Parliament: August 2008 Archives

He started his leadership very clearly (by Liberal standards): "I am not intuitively against making sure that people have a choice and opportunity to vote on these things."

Then he rotated completely, saying he was opposed to a vote that could introduce independence "by the back door".

Pressed to reconcile these two contradictory statements, he refused. His policy on the constitutional future of our country? Fuel prices are too high. It's as absurd as saying your policy on fuel prices is independence. And no-one would do that.

Eventually Gordon got an answer: "I don't see how a multi-option referendum could work."

Here's a thought, Tavish. It could work like the leadership race you just won. It would be a preferendum, and if, say, three options are offered - independence, Calman or status quo - then the public rank their preferences. 

If one option gets 50% of first preferences outright, as you did, that's the result. If not, the least preferred option is eliminated, and the second preferences of those who picked it are counted. It's not "independence by the back door", it's the electoral system your party brought in for local elections. It allows a nuanced point of view - presumably you'd back Calman 1, status quo 2. I'd go for independence 1, Calman 2 (assuming Calman ever reports, and the result isn't absurd).

Even those opposed to independence should back a vote. If they're right about public opinion, we can all put this issue to bed for a generation and get on with tackling poverty and climate change. If they're wrong, then there's a popular will for change, and they shouldn't obstruct it. What's so complicated about that?

The last Euro qualifiers should be seen as the culmination of one element of our national destiny - to lose in the most courageous and unlikely manner, in the narrowest of ways. By this argument, the whole of the last phase of Scottish football, from 1974 onwards, led up to that defeat by Italy. What could be more appropriate than beating France at home and away yet still not qualifying?

On Iain Gray and Andy Kerr: "The two men spoke first and frankly it was vacuous nonsense focused on what positions they held and bash the nationalist no mention of policy, Kerr if anything was to the right of Gray who is apparently Browns favoured candidate."

Cathy Jamieson: "talked about working with trade unions and for the party to be involved in making policy, whilst much of this was vague it was considerably more political and to the left of the other two."

She won his support, but it was hardly wholehearted: "I came out of the husting believing that was I in Scotland I would have little choice but to vote for Cathy Jamison despite the history of privatising the prison service and her dreadful appearance on question time were she seemed to support DNA collection of all UK citizens from birth."

He thought Bill Butler was clearly the best candidate for deputy, but: "didn't entirely agree with every thing he said such as his view that PFI should compete on a level playing field with other public sector financing, why it needs to be in the field at all I don't know."

Does anyone know why anyone with views like this, so antithetical to the modern Labour Party, would continue to support the party of PFI, war, privatisation, ID cards, and the rest? It's a mystery to me.

But Jack saunters around the Holyrood building with the top two buttons of his shirt undone, clearly loving the fact that it's all someone else's problem now. 

It's not a Hawaiian shirt, but it clearly will be soon, and the medallion is already implicit. Even his walk is laid back, almost gravity-defying.

Liberal members have looked at their party's response to minority government, i.e. resist any cooperation with anyone except Labour, and they like it. Personally I think that could be costly, but only time will tell.

I'm pleased to see someone yanked Jeff's chain, though.

Update: Tavish Scott seems to have had a massive and absurd rush of blood to the head. "Thank you for this, the gold medal in the Lib Dem Olympics. I'm with Chris Hoy. I'm comfortable and confident in being part of a federal political party."

So what would the events be at the real Liberal Olympics? Synchonised boredom? Bulldozer relays? Graph manipulation time trials? Long-distance fence-sitting?

In any case, I doubt Chris Hoy actually said he's "part of a federal political party". If he was a Liberal, he probably left after they led the campaign to demolish his beloved velodrome.

Coincidentally, I got a letter today from my local Liberal candidate claiming that voting for them was "the safest way to ... protect our traditional civil liberties". Odd, then, that they abstained on the issue in 2005 when Patrick had a motion down opposing ID cards.

With this in mind, on the 12th of August, I asked William Hill if they would offer odds on the Liberal contest, and I was told that "the odds compiler has informed us that we do want to bet on Scottish Lib Dem leader, but the market is not been compiled yet".

