the time”? Well, it was a long political campaign fought fairly hard and sometimes fairly dirty by both sides, and election literature is rarely cited as a paragon of objectivity. But lied to? All the time? “Propaganda won”? That simply insults voters’ intelligence.

Not a waste land just yet

Then we get to the meat of it. “The burnt-out shell that is post-IndyRef Scotland”? Like others, I am saddened that my country has become a more divided and mean-spirited place than it was when Alex Salmond embarked upon his doomed vanity project in 2011. But a burnt-out shell? Last time I looked, it was still business as usual in this busy, relatively prosperous, first world corner of one of the world’s most successful and enduring political unions. Buses and trains were still running, pubs were still serving, Hibs’ results were still pretty erratic, you could still buy Eddi Reader's CDs in good record shops everywhere. Here on Planet Sensible, IndyRef was a small earthquake. No-one dead.

Glasgow's George Square - still there

Then we get to “You might want to apologise”. Apologise? What on earth for? Since when was any person exercising his or her vote in a free democracy somehow accountable to the losing side for spoiling their day? I mean, it’s not as if Lesley Riddoch and Pat Kane were pushed over Niagara Falls in a barrel as part of the No camp’s victory celebrations or anything, though I know people who would have paid serious money to watch that. 

Don’t talk about the oil

Personally I am waiting for letters of thanks from all the Indy fantasists whom my vote has saved from the potential economic basket case which is North Sea oil. In the run-up to the vote, Salmond and Sturgeon were told by enough expert oil economists to fill the Glasgow Hydro (ok, that’s stretching it, but you can see where I’m going) that oil was far too volatile a market to be the cornerstone of an independent Scotland’s economy. They ignored all of that. It seems pretty clear now that the figures used in Salmond’s White Paper Scotland’s Future were cooked to support what the SNP knew all along was a flimsy economic case.

So I suppose that, unintentionally, you have got some of it correct, Bella. This No voter certainly does feel vindicated, and does think that Scottish voters were being lied to. And the lies were not just about oil but about some other key areas, such as: membership of the European Union; currency; and who is really responsible for the current problems in the Scottish Health Service.

And the lies continue. Nicola Sturgeon’s latest line (parroted also by Salmond, Stewart Hosie and other SNP nodding dogs) that oil was “always a bonus” for the post-Indy economy is simply untrue, unless their White Paper is also fantasy fiction (on the other hand …). And for Sturgeon to keep repeating that the current rock-bottom state of the oil market is unimportant because Scotland wouldn’t have been independent until 2016 anyway is beyond risible.

Now cheaper than Evian water

Nicola claims that oil will be back up to $100 per barrel quite soon, though that is not what most oil economists are saying. $100 is in any case still well below Salmond’s cautious minimum of $113 upon which the SNP’s whole economic case for an independent Scotland is based. There are more holes in the SNP’s fiscal narrative than in the colander in which I will be rinsing my Christmas sprouts.

My country I vow to thee

And now we get to the Vow, which the Yessers have adopted as their great get-out clause for the SNP leaders’ breaking of the Edinburgh Agreement and disavowal of the Smith recommendations. There is no mention anywhere in the Vow of Devo Max. Smith has clearly set out the “substantial new powers” which were mentioned. The SNP signed up to that. If the SNP were trying to sell a house, they would have been sued for breach of contract by now.

But politics is all about Hearts and Minds, and 37.7% of the Scottish electorate still need to be convinced that independence may not be the better route for Scotland’s future well-being and prosperity. So if you do feel tempted to take up Bella’s kind offer, you can send your contributions to her at bellasletters at yahoo.co.uk – or via @bellacaledonia. I am resisting that temptation for two reasons. Firstly, a quick scan of the contributions thus far (yes, there have been some) have obviously been carefully selected for their blandness. And secondly anything at all contradictory to the Bella orthodoxy (which can be summed up as Westminster is the Great Satan and all No voters are the Footsoldiers of Beelzebub) is subjected to the usual ad hominem attacks in the comments section. The comments are longer than most of the contributions.

Nick likes Alex's Christmas present

And there does seem to be a disproportionate number of entries from No voters repenting of their sins. I do not know of even one voter who voted No because of the Vow. I do not know of one voter who switched from Yes to No at a late stage because of the Vow. I do not know of one voter who has any regrets about voting No, or who would vote Yes next time (in Bella’s world, next time is just a matter of when the minority rise up and demand it – how within a Parliamentary democracy this will actually be effected is less clear). A more cynical person might suspect that some of the entries are not genuine.

And if you are one of the No-voting Twitterati, I wouldn’t bother passing on any comments to Bella via that route. Bella’s commitment to open democracy is such that most of the noisier No voters on social media are summarily blocked from the site (including yours truly – I had to do my research for this piece via the back door).

A Christmas gift for Yes

I have a counter invitation for any Yes voter, Bella fan or whatever. Feel free to make your counter-comments. Feel free to tell No voters why we should be apologising for the current collapse of the oil price, for the mess the SNP have made of our National Health Service over the past 7 years, for the outright lies we were told by the SNP regarding European Union membership, for SNP’s breach of the Edinburgh Agreement and of Smith.

And if you’re confused about the reference to the Edinburgh Agreement, this is directly from the Scottish Government’s own website.

"Question: If Scotland votes No, will there be another referendum on independence at a later date?

Answer: The Edinburgh Agreement states that a referendum must be held by the end of 2014. There is no arrangement in place for another referendum on independence.

It is the view of the current Scottish Government that a referendum is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. This means that only a majority vote for Yes in 2014 would give certainty that Scotland will be independent."

