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Scottish Tory leadership: Runners and riders

Jun 17

Posted by Malc in Holyrood, Parties | 36 Comments

It is now over a month since the Scottish Parliament election which brought a majority SNP Government and the resignations of three party leaders.  Willie Rennie has succeeded Tavish Scott for the Liberal Democrats (though with only 5 MSPs, there was a small pool of potential leaders and no stomach for a fight) but Iain Gray and Annabel Goldie remain in place as “lame duck” leaders until such time as reviews are completed and leadership elections are held.  I’m sure we’ll get to the Labour leadership contest in time, but I’m going to focus on the Conservative contest for the moment.

The first thing is, when will it be?  And the answer is… well, we don’t know.  If the party are happy to conduct it under the old rules (pre-Sanderson review – pdf here) then the election could go ahead at any point.  But should the party want to adopt the recommendations from the Sanderson review, it would have to wait until the review is okayed by its Scottish conference in September.  Assuming that goes okay, the leadership election would subsequently take about 6-8 weeks for nominations, postal ballots to be returned etc…  Thus Annabel Goldie resigned on 7 May 2011 and will likely remain leader until late October at the earliest.  That strikes me as a strange situation.

Nevertheless, let’s have a look at the likely candidates.

In May’s election, the Scottish Conservatives elected 15 MSPs.  Taking Annabel Goldie out of the equation (as she’s standing down) there are 14 potential replacements.  Of those, we can probably rule out Alex Fergusson, Jamie McGrigor, Nanette Milne and Mary Scanlon who are older than auntie Annabel, as well as former leader David McLetchie, Margaret Mitchell and John Scott who are just slightly younger.  Each of those noted are still able politicians, don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to be accused of ageism here – but I suspect that if Annabel Goldie is considering standing down, none of them would seriously consider stepping into her shoes.

So that reduces the field by seven.  Of those remaining, three (Gavin Brown, Ruth Davidson and John Lamont) are in their thirties, two are in their forties (Murdo Fraser and Alex Johnstone) and two are in their fifties (Jackson Carlaw and Liz Smith).  I haven’t heard anything suggesting Alex Johnstone or Liz Smith are considering bids for to be leader, while Gavin Brown is a talent, and I fully expect him to be leader of the Scottish Tories one day, I don’t think it will be this time around.  Indeed, he may well decide that the next leader will have to be the reformer, and the best time to be leader will be after them.  With that in mind, that leaves four candidates whom the media have mentioned in connection with the job:

Murdo Fraser – probably the front-runner at the moment, the Scottish Tories’s deputy leader is expected by most to step up to the top job after a 6 year apprenticeship.  At 45, he’s had the experience of being in the parliament for ten years already and is an able debater.

Jackson Carlaw – was being heavily touted pre-election but let a notional Tory majority of 3,500 in Eastwood fall to Labour’s Ken Macintosh.  Also carries past baggage as deputy chair of the party and some question marks with regards to his financial background.  Sources say he has been trawling for votes already though, so will be interesting to see how that pans out.  I think if he had won Eastwood he’d have had a better chance, but as it is I think he’s fallen back a little.

John Lamont – at thirty-five, he’d be young for the position, but he won a borders constituency seat in 2007 and now holds the biggest non-SNP majority at Holyrood.  He has a large following in the borders and – with Derek Brownlee out of the picture – would be the youthful face of the Scottish Tories.  I’m not sure how much the wider party would support him, but if he can get support from outwith his own backyard (which I understand is quite a large pool of support anyway) he might well be the candidate to beat.

Ruth Davidson – the Scottish Tories’ only new MSP and at thirty-two, their youngest.  But don’t let that fool you.  She’d be a dark horse, but if she decided to stand, it could blow the contest wide open.  She’d get plenty of support from the younger, more pragmatic generation of Tories in Scotland and would be a very different prospect to the other three.  A wild card, to be sure, but one that make the contest more exciting.

I think if we were considering MPs and MEPs as well (ED – it wouldn’t take that long, there are only 2 names in those categories…) Struan Stevenson would get a mention, but it’d be near impossible for him to lead the party from Brussels.  Which, for me, makes the contest between the aforementioned four.

If I was a betting man (which I am occasionally), I’d probably shun the short odds on Murdo Fraser and instead take the slightly less fancied John Lamont.  I mean, it’ll probably be Murdo… but I do have a sneaky feeling that John Lamont might just have the support.  But he’d also be pretty young to lead them.  Perhaps he’ll sit it out and wait for the next time as well.

What do we think?  Could Jackson Carlaw or Ruth Davidson beat either of them to it?  Or will it be a safe handover from Annabel to Murdo?

Where has all the good news gone?

Jun 11

Posted by The Burd in Holyrood, Media | 53 Comments

NewsstandIt’s been a bad week for bad news.

Ninety editorial jobs going at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail is a body blow to one of Scotland’s greatest newspaper institutions and will have struck terror into the hearts of every journalist in the land.

The scale of the losses, almost halving the editorial team and diminishing the whole staff by over a third, is breathtaking: every single one represents a human tragedy for the families involved.  No, they are not the first and won’t be the last people ever to lose their jobs but where are the alternatives?  Finding work in a diminishing media pond in Scotland will be tough.  Yet colleges and universities keep on churning out journalism and media studies graduates.  Hmm.

The attempt by the Trinity Media Group to spin this as good news is contemptuous.  Yes, there is an inevitability about the impact of advancing technology.  Online content systems reduce the need for scribblers and editors but – and I realise I’m stating the bleedin’ obvious here – they don’t seek out the news, research a good story, create a splash.  The more rationalisation in the Scottish press, the more ubiquitous and uniform copy we get as holes in pages are filled by agency releases.

I can’t help thinking – though of course I may be wide of the mark – that the Daily Record/Sunday Mail’s reduced circulation in recent years is more of an excuse rather than a cogent reason for these job losses.  The problems at Trinity Media Group are much more profound.  Bringing the largely standalone operation in Scotland under the Trinity wing and standardising it as a Trinity publication with shared content and features might make financial sense to the parent company but threatens to kill off Scotland’s national tabloid newspaper.

Charles McGhee opines eloquently about the impact of big proprietorial, often international businesses.  His article, and indeed allmediascotland’s leader on the issue, are excellent.  Others, of course, have used the bad news to have a pop, largely from their metropolitan boltholes, pointing out the many faultlines in the Scottish press environment and product.

I might even agree a little, believing firmly as I do, that the essential components of a flourishing press are to be free and fair, bold  and imaginative, not thirled to the political preferences nor personal foibles of owners and editors.

But the reasons for the decline of the national newspaper in Scotland are multifarious and complex.  For a whole host of reasons, people are buying fewer newspapers and that says as much about us, as a nation, as it does about the quality of the offering.

I will confess to reading the Daily Record/Sunday Mail only occasionally but I am a rare burd, being an avid newspapers and new magazine purchaser and reader.  I acknowledge and agree that there is a place in our world for tabloid newspapers and they have an existing and potential market and purpose.  How dull we would be if we all had the same tastes and views: newspapers should reflect and meet all the needs and interests of a population and its society.

Moreover, bloggers co-exist with media outlets and practitioners.  The media play a vital role at the heart of our communities and society, acting as the hub of a wheel that ensures information, news and comment reaches audiences.  Bloggers may like to think they are the new kids on the block, bypassing the media through modern technology to reach audiences directly but frankly that is delusionary.  The future might be social but our paltry viewing figures cannot hope to compete with the ability of mainstream media to reach mass audiences.  In fact, those that have become celebrity bloggers owe thanks to MSM professionals for their stardom:  many now have successful media careers as a result.