The story's not yet posted there, but PA reports some pretty unattractive comments by the First Minister about not minding the economics of Thatcherism, just the social side. 

Whether it's party policy or just his policy isn't clear - if you search for it, Google thinks it's called "Front Page Nick Only". They seem to have decided to go really personal, because they think that's worked for the Tories. 

Their own finances normally tell a different story. Labour and the Tories have long shown substantial and damning incompetence with their own money, even if their bankers bale them out over and over again.

In case you're wondering what the peak of Labour hypocrisy is on this issue, I give you ... the Minister responsible for Post Office closures arguing with himself.

A couple of days ago Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting (left) floated a radical idea for the next Holyrood election, assuming the SNP remain way ahead of Labour in the polls. Other SNP tactical voters, he suggests, should consider giving the Greens their regional list vote, formerly known as the second vote. 

We are, he says, "a cracking party", hopefully in the "cracking cheese, Gromit" sense. 

Above all, for him and other tactically-minded nationalists, this is because we Greens support a referendum on Scotland's constitutional future. With Wendy gone, no-one else does, so their Bill is almost certain to fall.

However much the SNP find it rewarding to go to the country in 2011 complaining about "obstructive unionists", the electoral system makes getting 65+ seats an exceptionally tall order for a single party. 

This isn't a coincidence: it was part of the original Dewarite thinking - along with "dish the Nats" and "inevitable coalition government". Those two objectives may have demonstrably failed, but 65+ remains a mountain under the alternative member system, which was designed to give diminishing returns as you get closer to the magic number. Some wonk should do a graph. It'd probably look a bit like this. 

Although Salmond has an eye-popping ability to make extravagant political predictions come true, as noted here before, even he hasn't claimed they can get an absolute majority next time. In his tartan heart he knows it isn't going to happen, otherwise we'd have definitely heard about it from him.

All things must pass, as I keep reminding SNP friends, but it does remain hard to see how Labour can restore their fortunes in less than three years without an Nat implosion of some as yet unknowable sort. If the SNP go into the next election 19 points ahead on the constituency list, might it make sense for them to encourage their voters to back the Greens, at least in some regions? 

To see the sort of wasted votes they're worried about, just look at Central Scotland, where 112,596 people voted Labour on the list last time, almost as many votes as the second and third parties combined. This heroic turnout returned precisely zero list MSPs. The same applied in 2003 and in 1999. Massive piles of votes straight into the recycling, effectively expressing no preference amongst the other parties.

The same happened in Glasgow, and in West, and in South, at all three elections. In short, Labour list votes haven't elected anyone across half of Scotland since the Parliament was established. Liberal list voters in the Highlands have never elected an MSP, either, incidentally.

If the Nats start cleaning up completely in the constituencies (as per this fantasy constituency map), the same would undoubtedly start happening to them, starting in the North East, then Mid Scotland and Fife, then Highlands and Islands. Salmond's people are surely too smart to let those votes pile up for no purpose, unlike Labour strategists?

Under these circumstances, I can quite see why, leaving aside the referendum, SNP supporters might well think it better to make us their second choice. They see Labour as the obstacle, so they're absolutely out. The Liberals stuck two fingers up at them in May last, so they're absolutely out. The Tories have proved pragmatic partners for Salmond's administration but remain ultra-Unionist, so they're out for many. 

So, Green it is, then. While we disagree with a swathe of SNP policy (over transport, planning, climate change and the economy in particular), we also agree on a fair amount too (tuition fees, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, civil liberties, support for small businesses and votes at 16, to pick a few examples). 

Such an election would also not feature the squeeze which cost us so dearly last year, and which was replicated in Glasgow East. Even without tactical voting, we are clearly best placed to benefit from any desire to make post-2011 "a more interesting and diverse parliament" if we work hard and make a clear case for a green agenda. 

Jeff says "it's thyme", presumably because herbs are green too. Whatever the logic, I'm always pleased to see people making the case for Green votes. It's sage advice.

Kez agrees.

Craig, not so much.