Feel free to show us where in the Vow it states that the IndyRef losers were guaranteed Devo Max or any other form of independence by the back door. Feel free to list all of the ways in which the English Imperialists are oppressing Scots – what parts of our culture are not available to Scotland as part of the UK.

Unlike Bella, you won’t be blocked, you will be published and your submissions will be taken seriously.

Yes or No, we’re still all One Scotland, so enjoy your Festive Season. If you’re on a budget, a barrel of Brent Crude might be the answer to your problems. At under $60 a barrel, it’s currently cheaper than Evian water.

Nicola’s dream

With Christmas coming up, no post would be complete without a quick Festive tale. Here is mine.

The week before Christmas, wee Nicola snuggled up under her big blue saltire duvet with her favourite teddy bear Hosie and drifted off to sleep with dreams of what Santa might be lining up for the massive stocking she planned to hang over the Bute House fireplace.

She woke up with a start to find that she was sitting on Santa’s knee – yep, the real Santa, red suit, boots, long white beard (he looked a bit like Mike Russell actually, but no dream is ever perfect).

“And now, young Nicola”, said Santa, “I understand from my elves that you have been a very good girl this year. What are you hoping to find in your stocking?”

“Well, Santa”, said Nicola in a sleepy voice, “In my odd moments off I’ve been catching up on Game of Thrones on DVD. I kind of fancy myself as a bit of a Daenerys Targaryen. I reckon a couple of dragons like hers would really cement my position in the Holyrood debating chamber and shut those noisy Kezia and Ruth women up.”

“Oh, dear, Nicola”, replied Santa, “We do our very best to give all the kiddies what they want at Christmas, but dragons are a bit of a tall order even for poor old Santa. Isn’t there something slightly less exotic you might want?”

“Weeell…”, said Nicola, “There is this wee problem I’m having with my predecessor, Alex. Alex Salmond, you might have heard of him, Santa? He doesn’t seem to want to retire and he’s stealing all my limelight, and it’s making me very cross. Can’t you maybe get him to behave a bit better and to keep his mouth shut occasionally?”.

“Tell me, Nicola“, said Santa, “What colour would you like your dragons?”

Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation

The poll for the Scottish Labour Party leadership has closed. Tomorrow we will all know who will lead the Party into the 2015 General Election and the 2016 Elections for Holyrood. I await this news with some trepidation. Which candidate wins will determine whether the Party spends another four or five years in opposition having yet another interminable internal debate on Manifesto minutiae, or whether Scottish Labour finally has a leader capable of giving the Party a realistic chance of clawing back some of the ground lost over the past decade or so.

Will it be Murphy, Boyack or Findlay?

The contest appears to have narrowed to a race between bookies’ favourite Jim Murphy and the left’s choice Neil Findlay. Murphy still looks likely to edge it. But root-and-branch Labour Party members have always been prone to opting for principle over power. A fair few of them still suffer from that Nigel Barton‑ish purism which prefers opposition in perpetuity to compromising a single line of Clause 4. That ideological blindness, together with the vagaries of the Party’s electoral college, make predicting a winner a dodgy business.

The fact that the contest has narrowed down to two alpha males in no way reflects on the excellence of Sarah Boyack’s candidacy, incidentally. Boyack has consistently impressed during this campaign as articulate, intelligent and measured. She also has valuable experience as a serving Holyrood Minister, which is not true of either of the other candidates. In less feral times, her star may have shone more brightly. But in truth, Sarah as leader would be a peace time consigliere, and Scottish Labour currently needs a wartime consigliere, someone who won’t lose much sleep if certain political opponents end up sleeping with the fishes. It is perhaps unfortunate that Boyack didn’t choose to stand for Deputy Leader, where her poise and experience would have strengthened the top team. But in politics, 20/20 hindsight wins no prizes.

For the sake of the Labour Party’s survival (and I really do think it is that critical), the winner needs to be a pragmatic attack dog who will hit the ground running and take the fight to the ruling SNP. His first priority should be to start to expose, and make political capital from, the SNP misinformation (and in several instances, downright lies) which is starting to unravel now that the Independence Referendum is lost.

Oiling the wheels

Foremost of these, of course, is the collapse of the oil market. Only last year, Alex Salmond was confidently claiming that Scotland was at the start of a 40 year oil boom, and predicting that the industry would generate £57 billion of tax revenue in only six years. Back on Planet Earth, in the short weeks since the Referendum Brent Crude, which during the campaign Salmond was bullishly asserting would never fall below $113 a barrel (the economic predictions in his White Paper Scotland’s Future are predicated on $120 a barrel), fell to a current low of $65, with little prospect of an early recovery.

Has the sun set on the SNP's oil fantasies?

A blip, claimed new First Minister Nicola Surgeon on Sky News a week past Sunday, until the Sky interviewer had to point out to her that all the expert oil economists were saying quite the opposite. Of course the SNP have a track record in ignoring experts who dare to challenge their fantasy economics. These same oil economists were telling Salmond throughout the campaign that the economy of an independent Scotland would be simply too small to be sustained on something as volatile as North Sea oil. This was not fear or lack of ambition by Better Together (the standard accusation any time the SNP’s claims were questioned) but simple arithmetic. Maybe the oil price will rise again. But it is now clear to anyone who cares to look that oil is an inherently unstable commodity, far too unstable to serve as the fiscal foundation of a new nation state.

But as in so many other areas (currency, EU membership, joining NATO), the expert advice was ridiculed, or more usually dismissed as Westminster scaremongering. Alex was right and all the experts were wrong.

It’s the economy, stupid

And the First Minister may have changed, but that mindset has not. When Nicola Sturgeon was pushed further on how an independent Scotland would have fared in the current oil climate, she made the risible statement that the price collapse wouldn’t have mattered anyway because even with a Yes vote, Scotland wouldn’t have been independent for at least another 18 months.

