Why did the SNP lose Glasgow North East so badly? My column in The Sunday Times explores that issue, here is a taster:
The government plans to unveil legislation for an independence referendum on St Andrew’s Day, yet the subject was hardly mentioned in Glasgow North East. Unionists believe the referendum is an expensive diversion. The SNP could seize the initiative and present it as an economic opportunity. Scotland, a small country with natural resources in oil and renewable energy, could arguably adapt to the post-recession world more easily than England, whose fortunes are distorted by the City of London. That means tackling difficult matters such as how to rebuild those banks. Should a nationalised rump of RBS be transferred to Holyrood control? Should we have state development banks like Germany? What should they fund to replace financial services as an major employer?
A take-no-prisoners SNP campaign would argue that these banks ceased to be particularly Scottish when they operated under the City of London’s lax rules. We could have regulated them ourselves had we been independent. We could have saved them ourselves without much pain as, being independent, we’d have built up an oil fund like Norway. It’s hypothetical, but there is an election round the corner.
Even countries without the Norwegian cushion, such as Ireland and Iceland, saved their banks without incurring national debt levels as drastic as Britain’s predicted £2.3 trillion. UK debt is a higher percentage of GDP than other countries’ and it’s accumulating at a rate of more than £6,000 a second. A fighting SNP might respond to such figures with a slogan such as: “Can Scotland afford to stay in the Union?”
It’s negative. It says little about the competence of the devolved administration. But it does have a certain bite.
On the by-election night, I mentioned on the Newsnight Scotland special that the party got overwhelmed by a parochial agenda. Although judging from campaigners such as Bellegrove Belle, who did a lot of doorstepping, Labour's messages did have an effect on voters.
"Rip off Glasgow" may be the politics of grievance, but it worked and the nats will need to find a way to grab back the agenda, perhas by pointing out more that the cancellation of GARL is the fault of a budget settlement devised by London. They will be accused of "picking fights with London". But what can be more divisive than stirring up resentment between Glasgow and Edinburgh? As Brian Talor put it in his Blether Blog this was an example of exploiting single transferable prejudice.
The SNP should try presenting independence as a positive alternative to life in bankrupt Britain. Subrosa agrees with me. So does Gordon Wilson, the former leader, who argues here that ministers are too focused on parliament, when politics is really on the street. This is what he told Scotland on Sunday.
"Around about nine months ago, the SNP should have led the attack on Labour on the budget cuts. It should have railed about how Britain is bankrupt," says Wilson.
"If you are in whatever layer of government and you have to cut a local facility you are going to get the blame for it. Well, I believe in preemptive strikes which should have taken place nine months ago to fix the blame on London and the British state."
He adds: "They might have been able to tell people that it was Labour that was doing the cutting. On the Glasgow Airport Rail Link, we should have turned around to Iain Gray (the Scottish Labour leader] and said yes, you have a good point about it, so why don't you get onto Alistair Darling and ask him for £300 million more?" Wilson says he fears that the SNP leadership may be getting bogged down with the daily grind of parliamentary and ministerial paper-work. "Having been in parliament you tend to associate politics with the parliament. Politics is on the street and perhaps they ought to get out more," he added.
For those who prefer to blame the voters, however, here is Andrew Nicoll, the political editor of The Sun in Scotland, who spoke for many SNP activists with his morning-after opinion piece What do Labour have to do before the people of Glasgow North East stop voting for them? It's good, passionate stuff, but I think I prefer Gerry Hassan's analysis in the Guardian.
In the comment section below, Wardog backs Andrew Nicoll's critique...but his own blog suggests a way forward. "Labour's negative campaign didn't just attack the SNP it brought the focus of Westminister, even though this election was for a Westminister seat, away from Brown & Co. This is partly due to the media in Scotland not holding Labour fully to account, in England there record would have been savaged by the press as it was in Norwich only a few months beforehand but it must also form a key part of the SNP Campaign strategy."
Jeff at SNP Tactical voting suggests the nationalists should drop their plans for a referendum just as they abandoned the local income tax. I disagree, but he argues his point well.
* The image is from the award winning movie Red Road, which is setting the the Petershill area of the constituence
Monty said:
"your original quote isn't in the SNP speech, that's the one where he's touting for financial business in Harvard and citing Scotland as a good place to do that business."
Indeed, Monty, and my earlier post specifically said that I was using two different sources from two different times. I was just trying to underline the point that things woudldn't have been a whole lot different if the SNP had been responsible for financial regulation rather than Labour in Westminster.
As for the speech/interview conundrum, perhaps it was the same text used for both mediums (not unusual) or maybe someone made a slight error about the medium, but either way it doesn't seem of great significance, particuarly if you say you don't doubt that the words in question came from Alex Salmond.
Joan, thanks for the response, and indeed it is better to be correct than consistent, but the essence of the point I was trying to make was that it wouldn't have mattered if Scotland had been indepedent or if Labour/The Tories/The Lib Dems had been in power at Westminster.
But of course hindsight is a wonderful thing for the politicians!!
Posted by: Stuart Winton | November 16, 2009 at 10:16 PM
I'll leave Stuart and Monty to slug it out over who said what when. However, Stuart, I would point out that I understand that the SNP's uncritical embrace of the banks caused them problems a year ago when they collapsed. But there is no harm in changing your position in response to events. Better to be correct than consistent. The SNP's economic policies are analysed by the Cuthberts in Gerry Hassan's book, The Modern SNP. I blogged about it here
http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/2009/10/httpwwwtimesonlinecouktolnewsukscotlandarticle6879415ece.html
Posted by: joanmcalpine | November 16, 2009 at 07:54 PM
Hi Stuart, your original quote isn't in the SNP speech, that's the one where he's touting for financial business in Harvard and citing Scotland as a good place to do that business.
