Nostradamus Clarke
I didn't realise that Charles Clarke, Home Secretary in the last Labour Government, was such a soothsayer on Scottish politics.
But according to this piece in The Times by Tim Montgomerie 'NostraClarkus' called the referendum result correctly before going on to predict that Nicola Sturgeon would go on to become an even more effective leader of the SNP than Alex Salmond.
I wonder what NostraClarkus views are on the forthcoming general election although I would hazard a guess that he's none too impressed at the way the Labour campaign is going.
SNP is running rings around Dave and Ed
By Tim Montgomerie - The Times
Scottish nationalists are about to turn last year’s referendum defeat into victory at the polls. Can Labour stop them?
Two weeks before the vote on Scottish independence a contemporary Nostradamus, Charles Clarke, the former Labour home secretary, predicted everything. He told me “no” would win by about ten points. It triumphed by 55 to 45. He then forecast a massive surge in support for the SNP as “no” voters, guilty about choosing their pensions over independence, deserted unionist parties. Correct again. A poll by Lord Ashcroft yesterday found that Labour is set to lose 15 of its 16 safest Scottish seats to the Nationalists.
NostraClarkus also worried that the worst thing for Labour would be if Nicola Sturgeon took over as SNP leader. Her social democracy, he warned, would appeal very strongly to the Glaswegian Labour heartland and she was probably an even more potent politician than Alex Salmond. My only regret was not asking Mr Clarke who would win that day’s three o’clock at Newmarket.
I reflected on his clairvoyance yesterday as I read Gordon Brown’s latest political intervention. The former prime minister thought that everything went wrong for Labour the morning after the referendum. At 7am on Friday September 19, 2014, David Cameron declared that not only would he honour promises that he, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband had made to Scotland in the campaign but also that it was about time England got a bit of devolution too.
This, for Mr Brown, rather than all the megatrends Charles Clarke could see, was the moment the Tory leader became the modern-day Lord North and “lit the fuse” that might blow the UK apart. Mr Brown and large parts of Scottish Labour are still in denial about the crisis they have brought on themselves. Not everything can be blamed on evil Tories or even Evel itself (the absurdly named English Votes for English Laws proposal).
Because Scottish Labour MPs always expected to weigh as much as count their majorities they took some of the poorest constituencies for granted for many years. The brightest and best Labour politicians couldn’t get out of Scotland fast enough. They didn’t stand for the Holyrood parliament but headed south to the bright lights of the Commons. They also demonised the Conservatives with lies about Tory plans to privatise the NHS. They helped to make the Union vulnerable by toxifying the party that tends to win half of UK general elections.
After dragging its feet on devolution in recent years, a panicked Labour party is now offering even more home rule. On Monday Mr Brown joined Jim Murphy, Scottish Labour’s dynamic new leader, to announce a “vow plus” of new powers allowing Scotland to vary social security entitlements and control housing benefit.
Twenty years after Labour’s George Robertson promised that “devolution will kill nationalism stone dead” the repeatedly underestimated SNP is not only alive but kicking hard. It is the only party in UK politics with a majority in any of the four key parliaments. Its plan is to have more MPs in Scottish seats than Labour after May and to use its influence to win even more special status for Scotland.
So, thank you very much Mr Brown, but, just as you’ve chosen to retire rather than fight for your own vulnerable Scottish seat, it’s also time to retire your failed prescription for saving the UK. Because of the unbalanced electoral map and the constitution that Mr Brown and Tony Blair introduced, it is possible, even probable, that England might get an Ed Miliband government imposed on it by SNP MPs.
More than 15 years after Scottish and Welsh devolution, arrangements should have been put in place to ensure that England also gets the government it wants — just as the other parts of the UK get the policies their citizens vote for.
Unfortunately the Tories are dragging their feet almost as much as Labour. Far from delivering fairness for England, the new Tory policy set out by William Hague on Tuesday added up to a dog’s breakfast of complexity. The former McKinsey management consultant gave a management consultant’s answer to the West Lothian question.
English MPs will have the power to block legislation but no power to initiate laws. In other words England gets a second-rate status within the UK. Much more sensible would have been something like the idea of Michael Forsyth, the Tory former Scottish Secretary. Lord Forsyth proposed to replace MSPs and members of the Welsh Assembly with Scottish MPs and Welsh MPs. Perhaps each alternate week Scotland’s MPs would meet in Edinburgh to decide on Scottish affairs; Wales’s MPs would meet in Cardiff and Northern Ireland’s in Belfast. English MPs could meet in Manchester. Then they would all gather together at Westminster to decide on UK-wide business. No MP or nation would have second-class status and, with a lot fewer politicians, it would be cheaper.
My hunch is that Scotland will never vote to leave the UK. Declining oil revenues and the cost of its ageing population mean that England will look a better and better economic partner in the years to come. This economic reality rather than any further stifling of English identity may not be enough to save the Union but it amounts to the unionists’ best hope.