The SNP are now desperately backtracking and saying that oil income (which, remember, is not revenue from the oil itself but only the taxation collected on its extraction) was not essential to the Scottish economy anyway and was only ever intended to provide Scotland with a Norway-style oil fund. That is emphatically not what the White Paper said. In one of the few parts of the document which is actually specific about money, it clearly says that oil revenue will finance 15% of an independent Scotland’s budget. What we would actually be looking at is an £8 billion hole in that budget. That’s an awful lot of schools and hospitals for a small country with a population of only 5.6m souls.

Oil really is the SNP’s $64 question

$113 a barrel? Try $64, Alex

The oil question is not some minor fiscal detail. It matters. It matters a great deal. The whole of the SNP’s case for independence was essentially predicated on their tired old mantra from the 70s, It’s Scotland’s oil. It is now apparent that had Scotland actually achieved independence, far from being an oil-rich paradise we would now be an economic basket case with greater fiscal problems than Greece (and, most likely, no European Union safety net to bail us out). A Party which gets their basic economics so badly wrong is not to be trusted. More fiscal autonomy from Smith? On the evidence so far, John Swinney and his pals should be kept as far away as possible from even the small change in the national biscuit tin.

Independent in Europe?

And now we should turn to the vexed question of Europe. For the record, like most No voters of my acquaintance I am firmly pro-European Union. It is not a perfect institution by any means, but by any sensible measure it has served the UK (and by extension Scotland) pretty well since we joined in 1973. In trading terms Scotland’s largest export market – over half of all sales - remains the rest of the UK, but we still do very well in Europe’s free market. The social chapter has also made its contribution to social justice. Social attitude studies tend to confirm that Scots are happy to remain part of the European Union. And after oil and currency, Scotland’s entitlement to remain in the EU was of significant importance to Scots voters.

The Yes campaign understood that, so Scottish voters were repeatedly told during the campaign, that Scotland’s re-entry to the EU on the current UK terms was a given. This was despite several prominent European politicians challenging that view during the campaign. Again any doubts were summarily dismissed as “scaremongering” (there was something quite Orwellian about how all attempts to establish a factual basis for some of the SNP’s more arcane claims were dismissed as scaremongering, talking Scotland down, etc).

Lies, damned lies - and Scottish taxpayers pick up the tab

Membership of the EU turned out to be another example of Alex right, everyone else wrong. Salmond even went so far as to claim to Andrew Neil in a TV interview that the Scottish Government had taken formal legal advice on the matter - a claim which subsequently turned out to be, to put not too fine a point on it, an outright lie. No such legal advice had been sought or received. In terms of the debate (to use Salmond’s phrase as he tried to bluster his way clear of Neil’s probing) or in any other terms, No does not mean Yes. To add insult to injury, new First Minister Nicola Sturgeon then went to court with £19,453 of taxpayers’ money in an attempt to prevent the media reporting Salmond’s bare-faced lie.

The oil price fiasco can possibly dismissed as economic incompetence, though it is not a good advertisement for the SNP’s ability to run a burger van, far less a small country newly independent. But Salmond’s dishonesty over European Union membership, which suggest a willingness to say whatever it takes to garner Yes votes, is in a different league altogether. To many, it poses serious questions over his fitness to rule.

The beast is back

And the European Union obfuscation is not an isolated example of Salmond’s inherent deviousness. We heard over the weekend, though it was hardly a surprise, that Salmond plans a return to Westminster via retiring Lib Dem Gordon Bruce’s seat in the Gordon Constituency. Salmond appears so confident of winning there that he is already setting out the conditions under which he is willing to horse trade with the other UK Parties in the hung Parliament he confidently expects in May 2015.

Apparently even more rocks will melt before Salmond’s SNP enters into coalition with David Cameron’s Tories. Salmond’s principles here appear flexible, given that he happily stood shoulder to shoulder with Annabel Goldie’s Tories at Holyrood from 2007-2011. He has also magnanimously let it be known that he may be willing to do a deal with Ed Miliband’s Labour, though a formal coalition is not on offer. And no, I don’t know what Nicola Sturgeon makes of these antics either. Clearly Salmond seems to have forgotten his forced resignation following the Referendum defeat and has resumed his place at the head of the table.

Of course a few conditions still have to be met before Salmond gets to play kingmaker or toast any more English tootsies before the fire. First of all, he still has to win the Gordon seat. Only a political naïf would deny that the odds are in his favour. But it is no shoo in either - there are early signs that the Gordon voters are not too happy to be taken for granted, and an informal cross-Party tactical vote is already coalescing round Lib Dem candidate Christine Jardine. Scottish voters have proved in the past to be pretty good at tactical voting. The Constituency’s young Labour candidate, Braden Davy, has to all intents been taken out of the fray already, smeared in a particularly nasty manner over some youthful indiscretions by the odious extreme Nationalist website Wings over Scotland. Wings is the Bath-based mouthpiece of wingnut Rev Stuart Campbell, the author of the Referendum campaign’s very own Zinoviev letter, the Wee Blue Book. If the sizeable Tory base in Gordon votes tactically – and that part of Scotland returned one of the largest No majorities in September, so has no real reason to vote SNP - it could well be an early bath for Alex.

Secondly, win or lose Gordon, the SNP still have to deliver on their predicted sweep of Scottish Westminster seats in the 2015 Election. Certainly the polls are running ridiculously high in the political silly season which has followed the Referendum result. For a while, no newspaper was complete without its wee map of Scotland coloured almost completely yellow. But in truth there have not been that many reliable polls as yet, and there are signs that the bubble is levelling out.

Back to Westminster for Salmond?

