Source: www.bbc.co.uk
IFF hosted a private seminar at Ramsay Garden last week with Angus Macleod of The Times and Alan Cochrane of the Daily Telegraph to consider the recent election, the formation of the coalition government, and the implications for politics in Scotland.
Our speakers commented that the election campaign looked set to be pretty dull until the surge offered by the TV debates and Clegg mania. What happened to that support? It may well have been just a phenomenon of some dodgy polls after the debates. Ipsos/MORI recorded a 29% vote for Clegg after the second debate, but when the same people were asked how they voted after the election it was found that most had not voted at all. Instant polling did not translate into active political engagement.
The Liberal Democrats felt they were short-changed in the coalition negotiations in Scotland in 1999. They will not feel short-changed in the deal with the Conservatives. Perhaps the only error is in Nick Clegg accepting a role without a Department.
But they will have to have something to show for this in Scotland before the May 2011 elections in order to convince people that they are not just handmaidens of the Conservatives. One test could be implementation of the Calman Commission recommendations (discussed in a previous seminar): the timetable will have to be pushed along to have any impact on the election.
Both speakers commented that this was a strange election to cover for the press. There were no press conferences - instead the action was in the target constituencies. And it was Prime Ministerial: there were few sightings of other big beasts from any of the parties. Labour fought an effective campaign in Scotland, where Gordon Brown was seen as a distinct asset, and where they effectively played up the threat of a Conservative government to the public sector.
It was an alarming election for the Conservatives. They were hammered in their target seats. It was bizarre in Scotland to find unionists voting separatist in order to keep out Tories. Anti-Tory sentiment is becoming almost part of Scottish identity. It is passed on from generation to generation, along with the folklore about Mrs Thatcher. Labour played on that, launching its manifesto in Ravenscraig and openly vilifying the Tories in their campaign.
Some saw 1997 as a ‘wake up call’ for the Tories in Scotland. This was more a ‘pack up your tents and go home’ call as one person put it. They need to reform from the top down - because they don’t have a bottom. The grassroots are down to a bedrock vote. Their condition looks terminal unless a leader appears from somewhere. And the Union is under threat because of the diminution of the Conservative party.
These opening observations triggered a lively discussion, including the following comments:
- Can we really imagine a political landscape without a right wing party north of the border? Cameron has detoxified the Conservative brand in much of England - but not in Scotland. The Conservatives fought a good, positive campaign. But it still did them no good;
- The general election in Scotland is now confined to a small number of target marginal seats. In most seats there is no activity at all. So the political process is coming to seem less and less relevant to the general population. Hence there is no pressure for the parties to change. The incumbency factor is high: only four seats changed hands in the election. And now the lampooning of the Coalition in England as a bunch of English public school posh boys will play to a merciless, facile anti-English sentiment that will further alienate people from the political process;
- We should prepare for minority government in Scotland after the next election. A Lab-Lib coalition is unrealistic given the arrangements at Westminster. The SNP had a bad election: Salmond won few friends by arguing that Scotland alone should be spared cuts, and over-stated his role in the coalition negotiations (he is not even an MP). People may be tiring of him;
- But don’t write off the SNP. Politics has become more ‘Presidential’ in Scotland: people vote for the best politician to represent the country on a wider stage as First Minister. Salmond is doing a good job - even for unionists. That said, there are painful times ahead, and cuts in the public sector fall squarely within the Scottish Government’s responsibilities;
- The good news in the Scottish election results is that Scots did not believe for a moment that they can be excused the consequences of the financial crisis. The banking collapse in Scotland and the UK bailout has entered the bloodstream - and that sense of the need for a larger context may be why the union will never be undone;
- At Westminster we are seeing the promise of a modern version of one nation Toryism. The chemistry between Clegg and Cameron seems to be good, as it was between Jim Wallace and Donald Dewar in 1999. This is vital for durability. So it seems we are in for a period of creative governance in the UK. Will we see that in Scotland? The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats together only have 32 seats at Holyrood: the other 90+ will be determined to blame London for everything that happens. We could see Scottish politics slip back into the old pattern of grudge and grievance, a sterile, distributional struggle. Scotland should try to get some creative governance for itself.
Tags: constitution, devolution, governance, independence, Scotland