Yet if I’m not entirely sure of that prediction, I make one with absolute certainty. Not a single Scottish seat changed hands at the 2010 election. Nearly everything is set to change in May. The SNP knows this and is ready to take full advantage. And England and its voters and elected representatives? Are they ready?
Scottish nationalists are about to turn last year’s referendum defeat into victory at the polls. Can Labour stop them?
Two weeks before the vote on Scottish independence a contemporary Nostradamus, Charles Clarke, the former Labour home secretary, predicted everything. He told me “no” would win by about ten points. It triumphed by 55 to 45. He then forecast a massive surge in support for the SNP as “no” voters, guilty about choosing their pensions over independence, deserted unionist parties. Correct again. A poll by Lord Ashcroft yesterday found that Labour is set to lose 15 of its 16 safest Scottish seats to the Nationalists.
NostraClarkus also worried that the worst thing for Labour would be if Nicola Sturgeon took over as SNP leader. Her social democracy, he warned, would appeal very strongly to the Glaswegian Labour heartland and she was probably an even more potent politician than Alex Salmond. My only regret was not asking Mr Clarke who would win that day’s three o’clock at Newmarket.
I reflected on his clairvoyance yesterday as I read Gordon Brown’s latest political intervention. The former prime minister thought that everything went wrong for Labour the morning after the referendum. At 7am on Friday September 19, 2014, David Cameron declared that not only would he honour promises that he, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband had made to Scotland in the campaign but also that it was about time England got a bit of devolution too.
This, for Mr Brown, rather than all the megatrends Charles Clarke could see, was the moment the Tory leader became the modern-day Lord North and “lit the fuse” that might blow the UK apart. Mr Brown and large parts of Scottish Labour are still in denial about the crisis they have brought on themselves. Not everything can be blamed on evil Tories or even Evel itself (the absurdly named English Votes for English Laws proposal).
Because Scottish Labour MPs always expected to weigh as much as count their majorities they took some of the poorest constituencies for granted for many years. The brightest and best Labour politicians couldn’t get out of Scotland fast enough. They didn’t stand for the Holyrood parliament but headed south to the bright lights of the Commons. They also demonised the Conservatives with lies about Tory plans to privatise the NHS. They helped to make the Union vulnerable by toxifying the party that tends to win half of UK general elections.
After dragging its feet on devolution in recent years, a panicked Labour party is now offering even more home rule. On Monday Mr Brown joined Jim Murphy, Scottish Labour’s dynamic new leader, to announce a “vow plus” of new powers allowing Scotland to vary social security entitlements and control housing benefit.
Twenty years after Labour’s George Robertson promised that “devolution will kill nationalism stone dead” the repeatedly underestimated SNP is not only alive but kicking hard. It is the only party in UK politics with a majority in any of the four key parliaments. Its plan is to have more MPs in Scottish seats than Labour after May and to use its influence to win even more special status for Scotland.
So, thank you very much Mr Brown, but, just as you’ve chosen to retire rather than fight for your own vulnerable Scottish seat, it’s also time to retire your failed prescription for saving the UK. Because of the unbalanced electoral map and the constitution that Mr Brown and Tony Blair introduced, it is possible, even probable, that England might get an Ed Miliband government imposed on it by SNP MPs.
More than 15 years after Scottish and Welsh devolution, arrangements should have been put in place to ensure that England also gets the government it wants — just as the other parts of the UK get the policies their citizens vote for.
Unfortunately the Tories are dragging their feet almost as much as Labour. Far from delivering fairness for England, the new Tory policy set out by William Hague on Tuesday added up to a dog’s breakfast of complexity. The former McKinsey management consultant gave a management consultant’s answer to the West Lothian question.
English MPs will have the power to block legislation but no power to initiate laws. In other words England gets a second-rate status within the UK. Much more sensible would have been something like the idea of Michael Forsyth, the Tory former Scottish Secretary. Lord Forsyth proposed to replace MSPs and members of the Welsh Assembly with Scottish MPs and Welsh MPs. Perhaps each alternate week Scotland’s MPs would meet in Edinburgh to decide on Scottish affairs; Wales’s MPs would meet in Cardiff and Northern Ireland’s in Belfast. English MPs could meet in Manchester. Then they would all gather together at Westminster to decide on UK-wide business. No MP or nation would have second-class status and, with a lot fewer politicians, it would be cheaper.
My hunch is that Scotland will never vote to leave the UK. Declining oil revenues and the cost of its ageing population mean that England will look a better and better economic partner in the years to come. This economic reality rather than any further stifling of English identity may not be enough to save the Union but it amounts to the unionists’ best hope.
Yet if I’m not entirely sure of that prediction, I make one with absolute certainty. Not a single Scottish seat changed hands at the 2010 election. Nearly everything is set to change in May. The SNP knows this and is ready to take full advantage. And England and its voters and elected representatives? Are they ready?