There is also a desperate irony behind the reason for my absence from these shores when the bad news broke.  The European Parliament office in the UK has been trying for years to interest journalists to do the visit I was on and find out more about writing news stories on Parliament business.  Few had the time or inclination to do so and often, the editorial line in the UK media, almost uniformly, is a negative one when it comes to European matters.  The Directorate-General for Communications has turned to citizen bloggers as a way of trying to influence the news agenda, neatly pointing up some of the embedded weaknesses in our current media set-up.

Ultimately, we need a vibrant, healthy media if we want a vibrant, healthy democracy.  To shine a light – as the Daily Record has done so effectively in years’ past – to expose, to praise, to promote and to defeat, to shame, to change.  If anyone doubts the power and role of the media in a free society, go check out PEN and Amnesty International.  Or just google *campaigns to free journalists*.

If ever there was a time to play a nationalist media card, this was it.  Scotland needs a diverse media mix in rude health.  It needs smaller ownership, not bigger, and more homegrown products to succeed.  More powers over all media regulation – to create an enabling framework – and full fiscal powers to create a tax regime that allows the flourishing of talent and creativity, and protects the very good products that we still have.  Two very recent examples include the Sunday Herald’s expose of the reach of organised crime gang culture into our lives and Scotland on Sunday’s partnership with Wikileaks.  As a nation, we punch above our media weight in so many ways.  But we can do more and better.

So, go on, cyber nats, do your worst.  Enough gloating about the job losses – very unedifying and immature by the way.  Don’t focus on the Daily Record’s current political slant as the source of all its ills – you’ll be wrong by the way – but put your invective to good use for once.

The thing about standing up for Scotland is that we stand up for all of it.  And it’s time to stand up for Scotland’s press.

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How many referendums does an independence decision require?

Jun 7

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, Holyrood, Westminster | 93 Comments

Time to choose (Shrigley)

It was always going to happen with a group blog, two co-editors writing a post on the same subject and then looking to post at around the same time. The solution? Merge them together into a single post.

Here James looks at why only one referendum is required and Jeff argues that not only should there be two referendums but that it is in the SNP’s best interests for there to be that many.

A single vote is enough, but only with a better question – by James

Who would have imagined that Michael Moore’s call for two referendums on independence would cause such agitation and consternation? Gerry Hassan sets out ten reasons why only one vote is needed, which are mostly bullet-proof (although #8 is tangential to say the least). Lallands Peat Worrier starts off giving an old post of Caron Lindsay’s a hard time, before touching on the legality of various question options. Caron replies with a defence of the two-question position.

Again, and I fear this risks making me unpopular with both sides, I think they’re all wrong. The SNP’s first question, as currently proposed, asking merely permission to negotiate, is vague and inconclusive. If the Scottish people vote yes for that, it isn’t a mandate for independence, and the need for a second question on the outcome of the negotiations would be hard to argue with. LPW’s concerns here about the need for that question are surely answered by Gerry’s second and third reasons (above).

But that first question doesn’t even need to be asked. Negotiate away. Help yourself. Fill your boots. Ideally, while involving the Scottish public in a way the National Conversation failed to do. If the results of that negotiation, informed by the views of the Scottish people, are put to a vote, then that one single vote will be sufficient.

People will know what they’re voting for, what the constitution of an independent Scotland would look like, and they can make a clear choice. And then tell UK Ministers that their second question will be the one answered by the people. If the outcome of the negotiation gets voted on, why bother asking our permission to talk to Westminster?

If UK Ministers decline the offer to talk, and display the level of arrogance we’ve come to expect, they surely know they’ll drive the public further into the arms of the Yes campaign. That campaign can then still be based on one simple question: do you believe SNP Ministers should pursue independence on the basis of the proposed draft constitution? A yes vote to that would be uncontestable.