The original quote is even murkier now.
David Lister writes "Mr Salmond told The Times: "
Angus McLeod, with no apparent knowledge of the original quote writes a year later,
"Labour hit back last night by challenging Mr Salmond over his criticisms of the UK's light-touch regulation of the banking sector as a major contributor to the financial crisis.
They released an extract from a speech by Mr Salmond during last year's Scottish election campaign in which he said: “We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity.."
Thus citing the source as Labour, hence my surprise that it's not catalogued anywhere else. I don't doubt he said it, I just hate inconsistencies, what with being full of them myself!
cheers
Monty
Posted by: Montague Burton | November 16, 2009 at 05:15 PM
I linked the sources to the text, but it seems HTML doesn't work in the comments section - my apologies.
The links are
Alex Salmond quoted in the Times:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article1624032.ece
My letter to the Scotsman:
http://heritage.scotsman.com/opinion/Another-fine-mess.5415831.jp
Alex Salmond's speech on SNP website:
http://www.snp.org/node/13617
My blog post:
http://planet-politics.blogspot.com/2009/09/cross-party-consistency.html
Posted by: Stuart Winton | November 16, 2009 at 12:05 PM
Montague
Are you disputing Alex Salmond actually said this and/or alluding that Angus Macleod or someone else is being dishonest?
I actually got the quote from another Times article from before the 2007 Holyrood elections, which (supposedly) quotes from what Alex Salmond told the newspaper:
"Mr Salmond told The Times: “We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in ‘gold-plated’ regulation.”"
I also used the same quote in a letter to the Scotsman earlier this year, and I can't recall it being disputed.
Here's another cracker that I've used before. Note that it's from April 2008, thus little more than a year and a half ago:
"And of course we Scots are lucky enough to have the one of the best brands in the world - a global recognition and affection for our culture that money cannot buy.
"Take financial services. With RBS and HBOS - two of the world's biggest banks - Scotland has global leaders today, tomorrow and for the long-term."
While you're still probably casting doubt upon the veracity of statements made by Joan's colleaguew, unfortunately that one's from a speech by Alex Salmond reproduced on the SNP website.
Not that I'm having a go at Mr Salmond in particular, it's just the fact that although he's a highly capable individual and an economist to boot he's still a fallible human being and, worse still, a politician to his core. And please see this post on my blog pointing out the cross-party consistency of the major parties in this regard ;0)
Posted by: Stuart Winton | November 16, 2009 at 12:01 PM
#Stuart
"We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in ‘gold-plated’ regulation."
You know it's interesting that the earliest placing of the above paragraph I can find on-line is in the Times of October 17th 2008, shortly before the Glenrothes by-election.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4959115.ece
Wherein Angus McLeod refers to the statement given to him by Labour, who released an extract from a speech made by Salmond during the Holyrood election campaign of 2007.
Now call me a posturing mountebank, if you must, but I'd rather read the original statement and the context within which it was given, than simply regurgitate a Labour party press release.
Oddly enough I can't find it anywhere.
Posted by: Montague Burton | November 15, 2009 at 11:33 PM
"A take-no-prisoners SNP campaign would argue that these banks ceased to be particularly Scottish when they operated under the City of London’s lax rules. We could have regulated them ourselves had we been independent."
But, Joan, a year before it all went belly up Alex Salmond said:
"We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in ‘gold-plated’ regulation."
Posted by: Stuart Winton | November 15, 2009 at 09:55 PM
Joan
“Can Scotland afford to stay in the Union?”
Excellent.
The SNP (and the non-party and cross-party independence groups) have to move on to a more aggressive, dynamic and up front campaign on independence. It can start on St Andrew's Day.
Posted by: Cruachan | November 15, 2009 at 05:14 PM
I'm a-loving your slogan, “Can Scotland afford to stay in the Union?” Ms lassie Go. I suspect it might get quite a few airings. Mayhaps, you'll even persuade Jeff to support Independence!
Posted by: Montague Burton | November 15, 2009 at 10:20 AM
I think Andrew Nicoll has a point Joan.
Looking at the comments from voters in the Sunday Times it's obvious that none of the epoch making scandal emanating form London means very much in Glasgow North East.
It's not a case of 'blaming the voters', it's a case of anaylsing what made them vote for a party that has so utterly failed them. Why didn't they consider any of the myriad of alternative paths to them.
Why didn't they consider that with six months to go, they could register a protest vote against this Government.
The truth is that was never on the cards, the small sample of comments on the sunday times own site explains why.
Labour successfully abused devolution to make the race localised and focused on issues that do not concern Westminister.
What's scary is that the medi went along for the ride, nowhere did any journalist adequately ask about Willie's Bain claim to be 'local' despite working in London half the week.
Nowhere did they even ask, does he pay council tax?
Nowhere, did the media ask him about afghanistan, iraq, post office closures, spending , in short the media bought Labour's line that this race is somehow between the Scottish Government and UK Government.
With entirely different powers, how can that ever be so.
Yes the SNP may have failed to direct the media but then again with little or no nationalist sympathetic political editors in Scotland, what can we expect?
Posted by: Wardog | November 15, 2009 at 09:56 AM
Joan, I have to say, I thought you were awesome on Newsnight. Talk about "rising above" the campaign that was was spot on for me. I know it wasn't a competition but you were the standout commentator for me amongst a couple of impressive panels.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts in full in today's Times.
Posted by: Jeff | November 15, 2009 at 09:52 AM