Fashion

The other day there was a report on Len McCluskey's speech to the first policy conference of the Unite union in Scotland.  In it he used a phrase which has become common parlance among Scottish Labour politicians, to wit:

The SNP stole most of the radical clothes that historically should have belonged to Labour.

Originally the Labour party chose policies that reflected the hodden grey of the working classes.  A fair day's pay for a fair day's work.  Paid holidays.  Sick pay.  The welfare state.  All excellent ideas and ones that Labour had succeeded in implementing during the 20th century, for which they deserve praise and recognition.  However, a funny thing happened.  Labour politicians spent much time at Westminster, where they noticed that the Tories had much more colourful clothes and, what's more, the wealth to afford them.  And many of them seem to have become dazzled by the Tories' designer gear and decided they want some for themselves.  So they have cast off the old hodden grey of social justice and borrowed the Tories' more dazzling clothes, since those clothes seem to be much more popular with the electorate in the leafy suburbs of south-east England.  Fashion (turn to the right).

Now if you have old clothes that you don't want any longer, you can hardly be surprised if someone else comes along and wears them.  After all, you don't want them any more.  The SNP have given the hodden grey clothes a bit of a tartan twist, but you can still see the basic clothes beneath them.  Fashion (turn to the left).

Now, with Jeremy Corbyn as leader, there are fashion wars in the Labour party.  Some want to hang on to the designer gear, some want to go back to hodden grey and yet others want a mixture of the two.   The current wardrobe wars are entertaining for the rest of use, but are doing real damage to the Labour party with the electorate.

The thing about ideas of social justice is that you can't copyright them.  Labour have no more right to exclusive policies on social justice than any other political party, and they need to realise this sooner rather than later if the party is to have any chance of survival at all.  They need the political equivalent of Trinny and Susannah.

Crying wolf

Recently the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) carried out a review of the Scottish education system.  The report was largely positive and highlighted some improvements that have been made as well as showing some areas that still need work.  On balance, though, it shows that education in Scotland is in a reasonably good position when compared with other countries. 

The National reported on the review in a positive manner, but also highlighted the areas that need to be improved, as you would expect from decent journalism. Everyone would be happy you'd think.

But of course, Labour in Scotland are not happy.  They do not, as the old song goes, accentuate the positive but instead respond in Eyore-ish, glass-half-empty kind of way.  An illustration of this was discussed on Wings Over Scotland, which showed a screengrab of a tweet from Blair McDougall.  In it he pulls out every negative thing said in the report with no positives to counterbalance them.  The usual 'SNP Bad' stuff.   I have no doubt that other Labour MSPs will be banging the same drum over the next day or so, when they're not criticising the Budget.

Labour in Scotland really need to rethink their reflex to declare that anything the Scottish government suggests is bad because the Scottish government suggested it, and that anything negative said about Scotland by a third-party organisation must have the blame laid at the feet of the Scottish government.  They have got to the point now where a large proportion of the electorate simply ignore their pronouncements due to their relentless negativity.  This is bad for democracy, since the odds are that at some point Labour will be correct about something that the Scottish government has got wrong, but at that point no-one will be listening to them.  They will be like the boy who cried wolf.

To me an opposition's job is not to simply oppose anything that the government might propose, but is rather to look at a proposal and ensure that questions are asked to make sure that all possible outcomes or consequences have been considered and contingency put in place to deal with them.  Sadly, however, Labour in Scotland seem to be no more capable of this than they are of persuading people to vote for them.  For too long they had things their own way, so that they didn't need to develop the necessary skills for either task, and it doesn't look like they're going to master them any time soon, if ever.

It's no oor fault

Over the weekend there was a lengthy article in the Guardian by John Harris about Kezia Dugdale and Labour in Scotland more generally, and their chances of reviving their fortunes before next May's elections.

The first part of the article describes a First Minister's Questions session, which clearly took place some time ago since Ms Dugdale's question was about the police not responding to the crashed car containing John Yuill and Lamara Bell.  In it he says that Ms Dugdale has 'something of the rabbit in headlights about her', which is a fair description in my opinion.  Afterwards he asks her about FMQs and whether she enjoys it, and she says this:

Look, I’m acutely aware that I’ve just been an MSP for four and a bit years,” she says. “You know? I’m 34 years old. There’s a lot about life, a lot about politics, that I’m still learning. A lot of the things I’m doing as leader, I’m doing for the first time. But there are things I do know a lot about, and there are lots of things I’m incredibly passionate about: education, tackling poverty, female inequality. And on that stuff I’m 100% on my game. But I think it probably does take a wee bit of a while. She’s had 12 years more than I have.

Unfortunately this comes across as a slightly whiny 'it's not fair, she's had longer at this than I have', but it leads to an obvious question: if Ms Dugdale herself feels that she lacks experience and has a lot to learn, why did Labour in Scotland vote her in as leader?

The next part of the article goes on to describe conversations that Mr Harris has with various Scottish Labour stalwarts, including some ex-MPs, as to why Labour is doing so badly in Scotland.  Gemma Doyle, a former MP, thinks it stems from 2007, when the SNP first took power in Holyrood.  According to Ms Doyle it was Labour's failure to change their approach that is the cause of their decline, which has been caused by voters punishing Labour for not doing things differently.  Neil Findlay, on the other hand, ascribes the decline to the devastation of heavy industry in Scotland and the declining influence of institutions such as the trade unions and the church.  Oh, and also that the SNP hired some talented strategists and media-operators.  Oh, and furthermore Labour's siding with the Tories in the Better Together campaign was a big mistake.  Mags Curran, however, blames the use of social media, where the evil SNP would undermine all the fantastic doorstep work she was doing by talking to people on Facebook.

So what do Labour want now?  They want people to listen to them.  Fair enough, that's what any politician wants.  But here's the thing.  If you want people to listen to you, you have to have something they are interested to hear.  It's no good just repeating the mantra that Labour has used for decades - 'vote for us, we know what's best for working people, don't worry your heads about the details.'  In the age of the internet that is no longer going to cut it.  And the current strategy of 'SNP bad' isn't going to cut it either.  People compare what Labour are claiming with the reality of their everyday life and tend to find it doesn't match up to the Labour rhetoric.

Ms Dugdale herself claims to have seen Labour's catastrophic decline coming even before the referendum:

I was well aware that there would be a consequence for the Labour party,” she says. “I can remember speaking to a Times journalist at a lunch, saying that the rhythm of events I could see was: Scotland voting no, but then being almost angry with itself, despite feeling it was the right thing to do – and the way to articulate that anger being to kick out at the Labour party. That was before the referendum.

 So there we have it.  Scottish voters are basically using Labour as the political equivalent of kicking a dog to relieve their anger at themselves.  It's not the dog's fault, it just happens to be there.

Then we have something about Ms Dugdale's background.  There is one paragraph I found quite revealing:

I vividly remember going into my first class, on the Scottish legal system – 250 people in a lecture theatre, all banked up the stairs – and it just made me so conscious of all these privately educated kids. They all had their schools’ sporting gear on. I just felt hugely out of place. I knew within the first few weeks of starting that I didn’t want to be a lawyer.

 So let's see.  Ms Dugdale's current bee in her bonnet is about how the professions are dominated by those educated privately.  However, the fact that Ms Dugdale herself was accepted into a law degree at Aberdeen would suggest that it isn't a closed shop by any manner of means.  She seems to imply that she didn't want to be a lawyer because there were too many privately-educated students on her course.  One rather suspects, however, that the fact that studying the law requires attention to detail may have been her downfall, since she seems to be often lacking that sort of rigour in FMQs, leading to frequent embarrassment when she is yet again proven wrong on a point of detail, for example this week when she made a big song and dance about the environmental impact of the FM flying to a climate change conference, only to be told that the FM would be travelling by train.  Another example is this:

Because I think [Nicola Sturgeon]’s a bit of a late convert to feminism. I think it’s something she’s adopted at a late stage, having studied Labour history and heritage. What it actually means to be a feminist… well, affirmative action, for example, the SNP have a very poor record on.

So apparently appointing a 50/50 gender split cabinet doesn't count as affirmative action then?  And Ms Sturgeon has been a feminist for rather longer than Ms Dugdale would have us believe.

The overall impressions from the article are that Labour in Scotland are still trying to blame everyone but themselves for their current predicament, they still feel that they are entitled to Scottish votes by default and Ms Dugdale is probably a nice person but is seriously out of her depth being leader and is unlikely to survive as such if there is a similar wipeout of Labour MSPs in next year's Scottish elections.  I almost have the impression she was elected as the sacrificial lamb who can be easily dispensed with in that event.

Labour in Scotland are clearly still in serious denial about their decline in Scotland and may not even survive with the formation of RISE taking the far left-wing spot on the political spectrum.  Meanwhile all they can do is cry 'it's no fair' and 'it's no oor fault' and wonder why that isn't working and no-one is listening to them.

Defiance and morality

Tomorrow there is a vote on whether the UK should extend its current bombing campaign against ISIS in Iraq to include Syria as well,  joining allies such as France and the US who already carrying out bombing runs against ISIS in Syria.  The current expectation is that the UK parliament will vote in favour of military action, especially since Jeremy Corbyn has announced that Labour MPs will be allowed a free vote on the issue rather than voting in accordance with party policy.

Mr Corbyn's supporters as hailing his decision to allow a free vote as the moral thing to do, hoping that the majority of Labour MPs will vote against.  To me it's a serious failure of leadership.  A survey of Labour party members showed that 75% of them were against airstrikes in Syria, which is a pretty clear mandate.  By refusing to use a whip, Mr Corbyn appears to be weak and ineffectual, almost a typical sandal-wearing, lentil-eating, Guardian-reading cliche dad, who doesn't discipline his children because they should be allowed to do the right thing of their own accord.  And we all know how well that works out.

Will the airstrikes stop ISIS?  I don't think so.  If you voted Yes last year, think back to how you felt on 19th September.  Did you just shrug your shoulders, think 'oh well, that's that then' and move on with your life?  Many of you, like me felt a range of emotions, but one that isn't often mentioned is defiance.  And that defiance has continued, as can be seen with the phenomenal success of the SNP in the past year and the continuing high levels of political engagement in Scotland.  Do you think the ISIS fighters will feel any differently?

As for the moral case for the bombing, ISIS live among the ordinary people of Syria.  Is there a moral case for bombing people who are not part of ISIS but who happen to live in areas that ISIS fighters also live in?  If your answer to that is 'yes', you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

Motes and beams

Over the last few days there has been a growing story about Women for Indy and some possible shenanigans with money which was donated to the organisation prior to its adoption of a formal constitution and 'robust and appropriate systems' back in March of this year.  It's been interesting to watch how the story has developed.

Let's take the Guardian as an example.  The first we hear of the story is on Monday morning in this article in which we gather:

• there are significant discrepancies between the organisation's income from donations and its expenditure for financial year 2014/2015
• the problem became apparent in late summer after an extensive information gathering and investigation exercise
• that all possibilities of an explanation have been explored
• that the matter has been handed over to the police for further investigation

The next article is in Monday evening, in which Natalie McGarry is linked to the missing money.  This is because Ms McGarry was alleged to be the only person with access to the Paypal account into which donations to Women for Indy were paid.  Aside from the above, the article consists of a rehash of the text from the earlier article, a short biography of Ms McGarry and a statement from Ms McGarry's solicitor saying that she will co-operate fully with any police investigation and giving assurance that she is not aware of any wrongdoing on her part.  The article also contains a quote from the SNP which simply says that they are of the situation but have not yet been given any details.  There is also an attempt to link the story to that of Michelle Thomson.

Today there is yet another article on the story, this time about Labour in Scotland demanding that Nicola Sturgeon take action over the matter, preferably by suspending Ms McGarry from the party.  This has been raised by the ever-sanctimonious Jackie Baillie (why not Kezia Dugdale, one wonders?).  Ms Baillie has sent a letter to Nicola Sturgeon making various demands.  For example, if Michelle Thomson's membership was suspended, surely Ms McGarry's should be too?  Of course, Ms Baillie is comparing apples with oranges here, but it's never stopped her in the past.  She goes on to adds that it would be a “very grave matter” if anyone within the SNP knew of allegations before May’s general election but failed to make them public.  Well, given that Women for Indy didn't become aware of any issue before 'late summer', why would anyone from the SNP know about it?  Either Ms Baillie is incapable of understanding that 'late summer' comes after May, or she's trying, with her usual lack of subtlety, to score points against the SNP.  The latter explanation is more likely, as she then goes on to point out that seven of the Women for Indy committee members are SNP candidates.  Of course, Women for Indy and the SNP are separate organisations, but Ms Baillie never lets facts get in the way of political points-scoring.

Labour in Scotland should, however, be somewhat cautious over this matter.  They aren't exactly squeaky-clean over financial irregularities.  Edinburgh Eastern constituency has recently reported the matter of £10,000 missing from their bank account to the police, after having waited for 18 months for Scottish Labour HQ to take action.  Many of the same questions that Ms Baillie is asking of the SNP over the Women for Indy affair could be asked of Labour over the Edinburgh Eastern affair.  Edinburgh East is the constituency that Kezia Dugdale intends to contest in May 2016.

If Ms McGarry is responsible for any wrongdoing then it is right and proper that she should face the consequences.  However, at the moment the principle of innocent until proven guilty should apply pending the outcome of the police investigation.

Incompetent

For the last few weeks Labour have been doing their best to plant the idea in voters' heads that the current SNP government is utterly incompetent.  Health services?  They must be hiding the truth from us.  Education?  The attainment gap between the richest and poorest is getting wider, the number of college places has been drastically cut.  Policing?  Making a single Scottish police force has been a disaster and it's all the fault of the SNP.  Week after week Kezia Dugdale chooses one of these subjects and accuses the SNP govenment of doing an utterly awful job.

It's becoming clear that Labour, backed up by their friends in the Tory and Liberal Democrat parties, are going to make this the central plank of their election campaigning.  So far Ms Dugdale has managed precisely one policy announcement (which turns out to have more holes in it than the finest Emmental) versus weeks of 'SNP Accused'.

Will it work?  On the surface, you'd think so.  The modus operandi seems to be to take one unfortunate incident, such as an elderly man dying on a trolley in A&E after waiting 8 hours for a bed or Lamara Bell and John Yuill lying undiscovered in their crashed car for three days despite their car having been reported to the police.  These are, of course, unfortunate incidents, and everything possible should be done to try and ensure that they do not happen again.  However, the current Scottish opposition like to try and paint these incidents as commonplace and typical of the services.

That, I think, is where this strategy will fall down.  Scottish voters are not stupid.  They can see that, by and large, things are going pretty well here in Scotland.  The NHS is mostly meeting its targets and is much better thought of by those who use its services than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK.  College places have indeed been cut, but the reality is that most of those places were for short courses that did not lead to a recognised qualification. Labour now claims that free tuition fees are simply a sop to the middle classes, which is a bit of a turnaround from 2011, when both they and the Liberal Democrats pledged to maintain free tuition.  Forming the 8 Scottish police forces into a unitary force has saved money on salaries for 8 chief constables and other senior management posts, and what Labour aren't telling people is that they pledged to create a unitary ploice force in their 2011 manifesto.

So far their strategy doesn't appear to be working.  The latest opinion poll shows support for the SNP running at 58% on the constituency vote and 52% on the list vote.  Given the relentless negativity of Kezia Dugdale, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie, you'd think that lead would be declining by now. 
So why isn't it? 

For one thing, as previously mentioned, people can judge from their own experience of the various services.  No-one is saying that what we have is perfect, but it's a lot better than what we had under the previous Labour/LibDem governments.  For another thing, the three Unionist parties are continuing to band together to oppose their mortal enemy, the SNP.  This will not play well with a large percentage of the electorate, who see the Unionist parties as taking their orders from London and not standing up for Scotland, as amply demonstrated last Monday during the Scotland Bill debate.  And no amount of protestations about how Labour in Scotland are independent of UK Labour regarding policy is going to be taken seriously when everyone saw their attempt at an independent policy on Trident being slapped down by London HQ.  Finally, continually criticising the NHS, police and education sector is simply going to annoy those working in this sector, who are doing the best they can.

The SNP have no reason to be complacent.  There are issues to be addressed, and they must be seen to be taking them seriously.  However, the opposition needs to stop the relentless negativity and start coming up with credible ideas for solving the problems, or another tsunami will sweep through Scotland next May.

Aghast

It would appear that David Cameron has received something of a slap in the face, metaphorically speaking.  It appears that he wrote to the leader of Oxfordshire County Council last September to ask why so many cuts were being made to frontline services such as libraries, elderly day centres and museums.  Surely, he said, cuts should be being made to back-office services instead?  Weren't there spare assets that could be put on eBay to raise some cash?

The Conservative council leader, one Ian Hudspeth, replied with a 6 page missive outlining the realities of life at the council.  He gently explained, using simple terms,  that there are no spare assets, that they have trimmed as much as they can in the way of staff and salaries, so they are left with no alternative but to start cutting public services. 

Mr Cameron has offered the services of his advisers to see if some other way of cutting back can be found.  Clearly he thinks that the council are simply inefficient, or too stupid to manage their money.

This is yet another demonstration of the Westminster bubble effect.  Insulated from the reality of most people's lives, he sees no connection between the policies that he and his mates are imposing on the population and the realities of cash-starved councils and public services.  To them these are simply the implementation of an ideology.  Surely everyone must understand that?  It's not personal, and it is, of course, regrettable that some people are affected for the worse, but it's all for the best in the long run.  That's why we have seen Conservative backbenchers laughing at stories of people who are being badly affected by cuts to benefits, by being sanctioned, by being made to prove they are disabled enough.  They don't see that reality, so to them it's simply a story being put by the opposition to score some points in the great game of Westminster politics.

Have the Conservatives never wondered why they are nicknamed 'the Nasty Party'?  Of course they haven't.  It will simply be dismissed as coming from people who are envious of them, because they are the elite.  They're alright Jack.