The SNP is more likely to win two referendums than one – by Jeff

The discussion over how many referendums Scotland will need before it can win its independence has rumbled along nicely over the past few weeks and months. Those in favour of independence typically prefer one referendum, seeing that challenge as more winnable than the two referendums that unionists typically prefer.

Intuitively, this makes sense. After all, if you have to jump over two hurdles then you are twice as likely to fall down.

However, I would suggest that the SNP is instead more likely to win an overall Yes vote with two plebiscites rather than one (or three, as I’m sure someone will suggest soon enough!)

The first referendum would be a theoretical question of whether Scots would like to be independent and whether they would like the Scottish Government to enter into negotiations with the UK Government to agree a settlement. More people would be disposed to voting Yes and less people disposed to voting No if they knew that they could always vote No in the second vote. The SNP Government has no mandate to enter into such negotiations without a plebiscite but a sense of curiosity and adventure may appeal to the Scottish electorate here and a crucial number would, I am sure, be swayed into finding out what would happen next.

Curiosity may have killed the cat but I can never envisage it shooting the nationalist fox.

For me, this is similar to the way the Scottish Parliament votes. Many opposition parties abstain or vote Yes at the first reading of a Bill only to go on to vote it down at the last opportunity, as they had always intended to do. It is, I suppose, the political equivalent of Parkinson’s Law -allowing work to expand to fill the time available.

The thing is, when that second independence vote comes around, the opposition parties can’t shut the door on it like they used to do in Holyrood. It will be for the people to decide and they may find that they like what is on the table.

There will be plentiful opportunities for the SNP, and Alex Salmond in particular, to demonstrate grievance and remonstrate face to face with Cameron and Osborne. It’s a crass point to make but still could nonetheless potentially true that this opportunity could be all that is required to win a Scottish majority. The devolution opposition will be largely out of the picture at this stage as a hitherto popular SNP majority deals directly with a hitherto deeply unpopular coalition Government. Alex Salmond will always find it difficult to win independence from a soapbox with only a bunch of theories but if he can point to a Tory, preferably a few of them, and reasonably claim that Scotland is getting a rum deal, then he has a much better shot and the only way he’ll get into that room and have that round-the-table discussion is with the mandate of a first referendum.

I don’t expect to win too many Nationalists over here given I am competing with the long-held view that support for independence just has to nudge over 50% for one day, polling day, and it’s game over.
For me, this overlooks both how winnable that referendum is (not very) and the related question of how fair it is (not very).

A settlement to negotiate away from the UK needs two referendums. One to enter negotiations and a second to agree on the specifics of that negotiation. It won’t be possible to reasonably compare an indepedent Scotland with the current UK setup until AFTER the first vote and indeed AFTER the negotiations have completed. It’s only fair.

I can understand the Nats’ frustration on this. We’ll be voting on independence, what does it matter if we have a DVLA or not?

Well, how much of the North Sea’s oil will we get? How much of a settlement from existing UK assets and (liabilities) will be ours? What will our Defence look like? What will happen to RBS and the bank formerly known as HBOS? These may well all have simple, straightforward solutions but you can bet your bottom pound note that most Scots will want to know for sure the answers before it’s bon voyage for Bonnie Scotland and an adventure that’ll last a lifetime.

Ans therein lies the SNP’s route to success, trusting the people to come to an informed decision. Scotland has won a Yes/ Yes referendum before, it can do so again.

Pic by the wonderful Mr Shrigley.

Timing is everything

Jun 5

Posted by The Burd in Holyrood, Media | 33 Comments

Knowing when to pick a fight is one of the first rules in politics and you’d think Scotland’s esteemed political press pack might have learned that by now.

Since First Minister Questions on Thursday – the first of the new Parliament – commentators, have been lining up to lambast the performance *of Holyrood’s new and first female Presiding Officer and lament the possibility of a supposed elected dictatorship, caused by the First Minister apparently grandstanding, speechifying and generally, failing to answer questions put to him.

Well, haud the front page.  Tell me, when did we ever have a Question Time here or in that other place down there that actually involved a proper discourse of issues and questions and answers?

In particular, the Scotsman has ramped up the volume with a lengthy piece liberally sprinkled with comment from Hugh Henry and michty me, a leader column!

Is there nothing happening slightly more portentous and deserving of such weighty treatment?  Actually no, at least not in the Holyrood bubble.  And if the vacuum created by easing itself back into parliamentary politics is enabling mischief-making political correspondents to go away and puff up stories, thereby creating bad press for the SNP Government, then it only has itself to blame.

But to start questioning the ability or appropriateness of Tricia Marwick for the role of Presiding Officer after only one performance is precipitate and indicative of one of the pack’s less fragrant inclinations.

A good manager doesn’t roll into her first meeting and park her tanks on people’s lawns.  No, she watches behaviours unfold and takes notes.  If necessary, she has a quiet, informal word behind the scenes and suggests helpful ways of improving performance.  If that doesn’t work, then she picks her moment to stamp her authority on the miscreants.  The best way of doing this of course is to deflate the behaviour with humour – something Betty Boothroyd was particularly good at as Speaker of the House of Commons.

But if necessary, she does it by clamping down hard.  The point is though she does it when it’s important to do so.

Was there anything at the first First Minister’s Question Time of any real import?  No.  Was there any point in her picking a fight with the First Minister?  No.

A point sadly missing from certain correspondents’ demolition job on her abilities, though at least Hugh Henry MSP has the good grace to acknowledge that there is a settling-in period for people in new positions.

Scotland’s political press pack has form here when it comes to its treatment of women politicians.  I don’t recall David Steele, George Reid or Alex Fergusson getting a doing after their initial performances convening Holyrood setpieces. Rightly, they were taken to task further down the line when, with a bit of experience under their belt, they were seen to be messing up.

But then they were blokes and entitled to a honeymoon period.  Not something ever readily afforded to women politicians.

The first female Ministers during devolution got similar rough treatment.  Sarah Boyack, in particular, was pilloried for being the bicycling Transport Minister with a nasty undercurrent suggesting she was not up to the job.  Wendy Alexander contended throughout her career with a focus on her personality traits rather than her abilities.  But worst of all, was the doing Susan Deacon got on the front page of the Daily Record at the height of the section 2a furore when she was “outed” as an unmarried mother and questions were raised – seriously – about her fitness then to be in charge of the welfare of the nation’s children.

In chamber sketches, other women MSPs found themselves caricatured: Karen Gillon’s Tizer habit, Karen Whitefield – and others’ – weight and voice, Nicola Sturgeon’s being a nippy sweetie (until she effectively lanced this pejorative handle by giving journalists sweeties at a press conference).

Did male Ministers or MSPs come in for such attention? Dinnae be daft.  Except perhaps for Jack McConnell’s fashion kilt faux pas at Tartan Week, few men in our Parliament have come under such scrutiny or had their performance linked subtly or otherwise to their gender or personality.

It would be nice to think that like everyone else, the political press pack has matured since the early, heady days of devolution. On the evidence of some of Friday’s sketches and weekend follow up *in-depth* analysis, it seems not.

But while they might not yet have learned the wisdom of knowing when to pick a fight, I’m quietly confident that Holyrood’s Presiding Officer will know exactly when to do so.  Not just with the First Minister but with the serried ranks of political correspondents.

*the link is only to a search list for the Times Scotland – for those of you who wish to go behind the paywall

 

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Holyrood’s musical chairs

Jun 3

Posted by The Burd in Holyrood | 43 Comments

Committee in session“So when the music stops, you all rush round to a committee room and grab a chair. First to the convenor’s gets it.”

Well, it might have made the appointment of committee convenors a bit more exciting, and much as there are some good folk appointed, Margo Macdonald has a point. Why should these parliamentary appointments be decided by party leaders and not by MSPs? Even Westminister does it this way now and it seems to make for a better system in which everyone can trust.

Not that there is anything untrustworthy in any of the convenors appointed yesterday, it’s just that the immediate reaction to them is to try and work out why the First Minister, the LOLITSP and leader of the Tories chose that particular person for that particular berth. We start to look for conspiracy theories when there aren’t any. Probably.

Anyone or anything notable then?

The apportionment of committee convenors doesn’t half show up the size and scale of the SNP victory in all its glory. They got nine convenorships, Labour four and the Conservatives one. Wow.

And in a wholly unconsensual move, they bagged all the biggies and potentially controversial ones for themselves – finance, education, justice and local government. But nice of them to be magnanimous enough to offer health to Labour. To be honest, if it was me, I’d have done the same. Nicola Sturgeon is teflon-coated and it will be hard for the opposition to land a blow but the other areas do require some degree of protection.

But what goes on in committees is not just down to their convenors – if Labour places the right people in the right seats then they could still have some fun unpicking the budget, the McCormac review, the anti-sectarianism bill and public sector reform.

Moreover, Christine Grahame in the justice hot seat has proven herself independent enough in the past to marshall an effective and troublesome committee. Her legal knowledge will stand her in good stead here too.

Kenneth Gibson is also a wily character and while he will ensure there are no public fall-outs, expect him to be spending a lot of time behind closed doors making plain his committee’s views on things. Stewart Maxwell had a junior ministerial brief for a time so has plenty of experience, though not much of it on education matters. He will be a safe pair of hands for what is likely to be a big and at times controversial policy area. Reflecting the creation of a new ministerial portfolio, we now have a committee for infrastructure and capital investment. And I’m liking Maureen Watt’s ying to Alex Neil’s yang.

As for the Labour appointments, Duncan McNeil, who did a very good job at local government last time, is rumoured to be headed to health. Let’s just say that I hope his views on parental substance misuse have mellowed so that we get some sensible policy deliberations on this very important area and not just salacious headlines.

Otherwise Labour is left with what is seen by many as the rump of mandatory committee chairs to choose from. Though audit and equal opportunities, in particular, can cause a lot of problems if handled in the right way, as Hugh Henry demonstrated ably in the last parliamentary session. Either Claudia Beamish or Siobhan McMahon at the helm of equal opportunities could do a good job: the wide-ranging remit of equalities legislation allows this committee to poke its nose into a whole host of issues. For example, the recent spate of care scandals has both an age and a disability related link.

A key thing this committee could do immediately is get its remit widened to include a human rights brief. Enacted after the structure of the Parliament was set up, there is no one committee with an overarching brief here, and the law is now beginning to have a tumultuous impact on other policy areas.

The role of the committees has never really developed as was originally intended, particularly in relation to their powers to act as an effective revising body for previous legislation. Few committees have had the time nor the inclination to rake over previous stuff but it is needed. Such has been the Parliament’s rush to legislate in previous sessions that we have laws that contradict, powers that everyone has forgotten now exist, incompatability across a number of areas, unintended consequences and some that simply have not worked the way they were intended to. Others represented a compromise at the time because parliamentary arithmetic did not allow for the original intention to be enacted. Spending a bit of time sorting some of these issues out would be a good thing.

Committees too have powers to introduce their own legislation and while it is unlikely that SNP Convenors will want to cut across their ain Programme for Government, again this is where a bit of common sense and wily tactics from the opposition could prevail, particularly for the small groups of Liberal Democrats, Greens and of course, Margo. The committees (and members’ bills) represent their best opportunity to influence the parliamentary agenda.

But for the most part, the committees will not offer up that much excitement, especially for any newbies keen to make their mark. To do so, they should look outwith the official furniture of the Parliament and find themselves an issue, that with the right approach, could attract headlines and resonate with the wider public. More on that in the next post….