Where Next for Scottish Labour?



Team Labour in Culloden

 There are a lot of things you can say about last week’s election results in Scotland.

The SNP played a blinder and picked up support from a swathe of Scottish voters that crossed class, geography and traditional party allegiances. The LibDems were punished for joining so enthusiastically with the Tories, breaking promises on cuts, VAT and Student Fees in exchange for a share of power.

Scottish Labour mainly kept its share of the vote (we actually increased it in Inverness & Nairn), but lost seat after seat to the SNP as voters turned to Alex Salmond and his well respected team in even bigger numbers.

I’m not going to fall into the easy trap of blogging away about what Labour got wrong and why. I’ll leave that to others if they want to. I want to talk about what Labour needs to do about it.

There are four things I think Scottish Labour needs to do.

• we need to elect a leader with ideas based on modern Labour values but who can appeal to a broad range of voters. A leader who can enthuse the party faithful but who ordinary people can relate to when they perform in Holyrood, on TV or in a community meeting. A leader who can build a team around him or her whose collective ability, vision and values will generate trust and confidence in Labour again

• if we are serious about devolution, we need a Scottish Labour Party which is firmly part of the UK Labour movement but which can think, develop policy and campaign independently and in directions which reflect the specific social and political environment of Scotland. A federal approach if you like. And that applies across the country as well. What works for Glasgow or Edinburgh might need a different approach in the Highlands or North East. Scottish Labour needs to stop controlling and start devolving
• above all we need to talk a lot more about our political values in ways that appeal to wider cross-sections of supporters. When we talk about fairness, equal opportunity and social justice, we need to do it in ways which make sense to the lives of people in Craigmillar and Culloden as well as in Clydebank. When we get asked “what will you do for me” we need to be able to answer that with policies and ideas which the majority of Scots relate to and trust
• finally, we need a professional team at John Smith House(Labour HQ in Scotland for those outside the bubble) who can plan and run campaigns effectively and drive a media agenda whilst engaging with (that means listening) and enthusing party activists across the country.

None of the above will be easy. But the sooner we start looking forward and talking positively about what we need to do, the sooner we will return to being a political party that people in Scotland trust to stand up for them again.

For myself, I’m looking forward to helping make that happen.

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Yes to AV

Deciding how to vote in the AV referendum on 5th May has been a challenge.

Those of you who know me as a long standing supporter of proportional representation may be surprised by that. What’s complicated my thinking is the limited “proportional” nature of AV and its significance as a key plank underpinning the Tory-LibDem coalition. Its awfully tempting to vote NO to make political life even worse for Clegg and the LibDems (whilst they make real life worse for most of us).

In the end , however, AV, for all its limitations is a change to the voting system which may just help to restore a little bit of the public trust in our political system. A change that makes it looks less like MPs are trying to protect their own interests by keeping the system as it is. Unfair though that charge may be, that’s how a lot of people see it. And if that results in more people coming out to vote then that must be a good thing. A step in the right direction is better than no step at all.

AV has the potential to build a progressive, centre-left political majority at Westminster. The Tories oppose it for just that reason. Another good thing about it then.

Whilst I’m campaigning to elect Dave Stewart as MSP for Inverness & Nairn, there will be much more important issues to discuss. But on this one I’m clear.

Its time to say YES to AV.

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EMA Cuts Tell Us All We Need to Know

EMA (Education Maintenance Allowances) don't apply in Scotland.

In England, it gives up to £30 a week to 16-18 year olds from low income families attending further education courses.  A Labour Policy, its about paying for kids books, travel and subsistence.  To make getting a higher qualification just a bit easier.

Today, the Coalition cut it.

The same week as they are saying its OK for students to build up £36,000 of debt for a four year degree, they pull away the step ladder for the rest.  £30 a week really matters, when your folks' can't pay.

Tells us all we need to know about the real agenda.

Cameron and Clegg both come from a highly privileged background.  Its showing...

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Some Economic Facts & Figures

The rightful hiatus over student fees has rather obscured some startling detail in last weeks report from the Coalition's very own Office of Budget Responsibility, the OBR. 

Thanks to the New Statesman for highlighting the following:

• economic growth will be higher than forecast this year (at 1.8% rather than 1.2%).  Impressive in the first 12 months after a savage recession.  Since there is an accepted lag between policy and effect, this is mostly due to Alistair Darling's fiscal stimulus
• growth next year and the year after has been revised down to 2.1% and 2.6% respectively.  Slower growth predicted as a result of Osborne economics.....
• whilst there is predicted drop in public sector job cuts from 490,000 to 330,000 this is based on a rapidly expanding private sector creating nearly £2m jobs.  Douglas Alexander has noted that in the last post recession period (1993-1996), the private sector struggled to create just 300,000 jobs
• by 2015, we are predicted to have a budget SURPLUS of £6bn.  Good housekeeping, but why on earth is there a need, therefore, to cut £7bn from university funding over the same period?  A cut that is the direct cause of the need to raise tuition fees.  I say again that its about idealogy not economics.

Britain already spends less as a percentage of its GDP on higher education than the rest of Europe (0.7% compared to 1.2% in France, 1.4% in Sweden, 0.9% in Germany) so this has to be about a deliberate policy to shift higher education funding from the state to the individual.  They are creating a market in education, along the lines of the US model.  Equal access for all will suffer as a result.

All useful facts to have at your fingertips when (a) there is no alternative or (b) its all Labour's fault are being advanced as the reason for every coalition policy......

Conspiracy theorists will say letting the LibDems cop the flack for a week is rather a good diversionary tactic from some pretty bad economic news.  Another answer to what the LibDems are for!

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Cameron is Wrong on Student Fees

In London on business tonight, which always gives a different perspective on UK politics than from just the domestic Scottish view.


Lead article by David Cameron in the Evening Standard makes the case for the Coalition’s university fee plans. “Before Protesting, Students need to get the Facts Straight”. He makes three main points; university funding can’t escape the cuts, universities need decent funding to excel and it’s all very fair because most graduates will pay less per month than now.

He is wrong in the detail as well as the principle.

Cameron states that the public “subsidy” to further education is £5bn per year and that we can’t afford it. That’s a big number but I actually though it would be more. It’s less, for example, than the £6bn corporation tax bill that Vodafone has (allegedly and legally) avoided. This is long term investment to create growth and wealth in our economy.

He argues that reform to university funding is needed to maintain a world class education system. Then gives the game away by suggesting this will come from students deciding where to “spend” their fees and so drive up standards. Market economics in further education. Kind of assumes you can afford the fees in the first place, doesn’t it David? Which I suppose feels natural if you come from your own and George Osborne’s background.

Finally he rests his case on fairness. The higher threshold will mean, he writes, that most students will repay less each month than now. Probably true, but they will go on paying for longer and the higher interest rates mean they will pay a lot more in total. Unless, of course, you are well enough off to pay the loan off early.

This is all about shifting the cost of higher education onto individual students and nothing to do with fairness.

I oppose student fees because I think they are unfair. Further education should be a right open to all and not constrained by fear of future debt. Nor should students be choosing which universities to attend based on how much they can afford to repay. Our whole society benefits from well educated graduates entering the workplace and those that go onto to earn high salaries will pay handsomely through general taxation.

In Scotland we seem to have an all party consensus on a “no fees” approach. I hope it continues.

I could – just – be persuaded down the route of a Graduate Tax. Though I see many issues with it.

Loading students with individual fees - the scale of which depends on which institution they aspire to study at - is something I will never support.

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Broken Pledges (No 1 in a series...)

Text of my letter to the Inverness Courier (which they so far have not published) asking Danny Alexander to explian why he has broken his own and his party's pledge on Student Fees

Dear Sir

With the party conference season behind us, its time to start looking at the reality of the new Government’s policies rather than listening to the sound-bites.

A promise not to raise Student Fees was a key commitment by the LibDems during the election campaign, back in May. Here in Inverness, Mr Alexander made much of that promise at the Student Hustings and challenged myself and other candidates on the issue. I made clear that I would not vote to support an increase in fees and signed the NUS Pledge. So did Danny Alexander, as reported in the Courier at the time.

What a difference six months in power makes. Now it looks like the LibDems are going to tear up their commitment and support open-ended rises in fees at universities and colleges in England to a level which will put a huge burden of debt on future graduates. How many bright school leavers from ordinary families will now think twice about going on to university, scared by the level of debt they will run up. Increasingly, will it only be kids from well off families that can afford it? What’s fair about that?

Despite the different arrangements here, Scotland is not immune from changes to university fees and funding in England. A two-thirds cut to the teaching grant paid by the Treasury to English universities, has a massive knock-on effect in Scotland, via the Barnett Formula, to the tune of as much as £400 million. It will put huge pressure on the system here, whilst higher fees will discourage Scots students from applying to English universities.

Many people who trusted the LibDems on Student Fees will want to hear from Mr Alexander how he can justify breaking such a key pledge. Perhaps the Courier could facilitate that debate?


Your Sincerely

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Why Language Matters

Language matters.  I don't agree with the way Harriet Harman talked about Danny Alexander at my party's conference this weekend.  Just as  I think Boris Johnston was wrong to bring Kosovo into the debate about the effect of the Coalition's housing policies on London.

Some language is just wrong in principle.  But often its wrong-headed because it distracts from the real issues.

In London, we should be talking about the the impact of an ideologically driven policy on thousands of families trying to  make a life for themselves in a vibrant, multi-cultural city.  The combined effect of Housing Benefit caps and cuts, combined with the development of a "social "housing sector based on near market level rents will drive the unemployed and those on low wages out of high-rent areas like central London.  We will see the same effects in any area where demand for rented housing keeps local rents high, as Housing Benefit is tied to local averages, not a single national figure.

And in the Highlands, the debate should be about the politics of the man who has designed a programme of savage cuts of a depth and speed he spoke out against during the election.  Who spoke out against the idea of raising VAT because of its impact on the poorest in our society - but who now presides over a rise to 20% from January.  Who made a lot of noise about local post offices closing, but who now sits side by side with his new political friends who have just voted to privatise the Royal Mail.

Language matters, but its what you do that counts.   

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