The Party Who’s Moment Has Passed

18th... 19th September. I’m sure I should be blogging about something, hmmmm.

I’m certainly not going to write about Independence, there is nothing else that can be said at the moment about a movement which seems intent on fighting an unwinnable fight, the Tommy Sheridan tribute parade at the weekend changes precisely nothing. If the SNP think that belittling ‘No’ supporters (hint: A key rule in politics is to not belittle potential voters, even if you disagree with their decision the last time) and that 62% of Scots voted to sign up to Jean Claude Junker’s vision of a United States of Europe 15 months ago will lead to an Independent Scotland, then they’re seriously up faeces valley.

Instead of that, or Wales (because I’m not Welsh so don’t really have a viable perspective on their assembly referendum 20 years ago) I’m going to talk about this small party on the brink of political oblivion. It’s the Lib Dem’s conference this week and while it feels like a lifetime ago, it was only two and a bit years ago they were in government. They did have a small but modest recovery in June’s election with a net gain of four seats from 2015. Their problem though is that their moment has now gone and that they don’t really know where to go next.

In the 90’s under Ashdown they presented themselves as a liberal centre ground party, but that was before Blair & New Labour came along and defined ‘Centraism’ in a post Thatcherite political landscape. When Charles Kennedy succeeded Ashdown, he pursued a policy of equidistance from both parties. This policy and New Labour’s movement to the right made the Lib Dem’s appear to be the most left wing of all the main parties. There were rumours that this turn of events did not go down well with Ashdown and his friends that were still in the party at the time.

By the time Kennedy was forced out of the Lib Dem leadership, there was an alternative viewpoint to the Kennedy ‘SDP’ line being formulated. These views and ideas coalesced around the so called Orange Book – a book of essays and think pieces advocating a Lib Dem version of Third way neo-liberalism edited by David Laws and featuring pieces by newly elected MP’s Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg. In this respect, a coalition between a Lib Dem party led by an Orange Booker, such as Clegg, and the Blair influenced Cameron & Osborne should have looked like a highly likely prospect in the event of a hung parliament. And so that passed.

The problem for the Lib Dem’s is that thanks to those Orange Bookers, their moment in the sun passed with very little in the way of influence. There are two policies that they can point at with justification as being Lib Dem policies, but they are intrinsically Tory minded policies. The first is the policy of raising the tax threshold at the bottom of the wage structure – cutting taxes being a Conservative aspiration. The other Tory aspiration is the cutting of regulation therefore the reforms to Pension regulations fits nicely into that narrative. Other than that, their reputation is of being doormat’s in the face of Tory attacks on.

Fast forward to the election of 2017 and we see that the Lib Dem’s have a very real problem. Since they lost almost 50 seats in the 2015 election, there has been a cleaving of the political landscape. Labour has hit the reset button – to much resistance from their own Neo-Liberal wing –and are in the process of re-emerging as a party of the left once more. The Tories are also in the process of resetting themselves as a party of the right, with the issue of leadership a piece in their jigsaw still to be placed (among other pieces still in the box). The Lib Dem’s remain as a resolutely pro-EU pro-Centre ground party at a time when both standpoints are not popular.

You would have thought that the Lib Dem’s pledge for a second EU referendum, to ratify the terms of divorce would have proved to be a popular policy given that just under half of the country voted to remain within the EU. Apparently not if the small increases in seats is anything to go by. Indeed, any examination of the seats gained would leave us to wonder what would have happened to the Lib Dem’s if they weren’t the beneficiaries of the SNP’s own poor campaign. As a result, a campaign which saw net gains (but below what was clearly expected) saw the Lib Dem’s force out their own leader within a week of the June election.

Farron’s replacement is the man formally known as the Sage of Twickenham, Vince Cable (above). The man who keeps telling us he saw the financial crash coming, even though those in the know (like for example, my ex) saw it coming as well. It’s just they didn’t have media profile or a natty line in juxtaposing Mr Bean and Stalin within witty repartee. For a politician who is intent in recasting himself as a keeper of the liberal flame, he has a hell of a lot of work to do to rebuild his own reputation. Never mind his party’s fortunes.

As the Business Secretary, he caved in to the Taxpayers Alliance’s campaign to scrap the consumer regulator, Consumer Focus, and sanctioned the scrapping of the act which gave it the statutory powers it had, dumping them on the near charity Citizens Advice Bureau. Cable also sanctioned the across the board slashing of regulations, including building and health & safety regulations. Many on the left and some Lib Dem’s tried to pin the scrapping of regulations which (it is alleged) led to the Grenfell fire on Sajid Javed. In truth it was Cable which sanctioned this.

With both Labour and the Tories looking to reset themselves and so called ‘centralists’ on both sides looking to set up a new party entirely rather than swap parties, the Lib Dem’s look more and more lost and irrelevant. Cable and Willie Rennie’s claims that power for them is around the corner would be laughable if it wasn’t made seriously. Clegg might have taken the Lib Dem’s into power, but as they gather in Bournemouth this week that decision to sup with the devil looks more and more like a turning point in the history of the Liberal Democrats.

The Other Two

In an election campaign where time is now very much of the essence (thanks, Wahabists!  Mind and enjoy the silence from your so called god now) I’ve had to roll the last two election leaflets into the one post.  Though, in all honestly both the Lib Dem’s and the independent candidate Paul Mack will probably be fight it out to not finish last.  Steven and Gillian from New Order, they aren’t.

