(Wednesday 22 October 2008)
MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.
The first flush is gone
THE SNP conference has just finished in Perth. It was a little less euphoric than the same bash last year, when the first flush of winning the May 2007 Scottish election was still fresh.Most Labour loyalists were then hoping that the wheels would come off the SNP bandwagon. In fact, that was the very phrase. "Just wait and see. The wheels will come off."
The wheels didn't come off the SNP wagon, though. It was Labour that went crashing off the road, as Brown floundered, general secretaries came and went, Wendy Alexander resigned and, finally, Glasgow East was snatched by the nationalists in a breathtaking by-election three months ago.
Firmly installed as favourites in the November 6 Glenrothes by-election, the SNP could perhaps have been glorying in Perth over the weekend. And it did try.
But you might have noticed that Alex Salmond's gas has been at a peep over the last couple of weeks. I don't buy into the myth of Gordon Brown as saviour of the global financial system, but it is clear that he has benefited from the jaw-dropping bail-out and the effective nationalisation of a huge swathe of Britain's banks.
Salmond, on the other hand, has suffered his first really difficult period since the heady days of May last year.
It is not so surprising. Salmond's stock is organically linked to the Scottish bankers, especially Royal Bank of Scotland, and not just because he's a former company man.
In fact, a substantial part of SNP economic policy depended exactly on the fast-growing, lightly regulated banking sector which has just gone tits up and which has just been bailed out by what the SNP sees as the auld enemy.
I will not be the first to point out that that arc of prosperity is now more like an arc of at least partial insolvency.
The small nations which the SNP has long cited don't line up as well as they once did. Ireland is in recession and Iceland is virtually bankrupt. However, Norway is in a substantially better position because of many factors, not least the oil fund. And Brown's plan bears much similarity to the Scandinavian bank rescue of the 1990s.
However, Salmond has been damaged by the perfectly true accusation by Brown that Scotland couldn't have bailed out the "Scottish" banks in the same way that the UK taxpayer has.
In one sense, that's just a simple question of scale. But it also raises the very question of what independence is or would be in a Scottish context.
The Royal Bank is Scottish-headquartered and that is an important advantage for Scotland's economy. It provides many thousands of high-quality jobs. However, its former strength was not based on Scottish investments or savings. It is indeed a global bank but mainly still a UK one.
This is even more true of HBOS. Salmond's question over whether the merger of HBOS with Lloyds TSB should go ahead in the changed circumstance of the Brown bail-out is perfectly valid, but it doesn't amount to an economic policy.
For starters, although Bank of Scotland provides plenty of Scottish jobs and we would all want to safeguard these, the headquarters and decision-making went south in the Halifax takeover in 2001. And, a couple of weeks ago, the SNP was prepared to countenance a takeover of HBOS by some unnamed Arabian oil magnates.
Even if Scotland was an independent nation, these banks, along with the rest of the Scottish finance sector, are intrinsically linked to the UK economy by ownership and market share. This would not change if Scotland became independent.
The logic which means that the banks had to be rescued would still apply at that UK level. In other words, even an "independent" Scotland would have had to rely on the UK to take action on that scale anyway.
This doesn't mean that Scotland cannot or should not be more independent as a nation. These issues remain to be argued and decided. But it does mean that significant planks of the SNP market-friendly, pro-business economic policy are literally bankrupt and are being bailed out by the UK Treasury.
Tartan and tunes
THE SNP launched a new tartan at its conference in Perth. I didn't hear that it also launched a new shortbread, but it did announce the themes for the 2009 Year of Homecoming Festival, which is meant to attract the Scottish diaspora to take a break in the old country and spend their hard currency here.The festival kicks off on Burns night on January 25 and runs until St Andrew's Day on November 30.
The themes are Robert Burns, whisky, golf, great Scottish minds and innovations and Scotland's culture and heritage.
I love all of these things apart from golf, so I'm not complaining too much. The last theme also does include all the others, but we'll let that pass.
However, it seems that Alex Salmond has hired erstwhile pretendy punk-folk chanteuse Sandi Thom to record Dougie Maclean's maudlin folk anthem Caledonia as the theme song for the homecoming year.
Now, that I can live without. Why don't they use a Burns song and really annoy Jeremy Paxman?
Glenrothes versus Garscadden
THE exposure of right-wing weaknesses in SNP economic policy doesn't automatically mean that Labour will sweep to victory at the Glenrothes by-election.Glenrothes is being talked of hopefully by some in new Labour as another Garscadden - a normally safe seat under extreme pressure from a rising SNP held by a Labour stalwart in a crucial by-election that could turn the nationalist tide back.
Garscadden was won by Donald Dewar in 1978. Apart from the fact that Labour's candidate Lindsay Roy is not Dewar, Labour needs to win back a whole lot of trust squandered during the Blair and Brown years in order to regain its core vote.
It's a lot harder to build trust up than to lose it, as I keep telling my teenagers. But that's another argument.
Cuba Solidarity Campaign
NOTHING cheered me up this week so much as the news that Cuba was likely to become oil rich in the next few years.
But we still have to support Cuba as it faces the US blockade. So, get along to the fundraising Comedy Night for Cuba at the Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow tonight. Doors 7.30pm, tickets £7/5.
Tickets are going fast from Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign - email scottishcuba@yahoo.co.uk or telephone (0141) 221-2359 to reserve yours.
People's Budget for Peace
HOW would you spend £20 billion of public money in the next five years? On schools, council housing and health services or on Trident?
On Saturday October 25, I hope to be among thousands of Scots asking and answering that question at a rally in Glasgow's George Square to promote a People's Budget for Peace.
As well as speakers Bruce Kent of CND, actor David Hayman, Oxfam's Judith Robertson and UNISON Scottish secretary Matt Smith, there will be music, stalls and food
.
Organisers Scotland's for Peace have support from churches and faith groups as well as unions and other civic bodies. The rally starts at 12 noon. Hope to see you there.
Subscribe to the Morning Star online
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment