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Jumping into bed with the Swedes

Feb 15

Posted by Dom in Culture, Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Europe, Gender, Holyrood, Ideology, International | 8 Comments

Shetland's hybrid Scots-Scandinavian flag

Shetland: Already halfway there

There have, in the past week, been a few noteworthy articles regarding the Scandinavian shadow which looms large over the issue of Scottish independence, as well as the future and makeup of Scotland’s economy, welfare system and society more generally.

Now I write this as somebody who knows a fair deal more about Scandinavia than most, for both personal and professional reasons.  A colleague of mine in the Greens remarked that the next Scottish Green manifesto should just be called ‘Scandinavian Nirvana’, such is the appetite in the party for increased welfare, greater social freedoms, gender equality and local democracy. I wholeheartedly agree.

Which brings me to something said by Blair McDougall in a BBC interview on the independence referendum. He accuses his opposite number in the Yes campaign, the significantly more articulate and less hackish Blair Jenkins, of wanting ‘57 per cent tax like in Norway’. There are indeed people in Norway paying that much tax, but these kind of people are not the salt of the earth working men and women which McDougall thinks will be crushed by the weight of Kaiser Salmond’s iron taxation, if he did indeed have such plans.

Then there was a report in The Economist which made the odd logical step of collating the radical reforms by centre-right governments in Sweden and formerly in Denmark with the high living standards and safe economies of the Nordic countries. As the Swedish journalist Katrin Kielos noted, there is an awful schizophrenia about the new craze for the Nordic centre-right, in that it assumes that being Scandinavian is a virtue in itself and argues that the path forward for these secure and durable systems is to follow a more British or American model . It is a trend which wishes to dine on the fruits of the Scandinavian countries’ labour whilst seeking to undermine it at its foundations.

The whole thing is illustrative of the fact that there is a huge amount of ignorance about the way in which Scandinavian society functions, and that this ignorance can be used to significant political advantage. It is also debatable to what extent it is even appropriate to address the Nordic countries as a single unit. There are however certain things which underpin  ‘the Scandinavian model’ which Scotland would have to adopt were it to develop in such a direction.

The first is a strict ethos of universalism. Not all services are free in Sweden or its neighbours, but notable by its absence is the incredibly British notion of selective assistance. Britain seems to implicitly accept that there should be huge gaps in income between different levels of society, and that one of the roles of public welfare is to alleviate this. It is a mode of thinking which the New Labour project perfected with its targeted alleviation, support for bright pupils from state schools and university access bursaries, without ever tackling the structural causes of poverty and discrimination.

Secondly, the way in which Scandinavian trade unions work is different to the British model. The nostalgia for the 1970s which pervades much of Britain’s left ignores the fact that old British models of trade-unionism were what allowed public support for the radical reforms of the 1980s. The systems of collective bargaining employed in Sweden and relatively high levels of unionisation amongst what might be termed normal people means that it is both destigmatised and can claim to represent large portions of the population.  This system has come under attack from centre-right governments in recent years but has survived relatively intact. The Scandinavian countries do not have a legal minimum wage, but they do have an effective minimum wage proportionally higher than Scotland, leading to a reduction in income inequality before the tax system has even played its redistributive  role.

And once tax is collected, where does it go? Not into benefits as they might be normally understood, but rather into the provision of universal services.  Childcare, incredibly well funded education systems, transport and infrastructure and healthcare.  The biggest challenge to Scotland is whether it is possible to transfer to this type of system given the appalling disparity evident in the country and present. It is in the interests of every Scottish woman to vote for a scenario which will provide the funding and structures for them to work and live on the same terms as men (and from a male feminist perspective, in men’s interest too).

Now to return to Blair McDougall and his mythical 57 per cent tax rate, I would say that it would only become an issue when you earn as much money as a senior press adviser or an MP.  Having large tax reserves means that in times of crisis governments are able to effectively deal with them, unlike the British model of medium taxation on an out of control financial system without any thought as to the after effects.

So to be realistic, adopting a Scandinavian social model would involve higher rates of tax, but it would also involve higher wages and better public services. In real terms incomes might well be higher, or at least remain static whilst providing for higher levels of public investment.

