Worth a Mass?
I enjoyed Martin Kettle's article in The Guardian on reaction to the Smith Commission and its proposals about more powers for the Scottish Parliament.
I particularly enjoyed Martin's comparison of the Labour Party to the Protestant Prince Henry of Navarre who converted to Catholicism in 1589 on the basis that the French crown was (and Paris) was 'worth a mass'.
Now it's always dangerous to pray religion in aid of an argument, particularly in the west of Scotland, but Martin's analogy did make me laugh and it's true because the Labour Party would 'throw its granny' under the bus at the moment in its desperation to avoid being overrun in its political heartlands by the SNP.
Yet the reality is that the concessions that have been wrung out of Westminster have only been achieved by holding Labour's feet to the fire: Gordon Brown was never interested in a referendum while Labour was in office, opposed the inclusion of a second question on the ballot paper and only came up with the 'vow' when the Yes campaign looked like winning.
Unlike Martin, the lesson I would draw is that change happens when the Labour Party is forced into a corner and the best thing that could happen at the general election is that Scotland has far fewer MPs at Westminster.
The SNP’s negative response to Smith could set it adrift from Scottish people
The report on Scotland speaks for the 75% who want more devolution. It may shift the political centre of gravity
By Martin Kettle - The Guadian
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister, debates the Smith report at Holyrood. Photograph: Ken Jack/Demotix/Corbis
Lord Smith’s commission was set up by David Cameron to consider the devolution of further powers to Scotland. In the light of some of the immediate responses, this rather basic point about the commission’s work seems to need stressing, especially south of the border.
Today’s Smith report is about Scotland, not England. It is a set of commitments that would radically change the nature of government in a Scotland that has recently voted decisively to remain in the United Kingdom. These changes do indeed have implications for the rest of the UK. But Scotland is where, after more than 40 years of argument, such issues are front and centre and in need of action.
So the first task is to do Smith, and Scotland, the simple courtesy of focusing on what the Scots – not the English or the Welsh or anyone else – want and are saying about these plans. David Cameron displayed a terrible absence of statesmanship by using events such as the referendum, and now the publication of the Smith report, as an excuse to talk about England, not Scotland.
The second and more important task is to ask whether the commission has come up with what Scots want. The answer, almost certainly, is that it has. The commission has produced an agreed package – in a short time, to a level of detail and with an effectiveness few thought possible. This may have lastingly beneficial changes for Scotland.
Like most other European countries in the post-banking crash world, modern Scotland resembles a nation hanging around a bus stop where the service has broken down. Some Scots, and most of the noisier ones, are ready to board a bus that offers them a free ride to a new country. But most of the crowd would be happy with a reliable bus to an improved version of the country they know already. However, confidence is wearing thin.
Devolution is certainly not as cool as independence. But independence is mostly supported only by a minority – albeit by 45% in the referendum. By contrast a majority of Scots always say with unerring consistency that they want more devolution. Most of the polls show Scots wanting more control of their own country while remaining within the UK. That is exactly what Smith offers.
The biggest shift proposed by Smith is the devolution of income tax bands and rates. This is a genuinely radical change in devolution tax policy – although in practice it may prove more symbolic than real. When Scotland got its own parliament in 1999, it got the right to vary income tax by up to three pence in the pound. In 2012 the parliament was given the responsibility of setting part of Scots’ income tax bills. But Smith goes much further, in effect giving the parliament the power to set all its own rates for income tax in radically different ways.
Politically, this decision caused far more anguish for Labour than the other parties in the commission. Labour’s traditional instinct, expressed in particular by Gordon Brown, has been for partial devolution of income tax, retaining a balance between the UK and Scotland. This would further ensure that all Westminster MPs would retain a responsibility for at least part of tax and spending policy, while Holyrood gained control of the remainder.
If the UK were a stronger and more settled union than it is, Brown’s ideas would be hard to argue with. But the union is loosening. In Scotland, the mood is for full devolution of income tax, not partial. By this autumn only Labour among the main Scottish parties opposed full devolution, and Brown was in danger of finding that he had written a cheque he could not cash. Labour risked finding itself stranded on the other side of the river from most Scottish voters if it continued to oppose.
Labour’s abandonment of its opposition to income tax devolution is a bold act born of desperation. It was taken against the instincts of Brown, Alistair Darling, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband. But the politics made it inescapable. The deal was sealed this week and Brown endorsed it today. It may, just possibly, prove to be a brilliant move, giving Labour some hard ground to stand on in Scottish politics for the first time in several years. One insider, referring to the decision by the Protestant Henry of Navarre to convert to Catholicism, in order to secure the French crown in 1589, calls it Labour’s “Paris is worth a mass” decision.
There was a change in the body language of Scottish politics today. After Lord Smith presented his proposals, representatives of the five parties at the core of the commission gave their responses in Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland. Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were in varying degrees positive. The SNP and the Greens were negative and grudging. That could be a tonal miscalculation – voters like politicians to work together – but it was repeated by Nicola Sturgeon at Holyrood and Stewart Hosie, the SNP deputy leader and Dundee East MP, at Westminster. It felt like the start of a possible shift in the centre of political gravity, with the SNP perhaps even finding itself outside the consensus in the way that Labour has been in recent weeks.
Scottish unionist politics has been on hold for the past eight weeks. Smith was deliberating, and Scottish Labour was preoccupied by its leadership election. Now, with Smith arriving on the scene with a significant new devolution agenda, Scottish politics may gradually revert from being dominated by the grievances of the 45% who voted yes to independence, to the quieter aspirations of the 75% or more who tend to back increased powers for Holyrood.