The SNP may well see a modest increase on their current six seats, but under the first past the post system it would take a very large swing to SNP before many seats change hands. Experienced political commentators are sceptical about a predicted Labour wipe-out. The SNP predicted a similar Westminster landslide at the 2010 General Election. It didn’t happen. Despite what the SNP and the polls were saying, Labour actually went up slightly.

A more likely outcome for 2015, once Labour has its new leader up and running, as the Referendum dust continues to settle, and as the SNP start to come under scrutiny as a Government rather than a campaign team, is that the SNP gain some seats, Scottish Tories gain some seats, the Lib Dems drop some, and Labour do not that well, but not as badly as predicted either. That is pretty much what the bookies are saying, and you don’t meet too many poor bookies. Although the Nats have always been hot on the early gloat (remember Free in 93?), they are much less accurate with predictions.

Who’s the SNP Daddy? Not Nicola, apparently

Win or lose, Salmond’s tactics for the SNP’s Westminster campaign (and it does seem to be Salmond’s campaign, rather than Nicola Surgeon’s) are becoming clear. He is already pursuing the same divisive and destructive line as he did during the referendum. Since he announced his candidacy, he has been taking every able media opportunity to stoke up anti-Westminster feeling and to fuel a sense of grievance over the alleged betrayal of the Vow by the Smith Commission.

Frankly, his behaviour as regards the Vow and Smith is beyond reprehensible. He has already been called out on TV by Andrew Neil (one of the few commentators who seems capable of standing up to his bullying – certainly no-one else on the BBC is taking him on over the hard issues, and STV is little better than the SNP state broadcaster) over his claim that Smith has reneged on a previous promise to deliver Devo Max.

“All five parties have signed up to all of it, line by line”

This Max wasn't promised in the Vow either

It cannot be said too often that there is no mention at all in the Vow of Devo Max, Pepsi Max or any other damn Max. The Vow only talks vaguely of “substantial new powers”, which is exactly what Lord Smith’s report offers to Scotland. Presumably that is what the SNP’s representatives John Swinney and Linda Fabiani thought on the Wednesday before publication of the Commission’s report, too. As Lord Smith himself has said, “all five parties have signed up to all of it, line by line”.

In any case it is time someone put to bed the SNP’s oft regurgitated lie that the Vow was somehow responsible for turning an expected Yes landslide into a hefty defeat overnight. Anecdotal evidence is never wholly reliable, but contrary to what some of the zoomier SNP apologists would have people believe, no other hard evidence on voters’ pre-Referendum intentions are available. Personally I do not know of one single No voter – not one – who changed his or her vote from Yes to No on having read the Vow.

Winning hearts and minds

Most No voters were not traitors, deluded, duped, too stupid, too old, too rich for independence. Ask us and we will tell you – there was nothing on the ballot paper about any Vow, just one very simple question. And we answered No to that question because we were unconvinced that the Yes campaign had made a conclusive argument for independence. As for the claims that a huge chunk of No voters are now regretting it, again ask us and we’ll tell you:

• we look at the current oil price;

• we look at the recently highlighted NHS crises in Grampian and in Lothian;

• we look at Scotland’s hospital waiting lists, which are longer than those in England and Wales;

• we look at Scottish parents’ deep dissatisfaction with the shambles the SNP are making of our school curriculum;

• we look at the recent collapse of two SNP Government-financed energy renewables companies, after Salmond’s boast that Scotland was about to become “the Saudi Arabia of renewables”;

• we look at the way in which Salmond and Sturgeon have ripped up the Edinburgh Agreement and the Smith Commission Report;

• we look at the downright lies we were told by Salmond about EU membership;

• and most of all we look at the boorish antics of those Yes voters (and elected representatives) who seem unable to accept the democratic decision of 2.1m Scots.

And from all of those factors, and more, we are quite, quite sure we made the correct decision on 18 September 2014. If the declining band of Indieniers really want a quick re-run of 18 September 2014, all I can do is summon the ghost of Wendy Alexander and say - Bring It On.

Wuz we robbed? Well, no…

It is absurd to claim (and no serious psephologist would do so) that at least 200,000 voters actively switched from an intended Yes vote to a No vote overnight because they had read a mocked up Vow the front page of the Daily Record. But that is the suspension of disbelief which seems to pose no problem, not only for the tinfoil-hatted Indieniers who just can’t accept they lost because despite all the window posters, balloons and slogans their two-year campaign simply wasn’t persuasive enough, but for the leaders of the SNP. Either they are terminally naïve or they are insulting the intelligence of the Electorate. And whatever else Salmond is, I don’t think he is naïve.

There was nothing in the Vow which had not already been promised to Scots voters anyway. It had been the mantra of every single Party during the campaign that whatever the outcome of the vote, a return to the status quo was not an option, and that more powers for Holyrood had to follow on from the Referendum. Salmond himself is on record before 18 Sep 2014 dismissing the Vow out of hand as offering voters nothing new. And for once he was telling the truth there.

It Doesn't say Devo Max anywhere

So why is he telling bare-faced lies about it now? There is little doubt that the publication of the Vow, along with powerful interventions by that other big beast of Scottish politics Gordon Brown and, significantly, the single rogue poll which a few days before the vote wrongly suggested a 1% lead for the Yes campaign, helped to firm up the No vote and to ensure a healthy turnout. But a wholesale switch of 200,000 votes from Yes to No? Bollocks frankly, and Salmond’s claims to the contrary are fraudulent.

I see nothing disreputable about the Gordon Brown or Daily Record interventions incidentally. There is nothing in the Edinburgh Agreement which ruled out campaigning for a No vote (not that either Salmond or Sturgeon have abided by the Edinburgh Agreement).

