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Scotland’s newest ghost town

Oct 22

Posted by Malc in Defence, Economy, Westminster | 4 Comments

The CSR and the SDSR have provided bad news for Moray. RAF Kinloss, which employs anything between two and five thousand people depending on your source, is to close. Those jobs were directly linked to the RAF, but beyond that, the town of Kinloss itself will effectively collapse. Added to that, the future of RAF Lossiemouth remains uncertain. Moray has taken a huge hit from these spending reviews and, even if RAF Lossiemouth remains open, the effect of cutting RAF Kinloss will be felt for years to come.

At this point, I’ll declare an interest – my parents live in Moray (though about as far away from Lossie and Kinloss as you can be yet still be in Moray!) and I know a couple of folk who work(ed) at Kinloss, as well as local elected representatives in the area. So this case of cuts, more than many of the others, seems a lot more real to me, and I’m perhaps a little more circumspect when it comes to discussing them.

Of course, losing one and possibly two RAF bases in the area is an absolute disaster for local people, the local community and the local economy. Jobs will go, there will be mass migration from the area, shops will be forced to close through lack of business leading to further job losses and a prolonged period of pain for those in the area trying to escape the economic downturn.

The UK Government established RAF Kinloss for use in the Second World War and have held squadrons based there since 1939. For 70 years the government has made use of the permanent facility there, sending Nimrods from Kinloss to numerous conflicts, including the Persian Gulf in the early 1990s and Iraq and Afghanistan more recently. Around the Air Force Station, the local community grew, with much business based upon their continued presence in the area. In short, the local community relied upon the base for its economy to survive – which meant that the government was effectively responsible for protecting the local economy. This isn’t the same as a car plant or whisky bottling plant closing for business reasons. This is a government deciding to cut the heart out of a local community. I don’t see how this will help the economy here at all, which is the main reason the government has given for the cuts.

On the other hand, look at this from the government’s perspective for a moment. You have a £150+ BILLION deficit to get under control. First on your list of things to do is identify things which are necessary and ring-fence spending on them. Then trim the fat – which means that everything which is not necessary is expendable. You then examine your needs, work out what may be needed for particular policies – in this case, for the defence of our borders – and again, ring-fence spending in these areas. Everything else… well, you cut, or get rid of entirely. You can’t be sentimental when there’s a huge debt to recover. And so RAF Kinloss and its Nimrods were deemed expendable, unnecessary for the future of Britain’s defence.

From this perspective, it makes some sense. We’d be hugely pissed if they’d turned around and said “look, we’ve decided that defence is our priority, so we’re going to keep RAF Kinloss, order more Nimrods and spend much more on air defence. To do that, I’m afraid we have to make cuts elsewhere – which means the NHS will no longer be free and we’re doing away with all welfare spending”. Obviously, that’s an overstatement. But can you imagine what the left would have said – particularly those who are also anti-war types – if that had been the case? The bottom line is, the government has identified that RAF Kinloss no longer fits with Britain’s defence and will no longer fund it. If they’d kept it open and not used the personnel, they’d be decried as wasting taxpayers money simply to maintain the local economy in Moray.

So yes. There are good reasons for closing the base, and I understand the thinking to an extent. But I don’t like it.

I got polls but I’m not a pollster

Oct 22

Posted by Jeff in Elections | 4 Comments

There has been a clutch of polling figures released from YouGov that, taken together, really do offer up a lot of valuable information.

The main headlines appear to be:

Labour vote looks firm with stronger consistency from constituency vote to regional vote
SNP voters are lending more support to the Socialists
Greens are pulling more votes from the Lib Dems at a regional level
Conservatives and Lib Dems down to their core vote

The detail of the poll is particularly interesting as it shows how Scots split their voting intentions between Westminster, Holyrood constituency and Holyrood region. I decided to, somewhat arbitrarily, compare this split with that of November 2006 (thanks to YouGov’s archives). I really just wanted to compare voting behaviour at the end of the SNP Government to that of the end of the Lab/Lib Government to pull out any significant changes.

The SNP, perhaps unsurprisingly, holds the most consistent support. 97% of its Westminster support carries into the Holyrood Constituency vote (Nov 2006: 96%). This then weakens to 86% of its Westminster support and 85% of its Holyrood Constituency vote carrying on into the Holyrood Regional vote (Nov 2006: 83% and 73%), with 10% support being passed to ‘Other’ and an eyebrow-raising 7% of that going to the Socialists (Nov 2006: 1%).

The Lib Dems, again unsurprisingly, have the flakiest support. Of the paltry 7% of the public who would vote for ‘Scotland’s second party’ at Westminster elections, only 77% is carried into the Holyrood Constituency vote and 68% into the Holyrood Regional vote. The biggest leaking of support from Westminster to Holyrood of any of the main parties. (However, Nov 2006 comparisons are an even lower 72% and 61% respectively)

Of the lost Holyrood Constituency support, 14% goes to the SNP, 4% to the Conservatives and 3% to Labour.
(Nov 2006 figures: 16% to the SNP, 4% to the Conservatives and 3% to Labour)

Of the lost Holyrood Regional support, a considerable 13% goes to the Greens, 12% to the SNP, 5% to the Conservatives and only 2% to Labour.
(Nov 2006 figures: 11% to the Greens, 15% to the SNP, 5% to the Conservatives and 4% to Labour)

I do find it interesting that, for both 2010 and 2006 polls, there are more Lib Dems who see the Conservatives as a second preference than they do Labour.

Speaking of Labour, in today’s poll they hold onto 89% of their Westminster support in the Holyrood Constituency vote, with 9% of that support going to the SNP (Nov 2006: 84% & 9%). That’s a firmer position now than four years ago that should give Salmond some cause for concern perhaps, particularly given how resounding the Labour victory was north of the border at the Westminster election.

One interesting difference is going from the Holyrood Constituency vote to the Holyrood Regional vote.

Labour holds onto 92% of its FPTP support in Oct 2010 with 3% to the SNP, 2% to the Lib Dems and 3% to the Greens.
Labour held onto 78% of that support in Nov 2006 with 5% to the SNP, 9% to the Lib Dems and 5% to the Greens.

The Conservative figures also contains an interesting change:

Conservatives hold onto 94% of its FPTP support in Oct 2010 with 4% to the Lib Dems.
Conservatives held onto 84% of that support in Nov 2006 with 2% to Labour, 6% to the SNP and 4% to the Lib Dems.

The above is to look at the tactical considerations and to purposefully gloss over the main voting intentions, which, for a flourish of a finish, are:

2010 Holyrood Constituency/Regional
Labour – 40% / 36%
SNP – 34% / 31%
Conservatives – 14% / 15%
Lib Dems – 8% / 8%
Greens – ? / 6%

Nov 2006 Holyrood Constituency/Regional
Labour – 32% / 29%
SNP – 32% / 28%
Conservatives – 15% / 17%
Lib Dems – 15% / 15%
Greens – ? / 8%

So the Greens are worryingly down on four years ago and at risk of not adding to their 2 MSPs, even if the Lib Dem vote continues to look soft. In terms of the biggest two parties, the SNP is up on its pre-2007 position but still trailing Labour who has managed to sweep up considerable Lib Dem support.

We have not yet entered the period when Iain Gray will be scrutinised as a potential First Minister as opposed to merely raking in the coalition/Scottish Government protest vote. The effect of this remains the biggest unknown factor in the Scottish political polling.

Overall, it is fascinating and striking that many facets of the 2006 and 2010 political polls are so similar. It’s almost like an intractable Scottish public made up its mind how it would behave in elections many, many years ago.

What would it take before you protested in anger?

Oct 21

Posted by Jeff in Europe, Westminster | 11 Comments

Westminster was besieged by Green activists this week, apparently promoting the need for a Green Investment Bank and reminding George Osborne that such a bank would provide jobs. I know this happened, not just because it garnered some press, but because some friends texted me to pass on the fun they were witnessing.

To me, this helped to confirm the notion that striking or protesting in this country is something of a novelty, a tabloid-friendly story involving people dressed as Batman or ripping off Father Ted quotes for comedy slogans. It seems to be a very British response to a very natural endeavour.

In France and Greece, to name but two placard-decked countries out there, you get the real deal. The French have gone berserk at the prospect of the retirement age going above 60 (ours is moving to 66) and the Greeks are steadfastly opposed to the poor having to bail out its stricken economy (their cuts pale in comparison to Osborne’s slashing of welfare yesterday).

So are Brits lazy? Right-wing? Sanguine? Feart? Why don’t we hit the streets with the same ferocity and passion that our continental neighbours do?

A simple question – what would have to happen before you would choose to protest or strike?

For me, I’m almost ashamed to say that I don’t really know what my tipping point would be. My only protest was on the lovely day out at the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh but I couldn’t tell you what we were aiming to achieve, let alone if the march was successful. I do remember having a very nice ice cream though.

There is much at stake of course, jobs needlessly lost, a limp response to Climate Change and welfare snatched away for ideological rather than for manifestly practical purposes. Furthermore, much of what has been proposed and implemented on has no mandate (Seamus Milne has a great article on this in today’s Guardian). One could say we cannot go on like this.

I know it’s getting colder out there, the nights are fair drawing in and ice creams won’t be served, but will there come a time that we must man, woman and child the barricades?

Spending Review – A Scottish Perspective

Oct 20

Posted by Jeff in Economy, Holyrood, Westminster | 8 Comments

Well, the Comprehensive Spending Review has finally been delivered. There were no showstoppers today as most of the bad news had been drip-fed out to the public over the past few weeks. Half a million people losing their jobs, a slashing of welfare and a drastic cut to Social Housing were the biggest bouts of bad news for me, particularly as charging claimants near market rates surely takes the ‘social’ aspect out of it. I will be looking on in interest as this Green Investment Bank gets up and running but I suspect it is a new name for old money as the “up to £1bn” funding was half of what was expected and way short of the hoped for £6bn. There is certainly little evidence that the Chancellor is making good on the “greenest Government ever” boast.

From a Scottish perspective, this is all largely irrelevant of course. Osborne’s decisions on health, education and justice spending won’t make a difference to what money is spent by Holyrood. The big figure is how much the devolved budget would be cut by.

