Picture by Pete Prodoehl

The Electoral Commission has published the full breakdown of election spending for the Holyrood elections.

The first thing that reading the returns showed me was the terrible handwriting endemic throughout the people responsible, and I write as a dysgraphic well used to trying to decipher my own scrawl.

The second thing was how, despite clear instructions to the contrary, some parties (cough) filled in the pence rather than rounding up to the nearest pound. The 5 main parties are summarised in the table below:

What was really interesting was the different patterns in each party. The Tories and the Lib Dems didn’t really bother with print advertising or broadcasts, focussing  on unsolicited material. The Greens spent a fair chunk on media, much more proportionally than any other party and more in absolute terms than anybody other than the SNP.

The biggest difference, to my eye, is the huge importance the SNP put on market research / canvassing. From the invoices the much vaunted (and equally envied) iPhone app cost them £8k, which in the scheme of things is buttons and must surely represent one of the best value investments in the history of campaigning?

They seem to have employed a number of people through recruitment agencies on low wages (you don’t get much as a temp from the agency when the client’s paying £10/hour) for thousands of hours for “telemarketing” and “customer service” throughout the campaign working at an SNP National Call Centre in their Edinburgh HQ. Combined with the invoices for  for polling work and research running from February the impression given is that there was a huge phone operation running for months both getting their message out and measuring how it was working. There’s also 1000 hours from First Opinion and BSS invoice for 47 thousand contacts on polling day itself which point to a massive get out the vote drive run from Edinburgh.

Labour, on the other hand, ran 16 focus groups, 4 of which were in Edinburgh and Glasgow through Red Circle Communications. That’s it. There’s an invoice from Leftfield Communication for 6 focus groups held in Wales but I think we can assume that’s been misclassified and one from the Labour Party in England from January.

The party spent a huge amount on on bumpf and had no idea if it was working. None at all. Now, that was pretty clear from my vantage point of shoving it through folks letter boxes but I’d assumed there’d at least been some polling done before it went out. Nope. There was volunteer phone canvassing going on but that was for voting intention and there’s no way that that constitutes useful data about what is or isn’t working.

Labour seems to have been flying blind, intent on being heard as much as possible and with no idea about whether what it was saying was in any way effective, why it was effective or how a different message would play. The line that Labour was “micro-targeting key groups” doesn’t really stand up, but nice try.

I  still maintain that the difference in available cash played a part in the SNPs victory, but there’s no denying that the scale of Labours defeat in May was somewhat self inflicted. You just can’t shout into a void.

Photo by Alex E. Proimos

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain
I know that you can love me
When there’s no one left to blame

George Osborne’s Autumn Statement started with a familiar refrain – all our growth problems are due to sovereign debt problems in Europe. If there’s a recession it’s due to the Euro crisis. Never mind that growth’s been flat since this government’s economic policies started to take effect.

Then there was a couple of minutes of blaming the profligacy of the last Labour government – profligacy he of course supported as Shadow Chancellor.

Lead in done, we get to the meat of the matter. OBR projects growth down to 0.7% in 2012, for the whole year, borrowing up. But it’s ok, because our bond yields are low and that means low mortgage rates. Which somewhat ignores the fact there’s very little linkage now between government bond prices and mortgage rates.

There’s an extension of the public sector pay freeze limiting rises to 1% per year for 2 years after the freeze ending which I’m sure is in no way intended to pour oil on the troubled waters of tomorrow’s strikes, ahead of hiding behind John Hutton and blaming the Unions for damaging the economy.

Overseas aid target of 0.7% of GDP has gone from a target to a limit which, given lower GDP, means DFiD will be getting a budget cut. Large parts of the working tax credits program have been frozen, which is effectively a 5% cut, although he did baulk at freezing benefits.

There’s £40bn worth of “credit easing” using money from the largely unused business asset purchase facility at the Bank of England to offer loan guarantees to small businesses – those with turnover of less than £50m, funnelled through existing banks based on how they increase net and gross lending. Depending on the details this could basically be a bung to the banks to take further risks.

The heavily trailed return of right-to-buy is in there, with a 50% discount on prices. While the leaks floated a rule that councils would be able to use the money to build new houses this doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in the speech – whether this is a good thing or a bad thing rather depends on the detail. Might just prop up the inflated housing bubble a bit more though.

The Lib Dems’ £5bn in capital spending has gotten in, with £1bn going on Network Rail, expect them to seize on that as a “coalition benefit” while ignoring the rest of this.

There’s a big £20bn sized lump of pension fund capital being used to build various infrastructure projects and, somewhat bizarrely, a £50/year cut in bills for customers of South West water – aimed at the Lib Dem constituencies round there? That of course isn’t new money, it’s existing investment that’s being used for a more interventionist government policy. Quite an odd thing for a Conservative chancellor to do. There’s also a big increase in capital allowances for the North of England, which is good – and it would be good if Holyrood could do the same.