The whole thing is also dependent on a grand narrative. People vote for things because they believe in their viability, and the Scandinavian system is underpinned by a notion of functional redistribution different from the dominant discourse in Britain, and even in Scotland. It isn’t about smashing the rich or shooting bankers at dawn, but rather about building a cohesive society which works in the interest of all. As Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg says, “to create we must share, and to share we must create.”

David Leask’s excellent ‘As Others See Us’ column in the Herald, in which a group of Norwegians were asked for their opinion on independence, was revealing. The lack of interest in Scotland’s constitutional future was unsurprising – I frequently find myself explaining to Swedes the ins and outs of the independence movement – as Scotland is not politically visible. The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter  recently published a feature on Europe’s contemporary independence movements which mentioned Scotland in the same breath as the Northern League in Italy and Flemish separatism in Belgium, entirely ignoring the broadly leftist motivations found in the majority of pro-independence groups and parties in Scotland. The challenge will be to explicitly build the construction of a sustainable and humane welfare state into the Scottish cultural narrative at home and abroad.

Neither would we or should we transform Scotland into Scandinavia overnight. When talking with a good friend of mine about how I hoped to live in a Scotland where I felt the state and society treated me and any potential wife/partner equally she smiled wryly and wished me good luck, with some justification. But that isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try. I answered that to combine the best aspects of Scotland and Sweden would create something beautiful, but that it would require the type of radical social change not seen since the 1960s. It would be a national project which larger countries would be entirely incapable of, but which might just work in Scotland. Scandinavia might be a fluid concept with many faces, but the values which it ostensibly represents are what we should really be aiming for. Both financially and morally, we cannot afford not to.

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A political machine that gives change

Jan 26

Posted by Dom in Culture, Democracy, Education, Equality, Europe, International, Society | 6 Comments

I’m leaving Sweden, again. It feels good to be heading back to my flat in Leith, to Stereo in Glasgow and all my friends, to the Cairngorms, to Frightened Rabbit and Easter Road, CalMac ferries and Scotrail sprinter trains. I would also have put Innis and Gunn Rum Cask on the list, but the Swedish alcohol monopoly sees fit to stock the stuff to an admirable degree.

I’ve been away for a half-year now, watching the independence referendum from afar. I’ve seen TV clips of Johann Lamont declare Scotland a something-for-nothing society before finishing my breakfast and going to work with better paid colleagues at publicly funded Swedish universities. I’ve been forced to turn down Facebook invites to a succession of Nordic Horizons events at the Scottish Parliament, but then had the pleasure of seeing the ideas they promote in action every day.

I’ve heard the Better Together campaign say that modern Scotland is as good as it gets, then walked out of my front door to see a version of urban life which is in many ways better.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a Green party take its place as the third party in parliament and take on both left and right on the environment, on child poverty and on the terrible state of privatized railways. Every day on my way to the metro station I pass three different council-run nursery schools and men with pushchairs taking their paternity leave whilst their partners return to work.

I’ve been able to live cheaply in cooperatively run housing with district heating and communal facilities, so well insulated that I often don’t even need to have the radiator on.

I’ve met young Green activists who, unlike young people in Scotland and the rest of Britain, seem to have a genuine belief in their ability to change their country for the better.  I’ve hung out with girls from a design school who one day decided that all of the products they made should have zero environmental impact and then set about making it happen.

I’ve talked to writers and journalists who are all part of a vibrant cultural arena, and seen what proper funding can do for political diversity (all Swedish parliamentary parties are given money to stimulate debate and encourage youth politics, as well as to maintain a small staff).

I will be sad to leave Sweden, though it is not a country without its own problems (not least a worrying consumerism which accompanies being one of the world’s richest countries), but I come back over the North Sea with a sincere belief that a Scandinavian style approach in Scotland is not just desirable, but both possible and necessary. Britain today is not as good as it gets.