The expectation from the Scottish Government was that there would be a £4bn cut in the devolved budget over the next four years, starting with a £1.2bn cut from next year. My suspicion of an element of expectations management and low-balling from the First Minister on this one was pleasantly unfounded as there will be below-inflation cash rises for each of the devolved regions as a result of increased spending in health and education. Cameron’s ‘respect’ agenda in operation or just a lucky corollary of decisions taken elsewhere?

However, Scotland is nonetheless now at a double risk of having a welfare state culture without the welfare and a public sector reliant economy without a sufficiently sizeable public sector. Whether Osborne will be phasing (some could say weaning) claimants off their cheques remains to be seen but we are now living the doomsday scenario of the almighty clash of an ardent capitalist Tory Government in London and an unapologetic socialist Government in Scotland.

The unavoidable fissures that this creates around the geographical differences in political philosophy and squeezed debits and credits of a shrinking Scottish budget may make life significantly more painful north of the border than it will be in the south.

The word fairness has been hammered into the British public by the coalition leaders but it seems to have been merely sledge-hammered into the CSR as a presentational bolt-on.

One could argue that Scotland is dealt with fairly through the strict Barnett formula. If England and Wales see spending decrease, then so too will Scotland and in equal measure (more or less). However, that is to perhaps overlook any disproportionate effect of Defence cuts north of the border, on the increased cost of fuel north of the border, on the punitive Grid charges holding back Scotland’s renewable revolution and on the lack of Barnett consequentials from the Olympics to Crossrail.

They are all separate battles for separate occasions though. The real unavoidable challenge lies at John Swinney’s door and the Scottish Parliament’s as a whle as they must now implement a Scottish Spending Review and budget with the figures that can now be punched into a calculator to find how much is at our disposal.

Osborne has done what he thinks is his best, the baton has been passed to the Scottish Government so, to amend an old phrase, pain devolved is pain delayed.

Put another way – the worst is yet to come.

Home Rule and the Scottish Labour Party

Oct 20

Posted by Guest Blog in Holyrood | 12 Comments

We have another guest post today, this from Yousuf Hamid, formerly star Labour blogger under the handle Yapping Yousuf. It’s just coincidence that we’ve had two Labour guests in a row, promise.

There’s now less than 7 months until the most important election of my lifetime, the biggest test for devolution and an equally large test for progressive unionist parties.

At risk of falling foul of Malc’s unremittingly positive brief, I don’t think that even the staunchest nationalists would deny that the SNP have run out of steam in the last few months, but I don’t believe that this will be enough to deliver a Labour victory, this will be an election about the future far more than a referendum on the past.

I should say at the outset that I call it a great test of devolution not because of the importance of localism (as nice as it is) but because it is a chance to rectify the iniquity of having Conservative policies imposed on a left wing Scotland whist keeping the relative financial prosperity of the union.

I would argue that over the last 10 years we have had a government that people in Scotland, if not quite loved, broadly agreed with and certainly voted for, but now that is no longer the case and this is a serious problem that unionists should never ignore.

I say unionists but it’s not a phrase I’m terribly comfortable with: unionists and nationalists are the politics of the SNP, ours should always be between progressives and conservatives, and that is why we should never ignore the constitutional question.

The cuts which are coming are Tory cuts but they are also cuts only happening because of votes in the South of England. Scotland does not believe in their necessity and it shouldn’t have to deal with the full severity of them.

We didn’t vote for the Tories (let us ignore the Liberal Democrat votes as no Liberal Democrat voter knew they were voting for savage cuts) and the institution of the Scottish Parliament means we don’t have to have them in their entirety.

With Calman we will have more powers than ever on borrowing and tax to stop them.

Yes, we know that Alex Salmond will use every excuse to pick a fight with Westminster but that doesn’t mean that we have to be uber-unionists. In a fight between the compassionate left wing conscience of the Scottish people and the wishes of a right wing Government, I know where my backing goes.

Scottish Labour has a fantastic record on home rule for Scotland. Keir Hardie fought for it in 1888, Donald Dewar delivered it in 1999 and Wendy Alexander started the process of strengthening it in 2007.

The truth is that we are the only party to have delivered home rule to Scotland and we have a great case to make that we will be the ones who can make it work in these difficult times.

This election will be about who can protect Scotland from Tory Westminster cuts. The case for independence is now as close to dead as I can ever remember but those of us who want to make sure that in 2011 we wake up to a Labour Scottish Government need to be on the right side of the constitutional question.

We recently marked the 10th anniversary of Donald Dewar’s death and it is easy to get swept up in the romanticism of past heroes of the party, but all the great socialist heroes of this country (from Hardie to Wheatley to Maxton) all understood the importance of the constitution in delivering their socialist utopias.

There was a day when Labour politicians were warned of falling into the ‘comfort zone’ of far left politics, in Scotland the comfort zone of uber-unionism in the face of widely different voting patterns in Scotland and England is a far greater threat to electoral success.

It’s not actually a comfort zone for most Scottish Labour party members but it is a corner we mustn’t back into.