MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on north of the border.
Tory independence
DAVID Cameron's first stop after the rout of Crewe was Scotland. He popped up at the Scottish Tories' conference in Ayr last Friday to say that he didn't just want to be the Prime Minister of England.
"I want to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - all of it, including Scotland."
But, as Labour stares down the barrel of the electoral gun and the real possibility of Gordon Brown losing the next Westminster election grows, the winners in Scotland will not be the Tories.
The irony is that SNP First Minister Alex Salmond would welcome a Tory victory. He will believe that the revulsion in Scotland at such an outcome can drive enough people into the pro-independence camp.
For the truth is that the Tories are still almost universally hated in Scotland.
David Cameron is not so stupid that he doesn't recognise this.
"If Alex Salmond thinks there's some clever game he can play about building on Scottish resentment against a Conservative government in England to help break up the Union, forget it," he told the Herald.
"I will do everything I can to stop that from happening."
So, just what is Cameron's secret plan for defusing the independence time bomb?
He claims that a Conservative government will govern the whole of the United Kingdom, including Scotland, "with respect."
Maybe someone should tell George Galloway!
In fact, like the SNP, the Tories have been playing their own nationalist card. English nationalist, that is.
It's a dog-whistle sort of nationalism which is dressed up in Cameron's supposedly touchy-feely multifaith multicultural unionism.
There are clear hints of how the Tories would "respect" the non-English parts of Britain.
Cameron plans to "review" the Barnett formula. That is "review" with a strong hint of "scrap."
And there is the impression which has been given that there will be "English votes for English laws."
The Barnett formula is not the Scottish or Welsh cash cows that the English Tory backwoodsmen like to portray. Nor is the West Lothian question on everyone's lips. Polls continue to show that Scots do not favour independence.
But a platform of cutting Scottish public spending and stopping Scottish MPs from voting in Westminster would certainly raise the stakes.
Cameron could well be Salmond's best hope.
The slow death of new Labour
Meanwhile, the Tory leader also claimed that the Crewe by-election spelled the end of new Labour.
Well, perhaps. Those of us who never loved the Blair-Brown-Mandelson project in the first place are not upset at any death notice of new Labour.
I would say that an earlier nail in its coffin was the Scottish defeat for Labour a year ago.
The Crewe campaign looks from this distance to have been run with even more spectacular ineptitude. It is never a guarantee of success to parachute in a candidate, even the offspring of a respected deceased member.
The crude scaremongering tactics were all too reminiscent of last year's negative Holyrood campaign - run by London - which so dismally failed Scottish Labour.
TV, radio, papers and blogs are now full of the self-important speculation of Straw, Clarke, Milburn - heaven help us - and the Milibroons as to whether anyone can mount a leadership challenge against an apparently unelectable Gordon Brown and which of them it should be.
It is clearer than ever that Labour needs to change.
There is definitely a crisis of leadership. But, despite their continuing dismal personal poll ratings, neither Brown nor Wendy Alexander have obvious successors.
At the same time, having both been shoo-ins with no democratic contest, they lack the key element of legitimacy which winning an election confers.
Not a good outcome.
But, even if it was possible, just changing the leader, either in Scotland or London, will not solve the problem.
To crown the catastrophe, Labour is virtually bankrupt. The millionaires have fled, a sure sign that new Labour is over. Good riddance.
The tab for a party which was set up to represent the working classes can now only be met by the affiliated unions, to which the party should now be listening.
And Labour needs to listen, all right, and act. The people, not just in Crewe, are saying: "We don't trust you."
They are asking, how could a Labour government increase taxes on the poorest to give tax breaks to wealthier people?
How can you justify low pay and below-inflation pay rises for public-sector workers?
How can you be closing our local post offices?
How can you be such Tories?
It's not an easy thing to recover trust when it's been lost. It can only be done by doing the right thing often enough over a long enough period of time.
The agenda is there. It is in Brendan Barber's call last week for a change in Labour's DNA. It is in the progressive policies of affiliated trade unions. It is in the May Manifesto which John McDonnell has published - you can find it at www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk or email info@l-r-c.org.uk for a copy.
The somewhat misplaced hope which greeted Brown when he became Prime Minister last year was that he would be different to Blair.
That's the hope that Labour needs to fulfil over the next couple of years if it is to win.
Cuba contradiction
Cuban representative Teresita Trujillo was in Edinburgh last Thursday with the Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
Her agenda included discussions at Holyrood with government ministers.
Spotting the Scottish Cuba Solidarity team in the parliament, a senior Labour politician came over and told Ms Trujillo that "we have a special place in our hearts for Fidel."
Setting aside the possible ambiguity - certain Miami gangsters might also say that kind of thing - it is always good to hear warm words for Cuba, especially from Labour policians.
Perhaps they could translate this into action by way of stonger support for Cuba's campaign to have the illegal US blockade lifted.
Subscribe to the Morning Star online
For peace and socialism - the only socialist daily paper in the English language
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment