SCOTLAND: Why is the Right so weak in Scotland?
It's not David McLetchie's fault
The Scottish Tories had a good election. We won three seats on first past the post and despite the advance of the smaller parties the Scottish Tories held their ground. For a Party like the Scottish Tories to hold their ground is a good result when Greens, Scottish Socialists and Independents are advancing because the small and medium sized parties together have to share the 56 Proportional Representation seats. Labour did not have a spectacular reduction in their representation because most of their seats are won on first past the post and there was no substantial threat to those seats from their opponents . . . yet. The SNP did badly and lost seats to the Scottish Socialists and Greens. The UK wide trend of voters slowly turning against the political establishment continued with four independents being elected — two on first past the post.
The other reason why the result is good for the Scottish Tories is that we managed to hold our ground despite the fact that our voters are dying. If the law was changed and the minimum voting age in Scotland was 80 then I think that we would have a chance of electoral victory in Scotland. We won the majority of seats and votes in Scotland in the 1950's . . . our voters are now dying of old age.
So, how is it that winning 18 seats out of 129 is a good result for the single right-of-centre party? I don't know if Scotland is the country in the modern democratic world with the weakest political right — but I guess that it might be.
We have what I call a dependency parliament. The Scottish Parliament has the power/luxury to spend money but does not have the responsibility to raise those tax revenues. The UK government raises the taxes and a formula determines the share of the UK public sector cake that Scotland gets. It's true that the Scottish Parliament has the power to raise/cut income tax by up to 3p but I cannot decide just yet whether that is more irrelevant than odd or vice versa.
This constitutional/financial arrangement — which was largely the same in the days before the Scottish Parliament (Scottish public funding determined by a formula was the same before devolution) — sets the agenda for Scottish politics. When the agenda is about spending government money without any regard for fiscal discipline then what motivation do the electorate have for voting for a tax cutting party instead of a public sector spending party?
The system is in effect exactly what one would expect a left-wing anti-nationalist political establishment to favour. Firstly it has made the majority of Scots dependant not on themselves but on the public sector. Secondly it provides a kind of subsidy or bribe against independence. Thirdly it increases, enhances, improves, advances, grows and progresses the negative Scottish view of themselves: "we cannot run ourselves or survive financially without the English." Fourthly — for reasons already given — it encourages the Scottish nationalist movement to be left-wing rather than right-wing.
So, what can the Scottish Conservative and Unionsist Party do? Is there hope?
Actually, I think that there is a tiny little bit of hope. Let me explain.
Some of the more original and radical free market thinkers in the Scottish Tories have thought about what we can do to become a country that has the dignity to stand on it's own two feet rather than be the derided country that we are now that seems to excel at bleating complaints in the direction of nanny (state). The proposed answer by the Tartan Taliban is to take advantage of a situation we never wanted (devolution) and propose a change that at least makes devolution a slightly less ridiculous and unfair UK constitutional arrangement. They call it 'full fiscal freedom'. What that means is that the power of the Scottish Parliament to spend money must now be balanced with the responsibility of raising that money in Scotland. Opponents argue that this moves us one step closer to independence and is scary. However, if we have devolution then surely we must take responsibility for it. I'll say no more on this topic as clearly it is a large subject area in it's own right.
The other opportunity for the Tories in Scotland is that although we cannot cut public spending we can look at how to spend it more efficiently. This means that the focus of free market public policy ideas moves away from things like tax and spending cuts to ideas like education vouchers. Although the state still spends the money there is scope for radical thinking on how to transfer the power away from education bureaucrats to parents, for example. This is an area that re-elected MSPs like Brian Monteith and Murdo Fraser have been working on.
Brian Monteith and Murdo Fraser were numbers 1 and 2 on the Party PR list in Mid Scotland and Fife. This is a good sign that demonstrates the advantages of the new, open, 'trust the people', One Member One Vote method of internal Party decision making in the Scottish Tories (known as 'democracy') over the older tried and tested method of decision making in the Scottish Tories (known as 'The Scottish Tory Civil War'). So, less internal stife is another little bit of good news from North Britain.
Other bits of good news were the defections to the mad new supposedly right-wing party in the UK that only up to date political anoraks can remember the name of. These defections reduce the scope for a come back by the factionalists in the Scottish Tory Party. This new party (did they call themselves the Scottish People's Alliance or something?) did very badly — even worse than the Pro European Conservative Party in the last Euro elections. Very funny.
David McLetchie performed well in the election — both Murdo Fraser and Bill Walker told me that he had had a good election. He won his own seat on first past the post. Mr McLetchie described the election debate as 'handbags at 40 paces' or something like that.
Overall the election was just a boring staging post (with mildly interesting election results) on the long journey to who knows where. We know that something is likely to happen in the future (like a turning point in Scottish/UK political history) but we don't know what — in the meantime there is a little bit of good news coming from the Tory camp in Scotland. Perhaps they (we) are getting prepared for the battles to come.
Douglas Taylor was the Conservative candidate for the Western Isles at the last general election
Douglas Taylor, May 5, 2003 08:01 AM