Angry Steve, not at all.

Gray's picked up much more of the trade union vote than expected, despite Cathy Jamieson's best efforts, and has of course won over Labour MPs with a promise not to lead them. Their votes really count, as STB has calculated.

Quite. Just one element of that evasion, the so-called non-dom loophole, cost us £3.8bn last year. The total amount avoided by those with sharp accountants was a massive £13bn. Just think - a sum so gargantuan that you could build three Forth road bridges with it. Or you could repair the existing bridge 1,300 times over. 

Would the subset of those serial evaders resident in Scotland evade a local version of income tax less effectively or more effectively? My money's on "more", given the widespread incompetence local authorities have demonstrated around Council Tax.

On the other side of the argument, Andy Kerr has followed Iain Gray's lead and accepted that Council Tax must go, which has been blindingly obvious to the rest of us since about 1993. Kerr's talking vaguely about proposals from the Burt Report, which recommended a tax set at 1% of house values. 

Labour Ministers, including Kerr, rejected the report even before it was published, less than two years ago. It's curious that he should want to go back to it, given that, but I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

Burt also considered Land Value Tax, and concluded that:

"Although land value taxation meets a number of our criteria, we question whether the public would accept the upheaval involved in radical reform of this nature, unless they could clearly understand the nature of the change and the benefits involved." (p120, Burt Report, 686M pdf)

OK, so I promised to set out the nature of the change and the benefits involved. I will do so, I guarantee. But again, not today. In the mean time, isn't it interesting (if you're a tax wonk) to see how support is draining away from both Local Income Tax and Council Tax?

However, you have to admire his courage to put across potentially unpopular positions, such as: house price falls are "painful, but necessary". 

And the Stalin to Mr Bean thing was an excellent line.

First, the bassist of short-lived punk band Nocturnal Vermin set out more of their history, what they're doing now, and confirmed their affection for John Swinney. 

Then one of the founders of the short-lived right-wing political party Scottish People's Alliance criticised Land Value Tax. 

I do love the internet at times like this, and to mark the occasion I'm going dig out Nocturnal Vermin's classic "John Swinney" for your listening pleasure. I originally posted it in February, and I fear it may become my audio equivalent of Private Eye's infamous pic.

Labour leadership contender Iain Gray has declared himself to have an open mind on local taxation, and suggested talks with us about land value taxation (LVT). The Green group will of course be happy to have this kind of conversation with him, or with whoever does come out on top. If Cathy wins, we'll also be happy to talk about fixing the railways. The door also remains open to the other parties, of course.

The mere idea of talking to others in Parliament shows progress in Labour's thinking. One of the Holyrood pack told me that Wendy's strategy was simply to sit back, come up with no alternatives, and let the SNP/Liberal local income tax proposals fail. That's irresponsible politics - imagine the cost of another failed local tax - and it's good to see signs that Labour are starting to be a bit more constructive. 

The arguments for LVT will appear here another time, but given today's developments, the party-political cart will be considered before the policy-wonk horse. So, some history for the anoraks..

Ever so gradually, the arguments for a Scottish LVT have been taking root in Holyrood. In 2003 a motion from Robin Harper was passed (stirring speech here) which committed Parliament to "considering and investigating the contribution that land value taxation could make to the cultural, economic, environmental and democratic renaissance of Scotland." Not that such consideration and investigation ever happened, but y'know, still progress.

Voices in Labour back it, and some Tories too. It's also Liberal party policy, although you wouldn't believe that to listen to their MSPs talk only about local income tax. It's a federal policy, see, and federal policies only apply in England, which in a peculiar way recreates the West Lothian question on a smaller scale. Do they even understand what federalism means? Anyway, I digress.

This old idea reappeared thanks to Alex Salmond: no surprise there. But for Gordon Brown to copy it the same day? Did they think no-one would notice?

Update: others subsequently came to the same conclusion.

Let's start with who's not in. Ken Macintosh didn't get enough names, and I understand he's blaming me for what was taken to be an endorsement. No hard feelings, Ken, I hope. Maybe your turn will come next time.