Gordon Brown's Scotland

Backyard blues
Sep 4th 2008 | EDINBURGH
From The Economist print edition

The prime minister’s native land is no longer his redoubt

NOT only is Gordon Brown leading a country the OECD claims is about to enter recession; he also flew north on September 4th to find the part of it he calls home in revolt. Chief among the prime minister’s difficulties in Scotland is a resurgent Scottish National Party (SNP), which is expected to win a parliamentary by-election in the Labour-held seat of Glenrothes.

The contest, which was prompted by the death of Labour MP John MacDougall in August, is unlikely to take place before late October. The SNP holds the equivalent seat in the Scottish Parliament and needs a 14.5% swing, less than the 22% it secured when it snagged Glasgow East from Labour in a by-election in July, in order to send an MP to Westminster.

If Labour is defeated it will be yet another sign that Mr Brown’s premiership is foundering on Scottish rocks as well as on Britain’s economic woes. Wendy Alexander, a Brown protégée, resigned as its leader in the Scottish Parliament at the end of June over a controversy involving political donations. Three people, two of them former Scottish ministers, are vying for her job; a choice is due on September 13th.

The SNP has been on the up since it emerged as the largest party in the 2007 Scottish elections. As Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were unwilling to form a coalition, the SNP took power with only 47 seats (and two Green allies) in the 129-seat assembly. A series of populist measures—cutting prescription charges, abolishing bridge tolls and freezing council tax—boosted the SNP’s popularity and deterred its opponents from forcing an election to unseat it.

Alex Salmond, the SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister, is now a thorn in the prime minister’s side. He has recently demanded that Mr Brown use tax revenues from North Sea oil to subsidise the fuel bills of farmers, fishermen and hauliers, attacked the government over post-office closures and condemned its withdrawal of a plan to subsidise the production of renewable energy on Scottish islands.

He is helped by disarray within his opponents’ ranks. All three candidates to lead Scottish Labour say the party must have more authority over Westminster MPs with Scottish seats. This perturbs those such as Tom Harris, who says it would be “entirely impractical” to have MPs loyal to a Scottish leader but not to the prime minister. The Lib Dems have also been busy choosing a new leader, electing Tavish Scott, a former minister, on August 26th. He promises robust opposition to the SNP.

Mr Salmond will not be too worried. His new legislative programme, unveiled on September 3rd, contains some popular ideas—such as replacing the council tax, which is levied on property, with a local income tax. This could cause a crowd-pleasing row with London, for making the sums add up depends on Mr Salmond getting hold of £400m paid by Britain’s Treasury to poor Scots struggling to meet their council-tax bills. Labour ministers retort that if the tax is abolished, there will be no further need to hand over the money.

And Mr Salmond may take comfort in another thought. Though his popularity has yet to boost support for Scottish independence (the SNP’s goal, on which he hopes to hold a referendum in 2010), a future Tory government—with almost no Westminster seats in Scotland—would widen cracks in the union. Winning Glenrothes would help that come to pass.
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Mr Constantine you post an Article what areas of the article if any do you wish to Debate.?or is this going to be another time wasting thread that goes off topic and ends up being a waste of time with posters not debating anything thats got to do with the article in question.
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Originally Posted by Andrew Constantine:

The SNP holds the equivalent seat in the Scottish Parliament and needs a 14.5% swing.


.

Id never thought about it before, but does each seat in Scotland have an MP and an MSP?
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Originally Posted by moe:
Id never thought about it before, but does each seat in Scotland have an MP and an MSP?

Basically, yes. The 129 MSPs are constituency and regional based. One MP would deal with the devolved matters, while another would deal with the reserved matters at Westminster.
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Originally Posted by Northumbrian:
Basically, yes. The 129 MSPs are constituency and regional based. One MP would deal with the devolved matters, while another would deal with the reserved matters at Westminster.

This seems a farcical situation and shows why partial devolution as in Scotland doesnt work. There needs to be full integration in the UK or full independance.
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Originally Posted by moe:
This seems a farcical situation and shows why partial devolution as in Scotland doesnt work. There needs to be full integration in the UK or full independance.

It seems to work very well for them... it just doesn't work for us!
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Originally Posted by moe:
This seems a farcical situation and shows why partial devolution as in Scotland doesnt work. There needs to be full integration in the UK or full independance.

If England adopted the same kind of system as in Scotland, we would have an English parliament consisting of 1290 members with only the loss of about 120 from Westminster, an increase of 1170. I don't believe the public would wear such a huge increase.

An English parliament in a federal UK would be an extremely powerful organisation which would likely be confrontational with the UK parliament. It would also demand more and more powers and this is what we are seeing with the Scottish parliament.
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Another way to look at it, RTL, is that devolution was a response to the more powerful English presence at Westminster.
How then, can England devolve power to itself?
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Originally Posted by Northumbrian:
It seems to work very well for them... it just doesn't work for us!

Yep, what I meant to say was that it doesnt work fairly - but for Scots it works in a 'cake and eat it' sort of way!
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Originally Posted by moe:
Yep, what I meant to say was that it doesnt work fairly - but for Scots it works in a 'cake and eat it' sort of way!

No Moe, the unionists have baked the cake, Scots simple have to like it or lump it! However, yes it has brought benefits to Scotland, big ones! It was not always the case. IMHO (believe it or not), the Welsh Assembly has delivered some of these benefits on our behalf, and will deliver benefits to the English too. Prescriptions will be FOC in England some time soon courtessy of the Welsh. Even sooner to Scotland and NI.

Nothing like the tail wagging the dog eh?

And WHY? Because the Assembly in Wales was allowed to be devolved (even under English laws) where as the Parliament in Scotland was something which had to be watched, monitored; a kind of controlled devolution, otherwise it might tear apart this Mary Poppins UK where 'spoonfulls of spin' help the medicine go down; in the most obnoxious way.

I share the frustration of the English, and again IMHO, the English will continue to be denied a platform for their unique social and political issues. Because that one parliament will seriously chalenge the ligitimacy of the UK parliament in a way in which the Scottish Parliament, nor ever a directly elected Lords ever could.

Surely the time is up now, surlely the penny has to drop (and not into a fat cat & lazy, 'I'm all right mate', overpaid MP's pocket) that the UK is definately now in terminal decline, and it's time to salvage the best we can for our respective nations.
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