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Johann’s Lament

Dec 17

Posted by Dom in Education, Equality, Ideology, Parties | 7 Comments

 

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I thought the BBC News website was playing up again when ‘Johann Lamont raises questions over free tuition policy’ popped up. Surely she hadn’t decided to go further down the road taken at the infamous ‘something for nothing’ speech?
At the centre of Lamont’s critique of current education policy is something fairly irrefutable. Despite there being no tuition fees for Scots students there is still a frightening disparity in the number of rich and poor children attending university. This is simply not good enough, and with one eye on academia I must say that universities are shooting themselves in the foot by not tapping the underdeveloped potential of some children from poorer backgrounds.  I’ve seen it both as a student and latterly as a course tutor.

But Johann’s critique, instead of asking what is desirable in society and asking what the best way to get there would be, simply looks at all the bits of the train set and makes a decision on how best to put the track together. It illustrates well the managerialism which has crept into politics and the lack of real vision which has accompanied it. The ‘long term solutions’ envisaged by Lamont only reinforce the status quo which has caused so many problems. There is an implicit acceptance in the existence of rich and poor, and with it the idea that social inequality is to be tolerated so long as those at the bottom have the means to raise themselves to the sunny plains of the middle class.

This background-based approach to the provision of services also reinforces the very notion of patronage which I thought Johann’s party were supposed to dislike. By linking children to their parents we reduce them to assets. Should a mother receive less maternity pay because she has a rich husband who can keep her whilst she is off work? Removing universalism as a philosophical grounding to how we organise our society can only lead to social friction. It reduces our personal freedoms and traps us in systems of patronage which can only be broken via collective understanding of and consensus on universal rights.

If you charge for university based on the assumption that it will result in higher earnings, you reduce a degree to nothing more than a means of individual self-betterment in the narrowest and most soulless sense. If you charge because you feel that those from wealthier backgrounds should pay, why not just levy a higher rate of income tax as a general principle?

Universalism is vital to a society because it is a concrete sign of the fact that all of us, wherever we may be from, have the same basic rights and opportunities. Furthermore, to try and remove universalism from higher education is an attack on the right of all people to develop what makes us people, our minds. If Johann wants to see an end to the something for nothing culture, why not reduce subsidy for railways used predominantly by middle class commuters, or airports used by people from privileged backgrounds as they jet off on holiday?

There is an argument to be had about the appropriate subjects for a university to be teaching, and whether or not some disciplines would be better taught in a non-university environment, but universities are built on the notion of universalism – of teaching all subjects and all students equally.

A university can take no blame for what happens before students reach its gates. It can try to discern more carefully between students with an expensive education and students with a keen mind, something many are not currently very good at, but the inequalities which are inherent in society from a child’s formative years cannot be laid at the door of the university. It is a responsible government which will work to eradicate poverty which will change the kind of student entering Scotland’s numerous and generally good universities.

The narrative presented by Johann Lamont in her education vision is one of hardworking individuals working their way out of poverty. This is in some sense admirable, but it is also inherently antagonistic toward those who currently enjoy publicly funded education. It is a strange corruption of class politics which assumes both the continued existence of poverty and buys into an old fashioned concept of social climbing, rather than an aspirational vision of what an egalitarian society can look like.

This is not to say that the SNP are any better in their educational/social/economic policy (and these things are inseparable). Neither do I buy into the SNP spiel about having a social democratic vision for Scotland. Social democrats don’t freeze local tax and refuse to use the income-tax powers given to them, nor do they spend increasingly large amounts on private transport and refuse to embrace truly social urban policies. The worrying thing is that, in a country where we have two parties who call themselves social democrats, neither seem to really understand what the term means. We need to have Johann’s honest conversation, but the outcome should be a recognition of the need for greater collective resources, not the abandonment of the principle that all of us are of equal worth.

Why it matters that only the rich can become lawyers

Jun 26

Posted by James in Education | 6 Comments

A guest today from law student Tim Haddow. He is involved with the Edinburgh University’s Law Students’ Council campaign for fair access to the legal profession. Further background is available on the campaign website.

A stained glass window dominates Parliament Hall in Edinburgh, once the seat of the Scottish Parliament, now the hub of the Scottish courts. It depicts the inauguration of the College of Justice and the Court of Session by King James V in 1532. But the link between power, the establishment and the legal system is more than symbolic.