It would be good if the Scottish media could now start to act as proper journalists rather than SNP members with typewriters. They might follow the likes of Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo, Jackie Bird and Nick Robinson, and start calling out Salmond, Sturgeon, Hosie et al every time they try to punt their “Vow betrayed” nonsense. Ask Alex and Nicola politely to list all of those powers which they claim were promised before the referendum. And when they have done that, show voters exactly where in the Vow those powers were promised.

Because the Vow is easy to find, and a quick scan will show that not one single specific power is mentioned there. There is, I suppose, an argument about what actually constitutes “substantial new powers”. But the fundamental question remains – if the SNP didn’t believe those substantial new powers were contained in Smith, why did Swinney and Fabiani sign up to Smith? Sign up to every line of it?

Grievo Max

Of course the real reason Salmond continues to whip up the cult of grievance and blame which so scarred the mean-spirited, divisive Referendum campaign in his new found enthusiasm for a return to Westminster, is that he really doesn’t have any other campaign weapons. His ultimate aim remains the breakup of the UK. Having failed to achieve that through the Scottish electorate, he now wants to head for Westminster to stir up anti-English sentiment there. Having taken a £65K payoff from his last departure from the Great Satan (which he has no intention of repaying, incidentally), he now wants to go back down there to “rumble the place up”.

  

Will Alex be doing that next May?

The only thing he rumbled up last time he was at Westminster was the MPs’ expenses budget, infamously claiming for meals that he hadn’t eaten because he wasn’t actually there to eat them. Before M’Learned Friends come beating down my door, I should make it clear that Salmond was not charged with any impropriety at the time. What he was doing (essentially claiming for expenses which he had not incurred) was apparently at that time within the rules, though it would now be classed as fraud. But I will leave it for you to judge whether, rules or not, it was an appropriate way for an elected representative to behave. I will leave it to you to consider what he might have done or said had, say, a Labour MP been caught thus with his hand in the till.

Similarly, Salmond has in the past been highly critical of MPs from other parties who have twin-tracked as MSPs. But once again it seems that the rules are different when applied to himself. He has made it clear that when - if - he wins the Gordon seat, he has no intention of giving up his Banff and Buchan MSP seat. Just a whiff of hypocrisy and double standards there maybe?

Are the Westminster and Holyrood elections a foregone conclusion?

It should be clear from what I have said above that I believe not. I regret that once again I am writing about the trail of debris left by the Referendum rather than the more optimistic whither now piece I had in mind for this week. But whatever the will of the UK Parties, moving on will remain difficult while the ruling SNP clique at Holyrood continue to gripe, moan and pick over the bones of the fight they just lost, rather than do the job for which they were elected in 2007 and 2011. Scotland has been without a proper, active Government for too long.

BBC bias in action?

As even some prominent pro-independence commentators are starting to acknowledge (and I commend to everyone Gerry Hassan’s excellent IndyRef; 12 Hard Truths in this week’s Scotland on Sunday) another Independence Referendum is not going to be conceded or won any time soon, not even if Salmond wins every Westminster and Holyrood seat in Scotland. That ship has sailed. So any attempt to re-run either the 2015 General Election or 2016 Holyrood Election as Indy by Proxy is doomed to fail. If the SNP are smart enough to start acting like a proper Government for all Scots, they just might pose a problem for the UK parties. But if they persist in presenting as a ginger group for their dwindling band of sore losers, they are ultimately sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Maybe not this time round. But it will come. You can’t buck the law of diminishing returns.

Meantime, the task of the UK Parties remains as it was – to work together to see off the threat of a UK breakup. There will be time after that for a return to the old tribalisms. But at the moment, the opponent of my enemy is my friend. And the first test of that should be in Gordon, where a good Lib Dem candidate, taking over from the well-respected Malcolm Bruce, looks the best bet to see off the destructive arrogance of Alex Salmond and to kick the wheels off his bandwagon. I might not be admitting it openly – I am aware of the Labour Party rule book and the penalty for supporting candidates from other Parties – but I’m damn sure I know where I would be putting my cross in the privacy of the polling booth.

Lord Smith Goes To Holyrood - where now for Scotland?

I promised (or threatened depending on where you stand) in my last piece that I would cover the Scottish Labour Party’s current leadership contest. So I shall. But there is no doubt about last week’s big story, so first we should take a look at the report of the Smith Commission and, more importantly, at what it means for Scottish politics. The Labour’s Party’s travails, and indeed the challenges facing Scotland’s other four Holyrood participants, now really have to be seen in the context of Smith.

The Vow which sank the Yes vote?

Last Thursday I toddled along to the Edinburgh leg of the Scottish Labour Party’s leadership hustings tour, of which more later. But one common theme emerged from all the candidates and from others present to whom I spoke during the course of the evening. The general consensus was that the Smith Commission’s report has the potential to be a game-changer for all the Parties at Holyrood. In particular, the task now for Scotland’s opposition Parties – and it is a shared responsibility – is to dispel the patronising SNP lie that in September Scottish voters were duped into voting No by the 3 Stooges Vow.

Scots who voted No were quite clear about why they were doing so – because they rejected the Nationalists’ politics of blame, grievance and division, opting instead for the continuation of a successful union dating back to 1707. The result on 18 September 2014 ratified what has for the past 300 years has been the settled will of the vast majority of Scots. It is high time that the SNP accepted and respected our decision.

How Soon Is Now?

Looking at Smith in the cold light of day after the initial frenzy has subsided, the report still looks a remarkable piece of work – a crisp 28-page Agreement to which all five Holyrood parties have signed up, setting out proposals more radical than anyone expected. The Labour-leaning Daily Record, where the original and much misrepresented Vow was published a few days before the Referendum vote, was unequivocal last Friday – Vow Delivered. More considered assessments from the rest of the media, both in Scotland and in the UK as a whole, have broadly agreed that Lord Smith has come up with the goods and that it is up to Holyrood now to make the package work. On time, on budget and to specification, as they say in the trade.

