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.