In his provocatively titled critique of land ownership in Scotland, “The Poor Had No Lawyers”, Andy Wightman argues that the Scottish legal profession has been complicit in a system that allowed the rich to acquire and retain much of Scotland’s land whilst the rights and interests of the poor were ignored or dismissed.

Whether or not Wightman’s analysis is right, it is undeniable that the Scottish legal profession was historically the preserve of the privileged: only they could afford the expensive education required. And it is hardly a flight of fancy to suggest that a legal profession overwhelmingly drawn from one part of society may mean a legal system that cannot fairly balance the needs and interests of all.

Like any human activity, the operation of the legal system inevitably reflects the approach, attitudes and preferences of those who operate it. And, as Wightman’s book exemplifies, the legal system has an unique role in shaping and regulating our society. Through it, rights are enforced, disputed facts are adjudicated, fault is attributed and the power of the state to impose settlements is exercised. The legal system determines what is ‘reasonable’ or ‘fair’ or ‘just’ for employers and employees; landlords and tenants; companies and consumers; the police and the public.

Secondly, whilst politicians may formulate law, it is our judiciary – selected from the ranks of the legal profession – who interpret and apply it. They preside over trials of the accused and sentence the convicted. In our common law system, they are entrusted with adapting the law to changes in society.

Finally, the legal system is not just of practical importance. The principles that guarantee democracy and the rule of law make it a constitutional actor in its own right. It adjudicates disputes between the state and the individual and determines the legality and justice of the acts of government. For Scotland, it defines the limits of the elected parliament’s power.

These factors demonstrate the importance a legal system that justly adjudicates between competing interests within society. And until the legal profession is open to all on their basis of aptitude for the legal practice, whatever their socio-economic background, the legal system will never escape the suspicion that it inherently favours the portion of society by which it is run.

Sadly, the dominance of the legal profession by the privileged is not restricted to history. A 2006 survey of Scottish solicitors showed just how few lawyers came from families whose parents were not professionals of one sort or another. Thanks to the scrapping of tuition fees, the availability of student loans and the efforts of university outreach programmes, access to law as an undergraduate degree is now wider than ever. But a more diverse profession is not being created: graduates entering legal training as recently as 2010 were much more likely than those starting other postgraduate courses to be from well-off families.

As in reformation days, it is the cost of education that is the stumbling block. Law graduates now need a postgraduate qualification before they can become trainee solicitors. The government used to support this course, the Diploma in Professional Legal Practice (DPLP), with a grant to cover the fees and another, means-tested, grant to assist with living costs. But rising costs and a capped fees award – now a loan – mean only half the actual fees are covered. The maintenance grant likewise failed to keep pace with inflation and was scrapped entirely two years ago. Consequently, law graduates must now find around￡9,000 to fund their diploma. Most start with no guarantee of a job at the end so, even for those with financial security, it is a massive gamble. For the less privileged, it is an impossibility.

In the longer-term, there must be reform of legal training to eliminate this financial hurdle. But such radical overhaul will take time, even if started now. The current system developed with the acquiescence of governments of all colours and remains part-subsidised by the state. Until reform is completed, the Scottish Government bears a moral and political responsibility to counter the increasing inequity in access to the legal profession.

Fortunately, a simple and effective solution exists: extend to DPLP students the same maintenance loans available to undergraduates. This is already done for equivalent courses in other professions and would reduce the personal contribution to a level achievable by all students.

But the Government’s response so far has been to shrug its shoulders. On a practical level, it argues that a recent change to the fees award has widened access to the profession. It has not. The reform does nothing for fairer access whilst meaning more government money goes to those who could afford to pay anyway. The government also advances a political argument: that fair access to the legal profession is not a priority. Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, the Cabinet Secretary for Education said:

“We do not support similar schemes for other professions in which employment is mainly private, such as the architecture and veterinary professions, and I do not think that we should do so in the case of the legal profession.”

Mr Russell’s choice of comparison is strange: both architecture and vet students in fact already receive extended student support arguably more generous than that needed to ensure less privileged law students can enter the legal profession.