Predictably, the social media’s increasingly desperate rump of Glorious 45ers are doing their best to trash Smith’s recommendations. The separation camp’s new propaganda sheet, the National (or as it was quickly dubbed by No wags, McPravda) surprised no-one by dismissing Smith as a betrayal of the Vow. This week’s Sunday Herald is also calling foul because some of the UK Parties were apparently unprepared to concede the devolution of certain powers. I don’t see that as a man bites dog story, or worth an iota of outrage. The process is called negotiation, and the outcome is called compromise. It is how politics at its most effective works.

But I can’t comment in detail on the Sunday Herald’s piece because I haven’t actually read it. I stopped taking the Herald a while back. I don’t object to the SNP having a house journal but I am not going to pay good money for it.

Sign today, whine tomorrow

John tells Lord Smith what he thinks of his report

The most peculiar spectacle of publication day was the behaviour of senior SNP figures. John Swinney and Linda Fabiani (the SNP’s representatives on the Smith Commission), Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s Question Time and Pete Wishart at Westminster all spent Thursday moaning about the perceived inadequacy of Smith’s conclusions. The usual suspects quickly fell into line behind them with sound-bites from the SNP crib sheet.

Ex-First Minister Alex Salmond was at his bumptious worst on Andrew Neil’s This Week programme, shouting down both Neil and Michael Portillo when they dared to suggest that Scots had got pretty much what the Vow had said they would get. Unfortunately Salmond’s tiresome allegations that it was the biased BBC wot lost the Referendum for him have not motivated him to boycott the broadcaster. Since 18 September 2014 the SNP generally have got about as much uncritical coverage as the Queen Mother’s funeral.

This Charming Man

Salmond - on the Spectator's menu

Salmond was fresh in the BBC studios from an earlier appearance at a Spectator lunch where he was receiving that magazine’s award as their Politician of the Year, presumably on the grounds that he was the only Scottish politician which the determinedly right-wing Spectator demographic could actually recognise or name. Obviously there are some Tories with whom Alex Salmond has no problem rubbing shoulders, particularly where a good lunch is going gratis.

Salmond concluded that acceptance speech (which was received more with a tsunami of resentment than a wave of affection, according to one wit who was there) to the audience at the event by sitting down and blowing his nose on a hankie bearing a St George’s Cross. Classy.

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

The attitude of the senior SNP figures towards Smith is baffling and contradictory. Smith’s powers, runs the SNP orthodoxy, come nowhere near what the people of Scotland were promised and expected. Scotland has been betrayed, they howl.

The SNP and the new First Minister seem to preface all their statements now with the claim that they are “speaking for Scotland”. Given that the SNP are a Party who, having been voted into Holyrood by a mere 23% of the Scottish Electorate, then called an Independence Referendum which they then lost badly because they could only persuade 37% of the Scottish Electorate how unfree they were, they can’t really be said to "speak for all Scots”.

But more importantly the SNP, with the other four Holyrood Parties, had freely signed up to Smith the day before they decided to advise Scotland how much they had been betrayed. Didn’t John and Linda tell Nicola what was actually in Smith before she wandered into Holyrood’s debating chamber to face off MSPs at First Minister’s Questions? Didn’t they keep their Leaderene apprised, as negotiations proceeded and the inevitable political compromises were made, as to what they were signing up on behalf of the SNP? If the SNP thought Smith’s package was so unacceptable, why didn’t they just walk away from the Commission?

Agreements? We don’t need no stinkin’ agreements

The SNP’s general attitude towards those cross-party and cross-Parliament agreements which are part and parcel of UK political life is not a particularly mature one. They reneged on the Edinburgh Agreement as soon as they had lost their Referendum, and the promises which they had made to respect the Referendum’s result became inconvenient. Similarly they are now dissing and distancing themselves from Smith before the ink of their own signatures on the document has dried.

Nicola Sturgeon’s petulant beef that Smith does not give the SNP the full powers they wanted is technically accurate. But that is a long way from their claim that it does not give the Scottish people what we wanted. Which “Scottish people” is that, Nicola? Does it include the 2.1m who voted No only two months ago, or are you talking only for your Glasgow Hydro fan club?

Ms Sturgeon speaks for Scotland - well, some of it anyway

The powers which the SNP were demanding would have been commensurate only with full independence. Full independence was never on offer from Smith. Nor was full Home Rule, whatever throwaway comments Gordon Brown may have made towards the end of an increasingly ill-tempered Referendum debate. Not on offer either was Devo Max, that much over-used term which is so freely bandied about but has never actually been defined or delimited.

And the reason none of those package was on offer is simple enough - as the SNP have consistent trouble remembering or admitting, they can’t have the powers of full independence because back in September 2.1m Scottish voters stated that they did not want to separate from the UK. You lost, guys – remember?

What was on offer was “substantial new powers”, and as everyone bar the SNP and wee Patrick Harvie’s Green duo pretty well agree, those substantial new powers have been delivered. It is now up to all Parties, and particularly up to the SNP as the Party currently in power at Holyrood, to take the Smith recommendations through to a conclusion. Maybe then we will see a Scottish Government ready to take on board its responsibility to govern Scotland and to use effectively the substantial new powers, along with the substantial old powers which they already have but have never bothered to use, to make Scotland better.

(What’s so funny ‘bout) Peace Love and Understanding)?