Bit of chipping away at employment rights, ‘elf and safety – profits, not people, and planning laws – nothing says “Conservative” like ripping down historic buildings.

Corporation tax  and income tax for start up investors will be cut, though again no detail. The red book (the detailed document describing what all this actually means) will be very interesting. There’s normally quite a few hidden things in there that alter the headline meaning. Nick Robinson:” From April 2012, anyone investing up to £100,000 in a new start-up business will be eligible for income tax relief of 50%. In 2012, any tax on capital gains invested in such businesses will also be waived.”

OBR predicts unemployment hitting 8.7% next year and by 2015 it’ll only fall to 6.2% which is kind of horrific. There’s going to be a raft of supply side measures to prepare people for jobs that aren’t there, and if they can’t take a job that isn’t there then they’ll be forced into subsidised jobs for companies. Fuel duty’s cut, school investment up.

And, like all the best songs, he closes with a callback to the start – Euro crisis and the mess we inherited. DIMBLEKLAXON.

The big news, of course, is that the UK government won’t eliminate the deficit by 2015. Unsurprising given the damage they’re doing to the economy, a key part of that was always to get GDP up.

And it’s hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain

Our Motion of the Week series has hitherto been directed at Holyrood but with Edinburgh Council putting forward a brave and seemingly truly historic motion yesterday, there could be only one winner.

I was only able to find the original motion put forward (by Maggie Chapman of the Scottish Greens) so if the motion was amended I shall update the below accordingly (see bottom of post for the motion).

It is sad though, and not a little bit depressing, that the concept of industry and business being a vehicle for social equality and tackling poverty is now held up as being an extreme view, a radical position.

Alex Massie, not altogether unsurprisingly, has labelled Edinburgh Council ‘the dumbest council in Britain’ with a bafflingly circular argument that goes thus:

“Given that financial services are a significant, even vital, part of Edinburgh’s economy and the campers are expressly and especially hostile to financial services this could be considered an odd move by the council. Nevertheless and naturally, all parties with the merciful exception of the Conservatives agreed to recognise and endorse the Occupy movement. This alone provides some reason to support the Tories at the next election.”

So because financial services are the Occupy movement’s ‘baddies’, and Edinburgh Council is backing the aims of Occupy, it somehow follows quid pro quo that Edinburgh Council considers financial services as a whole to be their ‘baddies’ by extension. I fear Alex has been reading too many comic books again.

Of course councils want to boost business in their local areas, financial services or otherwise, but there’s an overdue question that needs answered as to whether billion-pound profit companies are a credit to society or a drain when it’s not at all clear how the wealth that is created, both commercially and individually, percolates down to those that need it most.

After all, the direction of travel is worrying. The Financial Stability Board recently released a list of 29 “systemically important banks” that have been deemed so crucial to the global economy that they are effectively too big to fail. These include RBS, Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays, firewalling them from ever going to the wall (though coming at the price of increased capital ratios).

Can Capitalism work on behalf of the neediest in society when the richest and most powerful institutions not only consider themselves to be above the fray but are considered by others to be above the fray? I would say definitely not when there isn’t the political will to stand up to business and Capitalism and mould it into what it needs to be, particularly when there is so much public complacency and almost guilty acquiescence.

So a hearty congratulations to Edinburgh for inviting the unavoidable opprobrium by challenging Capitalism as it currently stands today.

THE CITY OF EDINBURGH COUNCIL
24th November 2011
GREEN GROUP MOTION

Support for Occupy Edinburgh motion

Council:
Notes that the encampment of citizens in St. Andrew Square, ‘Occupy Edinburgh’, represents one part of a growing, global movement for real democracy, authentic global equality and justice, and a sustainable economic and ecological future;

Notes that this occupation, together with the more than 1000 others worldwide, is not simply a protest, but an effort to bring to life the inclusive, equitable and sustainable systems desired;

Notes that this movement, and its participants in Edinburgh, have significant support in the wider population;

Believes that given the mistakes made by financial traders, the profits of these companies and their shareholders should be tapped before cuts are made to public sector spending. It is unacceptable that bailouts are being paid for at the expense of public services, and this must never be allowed to happen again;

Believes that an economy functional only on top of endlessly growing consumption is causing significant environmental damage and must ultimately deplete our planet’s resources and cause irreversible environmental damage. This must end now;

Believes that these demands are not only fair, but are in fact the only reasonable response in the face of the crisis faced by our current economic system, our communities and our planet;

Believes that, by setting a example, Edinburgh can help our national governments, and the wider world, to finally accept the real and fundamental changes that are so desperately needed to salvage a sustainable future;

Thus supports the values of Occupy Edinburgh;

Supports the participants of the St. Andrew Square occupation in demanding that these values be recognised and acted upon by all governmental bodies in the UK, and worldwide;

Commits to return our democracy to the people, and to work together immediately to create a new, sustainable and equitable Scotland.

Proposed: Maggie Chapman