But the underlying suggestion is that the legal profession is just another profession; that entrenched privilege matters no more amongst lawyers than, to use Mr Russell’s comparators, among those who design our houses or neuter our pets. This demonstrates a dangerously impoverished understanding of the role of the legal profession in our society.

Fair access to the legal profession does matter. It matters to creating a legal system operated and shaped in a way that meets the needs of all our society. It matters to creating a judiciary that fully understands the society it judges. And it matters to ensuring the levers and safeguards of constitutional power are operated by those who legitimately represent the society they serve.

Fair access to the legal profession matters. It should matter to the Scottish Government too.

 

No up-front tuition fee principles with Labour, only back-end u-turns

May 13

Posted by Jeff in Education | 33 Comments

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN and has been in force from 3 January 1976. Amongst its stated commitments are a right to free education which, more specifically, relates to the following (from Wikipedia):

“Article 13 of the Covenant recognises the right of everyone to free education (free for the primary level and “the progressive introduction of free education” for the secondary and higher levels). This is to be directed towards “the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity”,[14] and enable all persons to participate effectively in society. Education is seen both as a human right and as “an indispensable means of realizing other human rights”, and so this is one of the longest and most important articles of the Covenant.”

The United Kingdom was signed up to this in the Harold MacMillan era, or as many in Labour would probably say ‘the good old days’.

Despite having a good 35 years to make good on this commitment, including 13 years of unbroken Labour rule, we have ‘ganged agley’ on many an occasion, not least the recent move by the coalition Government to open the door to fees of up to £9,000 a year for students. Even the righter wing parties in social democratic Sweden know to not charge tuition fees, front end or back. It’s a shame that the Lib Dems see things differently.

Well, despite the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and via The Telegraph, today marks the day that Labour swung back to being a pro-fees party in Scotland. The SNP has gleefully called it Johann Lamont’s Nick Clegg moment. And well they should.

At the last Scottish Parliament elections, only a year ago, Scottish Labour’s position of “No price tag for Scottish students” was as follows (taken from the party’s very own website):

“a Labour government will not introduce any up-front fees or graduate contribution for access to higher education in the lifetime of the next Parliament. There will be no price tag on education. Bringing in a graduate contribution would not resolve the present financial difficulties of the universities which are the responsibility of the current SNP government. Experts figures show that the gap is significantly less than some had predicted and can and will be met.”

The initial conclusion to draw from this decision is that it is opposition for opposition’s sake and tuition fees can be added to minimum pricing, council tax and votes at 16 where Labour contort their positions, despite their better senses, in order to ensure that their party is not on the same page as Salmond’s mob, come what may.

The argument that Scottish universities can’t offer more places to bright Scottish kids while fees are covered by the Scottish Government seems to be irrelevant here. If a fixed number of Scottish students have their fees paid for and a fixed number of English students have to pay their fees, then the problem of funding for one tranche of students in Scotland cannot and will not impact on the other. There is no incentive, despite what Johann Lamont claims, to have more English students than Scottish because the same money is paid into the university either way, just from a different source.

The main risk that I can see is that this equilibrium is broken through too many English students claiming to be Scottish via a distant Scottish, Welsh or Irish grandparent, as has already been reported. This really would be a nonsense and certainly not in the spirit of the democratic will of the constituent parts of the UK.

England had an election and clearly voted for parties that, with their combined majority, are in favour of tuition fees. Scotland had an election and voted overwhelmingly for parties that want to keep tuition free, or at least said they wanted to at the time before this flip-flopping began. We might as well scrap the Scottish Parliament if we are not going to tolerate and respect devolved differences within the UK. Financing university education shouldn’t be sullied by the same bastardisation of common sense rules as happens when picking a Scotland XV at rugby. Not that it’s easy to prove you are Scottish, English, Welsh or Northern Irish when we only have British passports and British driver’s licenses to identify us. There’s a simple solution to that of course…

So, much like the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Labour signed the United Kingdom up to move the country towards free university education but is pulling us in a different direction with its reactionary policies.

What will it take for Labour to move away from opposition for opposition’s sake and realise that we already have a graduate tax in operation to fund free tuition and ensure our universities remain world class. It’s called income tax.