That none of the Parties have secured everything they wanted from Smith is hardly surprising. Holyrood comprises five Parties with very different ideologies, so of course their demands were all different too. But remarkably in Scottish politics, all Parties appear to have made concessions in a spirit of consensus, and a workable compromise has been reached. Scottish Labour in particular made a significant and generous concession on tax-raising powers to ensure that agreement was possible.

So it would have been nice to think that having made an historic agreement, all Parties would stick to it. But the SNP seem determined to use the remainder of their term at Holyrood to continue fostering the mean-spirited division which has been a feature of their preceding 7 years in power. When she took up office, we had pious words from the new First Minister about leading a Government for all Scots. It now appears that what she really meant was for all Scots who voted Yes in the recent Referendum. The other 63% of us don’t count for much.

Lord Smith’s modest post-publication line is that he was just the referee. But a quick scan of the Report’s 28 pages shows that he has done a fine job both of facilitating a consensus and of setting the conclusions down on paper in concise lawyer’s prose. He deserved a better acknowledgement of his contribution than he got from the SNP and Greens, whose representatives pointedly sat on their hands which others generously applauded at the end of his presentation on Thursday.

What Difference Does It Make?

Smith has moved this current Holyrood administration into a new phase, albeit they are going there extremely unwillingly and not without their usual litany of grudge, grievance and blame. Scotland has had 7 years of legislative stalemate while the SNP has pursued its only real policy, independence. That project is dead. Smith has given Holyrood a raft of sweeping new powers. Holyrood already had extensive powers which the SNP have largely refused to use. So it is put up or shut up time for the SNP Government. You wanted more powers, you got more powers. Now let’s see you do the job for which you were elected, which is to run the Scottish Government, not pursue a never-ending campaign for separation.

One way to get Indy off the Agenda for a generation

But where Scotland goes from here depends very much now on the other Parties’ determination and ability to hold Sturgeon’s Government to account. Last week she set out her legislative priorities for the next 12 months. In truth much of it is pretty thin stuff, and most of it would have been tackled long before now by a Government which cared more about Scots and Scotland than about their fantasy of creating the new Brigadoon.

But there are still good things for which legislation is needed. It is now up to the Holyrood opposition, and in particular up to a Scottish Labour Party which needs to re-invigorate itself pretty rapidly if it is to stay in the game, to make sure that SNP feet are held to the fire which Salmond wanted to light at Westminster - but which in the event proved not to be required.

Will the Murphy be bitter?

As anyone who has not just returned from Mars is aware, the No camp’s resounding Referendum victory has been obscured by the embittered departure of Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont. Scottish Party members are currently being balloted on her replacement, and some time after 10 December 2014, Scotland will know whether Jim Murphy, Neil Findlay or Sarah Boyack will lead Scottish Labour into the 2015 General Election and the 2016 Holyrood Election. The bookies’ favourite as I write this is Jim Murphy, but as the voting system is the same Electoral College which gave the UK Party Ed Milliband, nothing is certain.

Although the Edinburgh leg of the Scottish Labour Party’s leadership hustings which I attended last Thursday lacked the pizazz of last week’s SturgeFest 2014 at the Glasgow Hydro, in its own modest way it showed a bit of the same passion. No-one would deny that Scottish Labour is not currently in great shape, but those wishful thinkers who predict the Party’s imminent interment may find that its death has been exaggerated. Certainly those Party members present last Thursday showed both a clear understanding of Scottish Labour’s current predicament and a commendable honesty about the remedial action required.

Panic

Scottish Labour’s latest internal crisis is almost wholly self-created. The Party should currently be riding high: capitalising on a thoroughly convincing Referendum win; attacking the SNP for 7 years of stagnation while they ran the Scottish Government as the campaign HQ for their Indy campaign; attacking their hypocrisy on Child Poverty and the National Health Service; and pointing out that their fantasy oil economics make them the real liars of the Indy campaign. Instead the Party’s disarray has allowed the SNP to position themselves as victims and winners - history as farce and tragedy all at once.

But the decline of the Scottish Labour Party is not a recent phenomenon. The signs have been there really since the death of Donald Dewar, but the serious rot set in after the close and unexpected 2007 result. A more vigorous opponent than Labour’s Jack McConnell, who post-defeat resembled nothing so much as a rabbit trapped in the headlights, would have been ridiculing Salmond’s people for their hubris. Instead, Scottish Labour MSPs (and remember that there were only four fewer of them), clearly shell-shocked by their fall from grace, stayed supine and allowed Salmond to make damn sure that his version of political history was written by the victors.

The following period of complacency and failure to read the political runes has done damage to Scottish Labour. Having set up the two-tier system at Holyrood, the Party’s subsequent refusal to use the List pragmatically has turned difficult Election years into Russian roulette for the Party’s experienced hands. The SNP showed how it should be done – protect your biggest beasts at all costs, nurture new List names and build their profile, then move them to the front line in due course. Not rocket science - but Scottish Labour still got it very wrong.

There is a Light Which Never Goes Out

But all is not doom and gloom. Despite the hubris of the partying Glorious 45ers as they celebrate their defeat, there is no evidence to suggest that if the Referendum was re-run today, the result would be any different. If anything, the No vote looks to be hardening in the face of what is, to many, irritating and unjustified triumphalism by the SNP. A defeated team won’t win a replay by calling the winners cheats and fools.

The Glasgow Hydro Sturgefest 2014 may have been fun for the 12,000 who turned up to the First Salmondonian Freedom Mission to worship at the feet of the Blessed St Nicola the Divine, but the average voter (and as the 18 Sep 2014 turnout showed, there are a lot of average voters out there) was bothered, not a little bewildered and not in any way bewitched by the whole absurd circus. Once upon a time, a wee band from Edinburgh called the Bay City Rollers attracted hordes of screaming fans, and they too were draped in tartan - even more tartan than Ms Sturgeon. Like most fads, that didn’t last. Whether it lasts for Nicola remains to be seen.