There is a long way to go, though, before the devolution parties can be confident they have begun to wrest the agenda back from the SNP. The SNP’s rocketing membership has yet to impact fully but, still, it is an astonishing development. The result of Scottish Labour’s leadership election next month will make a big difference – the SNP will breathe a sigh of relief if Jim Murphy loses. And what the SNP likes to call the “Westminster elites” – in many ways a dog-whistle for “the English” – have shown an unerring ability to play into nationalist hands.
The Smith report is indeed about Scotland. But in providing what Scotland wants, Smith poses questions for every corner of Britain too. Those implications, for Westminster and for localism, will need to be addressed and resolved in time for the 2020 general election at the very latest. Today was a good day for those who believe that bold approaches to fixing British politics can work. But the job is far from done. Indeed, it has only just started.
Lord Smith’s commission was set up by David Cameron to consider the devolution of further powers to Scotland. In the light of some of the immediate responses, this rather basic point about the commission’s work seems to need stressing, especially south of the border.
Today’s Smith report is about Scotland, not England. It is a set of commitments that would radically change the nature of government in a Scotland that has recently voted decisively to remain in the United Kingdom. These changes do indeed have implications for the rest of the UK. But Scotland is where, after more than 40 years of argument, such issues are front and centre and in need of action.
So the first task is to do Smith, and Scotland, the simple courtesy of focusing on what the Scots – not the English or the Welsh or anyone else – want and are saying about these plans. David Cameron displayed a terrible absence of statesmanship by using events such as the referendum, and now the publication of the Smith report, as an excuse to talk about England, not Scotland.
The second and more important task is to ask whether the commission has come up with what Scots want. The answer, almost certainly, is that it has. The commission has produced an agreed package – in a short time, to a level of detail and with an effectiveness few thought possible. This may have lastingly beneficial changes for Scotland.
Like most other European countries in the post-banking crash world, modern Scotland resembles a nation hanging around a bus stop where the service has broken down. Some Scots, and most of the noisier ones, are ready to board a bus that offers them a free ride to a new country. But most of the crowd would be happy with a reliable bus to an improved version of the country they know already. However, confidence is wearing thin.
Devolution is certainly not as cool as independence. But independence is mostly supported only by a minority – albeit by 45% in the referendum. By contrast a majority of Scots always say with unerring consistency that they want more devolution. Most of the polls show Scots wanting more control of their own country while remaining within the UK. That is exactly what Smith offers.
The biggest shift proposed by Smith is the devolution of income tax bands and rates. This is a genuinely radical change in devolution tax policy – although in practice it may prove more symbolic than real. When Scotland got its own parliament in 1999, it got the right to vary income tax by up to three pence in the pound. In 2012 the parliament was given the responsibility of setting part of Scots’ income tax bills. But Smith goes much further, in effect giving the parliament the power to set all its own rates for income tax in radically different ways.
Politically, this decision caused far more anguish for Labour than the other parties in the commission. Labour’s traditional instinct, expressed in particular by Gordon Brown, has been for partial devolution of income tax, retaining a balance between the UK and Scotland. This would further ensure that all Westminster MPs would retain a responsibility for at least part of tax and spending policy, while Holyrood gained control of the remainder.
If the UK were a stronger and more settled union than it is, Brown’s ideas would be hard to argue with. But the union is loosening. In Scotland, the mood is for full devolution of income tax, not partial. By this autumn only Labour among the main Scottish parties opposed full devolution, and Brown was in danger of finding that he had written a cheque he could not cash. Labour risked finding itself stranded on the other side of the river from most Scottish voters if it continued to oppose.
Labour’s abandonment of its opposition to income tax devolution is a bold act born of desperation. It was taken against the instincts of Brown, Alistair Darling, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband. But the politics made it inescapable. The deal was sealed this week and Brown endorsed it today. It may, just possibly, prove to be a brilliant move, giving Labour some hard ground to stand on in Scottish politics for the first time in several years. One insider, referring to the decision by the Protestant Henry of Navarre to convert to Catholicism, in order to secure the French crown in 1589, calls it Labour’s “Paris is worth a mass” decision.
There was a change in the body language of Scottish politics today. After Lord Smith presented his proposals, representatives of the five parties at the core of the commission gave their responses in Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland. Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were in varying degrees positive. The SNP and the Greens were negative and grudging. That could be a tonal miscalculation – voters like politicians to work together – but it was repeated by Nicola Sturgeon at Holyrood and Stewart Hosie, the SNP deputy leader and Dundee East MP, at Westminster. It felt like the start of a possible shift in the centre of political gravity, with the SNP perhaps even finding itself outside the consensus in the way that Labour has been in recent weeks.
Scottish unionist politics has been on hold for the past eight weeks. Smith was deliberating, and Scottish Labour was preoccupied by its leadership election. Now, with Smith arriving on the scene with a significant new devolution agenda, Scottish politics may gradually revert from being dominated by the grievances of the 45% who voted yes to independence, to the quieter aspirations of the 75% or more who tend to back increased powers for Holyrood.
There is a long way to go, though, before the devolution parties can be confident they have begun to wrest the agenda back from the SNP. The SNP’s rocketing membership has yet to impact fully but, still, it is an astonishing development. The result of Scottish Labour’s leadership election next month will make a big difference – the SNP will breathe a sigh of relief if Jim Murphy loses. And what the SNP likes to call the “Westminster elites” – in many ways a dog-whistle for “the English” – have shown an unerring ability to play into nationalist hands.
The Smith report is indeed about Scotland. But in providing what Scotland wants, Smith poses questions for every corner of Britain too. Those implications, for Westminster and for localism, will need to be addressed and resolved in time for the 2020 general election at the very latest. Today was a good day for those who believe that bold approaches to fixing British politics can work. But the job is far from done. Indeed, it has only just started.