How deep is your love?

Scottish Labour’s problems do admittedly run a bit deeper than who should be taking over at Holyrood, as the clutch of Party notables who quickly ruled themselves out of the contest to inherit the poisoned chalice worked out for themselves. Sure, the Scottish Party needs reformed and, sure, its relationship with the UK Party needs to change, though as Labour remains a UK Party and will always be vulnerable to the Nats’ anti-Westminster jibes, they perhaps need to learn how to make a virtue of that necessity.

Nor is the Scottish Party’s malaise the whole story. If there existed among UK voters a serious perception that Labour was in a strong position to oust the deeply unpopular Tory/Lib Dem coalition in 2015, a lot of the noise around the Scottish succession would matter a lot less. But whatever the polls may be saying, and they are increasingly good overall for Labour despite Ed Miliband’s disastrously bad press over the past few weeks, the voter belief just isn’t there.

We can win in 2015

Most voters sympathetic to the Labour cause agree that Ed is a good person. But he doesn’t look like a strong leader. And he just doesn’t look like a Prime Minister in waiting. One of Johann Lamont’s beefs as she flounced out the door of the leader’s office was that Ed didn’t understand Scottish politics. The problem is that to many voters he doesn’t show much sign of understanding UK politics either.

I know that some of the above reads rather negatively. But when you are struggling to crawl out of a hole, it is not enough just to stop digging. A bit of honesty about the hole’s depth and dimensions is also helpful. A good starting point would be if the Party’s spokespeople stopped panicking and recognised that despite the hubris of the losers’ club, 63% of the Scottish electorate have no problem continuing under Westminster rule.

It’s not about the Manifesto, guys

Those members with a vote in Labour’s leadership election perhaps want to consider carefully what kind of leader the Scottish Party needs. The Party’s moral majority will probably feel slighted by the next bit, but I’m letting you into an open secret here - the Party’s current crisis does not spring from the fact that there is a policy vacuum, or from a voter perception that the Party is “not left enough”.

Certainly the Party has over a period of years failed to articulate its core values, or even to define those core values, indulging instead in a series of short term gimmicks. But those Labour purists who think all can be well if only the Party’s manifesto is Bennite enough are at best misguided. The lack of a political strategy has not harmed the Party’s Nationalist opponents - one trick ponies who have flogged to death that one trick, independence as the magic bullet cure for all Scotland's ills.

In an ideal world, we all want to see nuclear weapons multilaterally banished for ever. But cancellation of Trident is not an issue foremost in the minds of the average voting Joe or Jane on the top deck of the No 31 bus. These are people who want clear, understandable messages on the NHS, on schools, on housing, on jobs. They need to be convinced why Scottish Labour will deliver on their everyday priorities, while the SNP can’t or won’t do so while they drag Scotland down another four years of fruitless constitutional wrangling. There is no appetite for a Neverendum.

These voters also need to be reminded that a Party which has failed to deliver anything in the way of Social Justice for the past seven years in Holyrood is probably not going to make a much better fist of it in the next four.

This is not 1980. Scotland is not stuck in a re-run of Life on Mars. The priority is not a clutch of right-on Socialist policies to gladden the heart of the Party’s Lentilista wing. Scottish Labour did not lose the confidence of Scotland because the Party lacked the correct package of Socialist policies. Labour has lost so much ground because Scottish voters no longer believed the Party had the competence, unity or will to form an effective Government. So the task of the new leader, whoever he or she may be, is to convince voters that Scottish Labour can once again be something better than clueless, rudderless and leaderless.

Oscillate Wildly

The next big day out for Scottish voters is the General Election in 2015. Voters need to be convinced that sending SNP MPs to the Nats' despised Westminster so that they can agitate for another Referendum will not do much for their standard of living.

Will it be Jim's job to fix it?

Making common cause with the other mainstream Parties should be a priority for the new leader. UK Parties working together saw off the separatist threat in September 2014. They must continue to co-operate to ensure that the threat stays seen off. You can deduce from my scribblings so far that I do not vote Tory and am unlikely ever to do so. Nevertheless the Scottish Tories’ Ruth Davidson has shown her not inconsiderable mettle during and since the Referendum campaign. And although it is hard to get over-excited about a Party which can fit all its MSPs into one black cab and still have room to pick up a stray drunk on the way home, it would be churlish not to mention the Lib Dems as well – every Parliament needs a Willie, and Mr Rennie too has been constant and effective in his interventions.

That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

So there we have it. Scottish politics is settling into a more sensible rhythm after the Referendum frenzy. We are where we are, and it is not a totally bad place to be.

My own gut feeling, for what it is worth, is that that the Nationalist hysteria has now peaked. Post-Smith, Nicola and her chums are going to find it increasingly difficult to maintain their Scotland good, Westminster bad schtick. They are going to be increasingly exposed as a Scottish Government who talk the talk but walk a very different walk.

The SNP are presently going for the early gloat. Their prediction, based on a couple of now-outdated Internet polls, is of SNP landslides in both 2015 and 2016. But many of us remember their Free in 93 boast. Their hubris can only be realised if the UK Parties fail to give voters the realistic alternative which is badly needed after 7 years of a virtual Scottish one party state.

And the message is an unsubtle one. If you don’t want another five years of Neverendum, economic stagnation and the Westminster blame game - vote whatever it takes to oust the SNP in 2015 and 2016. There will be time enough to argue amongst ourselves about which socially just angels to balance on the head of the pin when we get our Parliament back. The immediate priority is to oust the Nationalist devil.