Once again Eileen McCartin is the Lib Dem’s candidate for this constituency, having stood in the Holyrood election in 2011, last time around two years ago and I think at last years Holyrood election too.  This time the Lib Dem’s are running on backing a second European Referendum whilst blocking a second Independence Referendum.  The worst of both worlds you could say.

Like Labour and the Tories, there are no real arguments for blocking a second Independence referendum in McCartin’s leaflet.  Though interestingly, McCartin’s leaflet claims that “we took the lead in the campaign against Independence across large parts of Scotland at the last referendum” somehow isn’t stimulating the grey cells.  Sure there were prominent Lib Dems, the late Charles Kennedy springs to mind, who were making a decent argument for a no vote but there were others who were prominent members of the Tory led coalition government ( Danny Alexander among others) reminding us how useless they were.  On the whole though, this was a Tory funded exercise with Labour faces prominent in the campaign.

The big problem with this leaflet is the argument being portrayed, that Brexit and Independence are extreme positions.  Given the failures in this country of centralist politics pursued by Blair and McCartin’s own Orange Book colleagues, it is disingenuous to attack parties and voters for looking for different solutions.  It is also extraordinarily hypocritical for the Lib Dems to call for investment in public services given they sold their souls to the Tories for ministerial limo’s.

The last contender, and the spoiler in Paisley’s stab at being the UK’s second all woman election (which makes Glasgow Central the only constituency with all women candidates) is the independent Paul Mack.  One of the last local councillors to appear in the ‘Rotten Boroughs’ column in Private Eye – Mack was a frequent name in those pages during the mid 1990’s alongside Hugh Henry and the SNP’s Bruce Fee as the old Renfrew District Council featured rather frequently.

Mack’s leaflet centres on the big issue in Paisley, much more than Labour’s – the proposed closure of the Children’s ward at the RAH.  Like Labour, Mack aims both barrels at the SNP calling the consultation process “An old fashioned stitch up”.  Quite where Renfrewshire Council’s former, Labour, leader Mr McMillan fits in with Mack’s conspiracy theory I’m not actually sure. Stooge?  SNP Patsy?  Mack doesn’t say.

As befits a candidate very much against politician largesse, Mack’s other pledges centre around transparency and public service.  There is, in all honesty, not an awful lot I can argue against, but it does raise questions about Mack’s conscience “(I) will be answerable and accountable only to the people of Paisley, not party interests in Edinburgh or London and still act in the best interests of my conscience, my constituency and my country”.

If we were being entirely honest, both of these candidates do not have a cat in hells chance of victory at some point on Friday morning.  The likely outcome here in Paisley is an SNP hold with a very much reduced majority – Labour do not look as if they will pull off the swing required to win here in Paisley.  That’s not to say Mack and the Lib Dem’s are irrelevant but in a truncated campaign like this, the temptation is there to squeeze the minority parties out in favour of the mainstream message.

About That Mandate...

Quite possibly the only true thing the leader of Holyrood’s opposition party, Ruth Davidson, has uttered is her belief that we have passed, in her own phrase, “peak Nat”.  Whether that is as true as Davidson would like it to be and that the SNP suffer 20-30 seat losses in three weeks remains to be seen. It somehow feels that for all we were lauding the Imperial phase of the SNP, this era has now ended.

The Tories remake of the video for Cher's "If I Could Turn
Back Time" proves to be a hit with the media.

Arguably the thinking about how to play this election has lead to some muddled arguments from the SNP.  Should they make this about Independence or should this be about Brexit and the holding of the government’s feet to the fire in relation to the EU referendum.  As a result, we have seen the SNP move away from Independence thought still saying that this election will have no bearing on their plans to hold a second Independence referendum.  This is a card that both Labour and the Conservatives are flipping and trying to turn into an issue.

That both parties are attempting to run an openly anti-Independence campaign perhaps says more about the thinking behind both parties than it does about the SNP.  For “Scottish” Labour, this is a line which has directly led them to being deposed as the SNP’s strongest challengers.  “Scottish” Labour’s  out and out hostility alienated lots of left wing voters, attracted not just by the SNP but the idea that “Another Scotland is Possible” to borrow the Common Weal’s tagline.  You would, have though that having seen lots of voters decamp to the SNP would cause Scottish Labour to pause for thought.  I think however it’s not their hostility to Independence which has done for them, more their unreconstructed hatred of the SNP resulting in a dislike of everything the SNP do.  This non constructive approach, which led to the #SNPBad hashtag and the ensuing ridicule which also drives away potential voters.

The Conservatives on the other hand have only recently hardened their stance on Independence and have seen some electoral success thanks to that new found ‘standing up for the union’ stance.  They took four FPTP seats in last years Holyrood Election, Jackson Carlaw’s victory in Eastwood on a swing of 5.7% to unseat Ken MacIntosh and to deprive the SNP of victory could perhaps be seen as the start of the Tories revival and proof that Davidson was on to something in standing up for the 55%ers.  More than the vagaries of the list vote, it was the SNP’s loss of seats to the Lib Dem’s (North East Fife on a swing of 9.5% and Edinburgh Western on a swing of 7.8%) which deprived the SNP of a second Holyrood majority.

Top 8 Conservative Target Seats
Seat	SNP Vote	Swing Required
Berwickshire, Roxborough & Selkirk	20,145	0.3%
Dumfries & Galloway	23,440	5.8%
Aberdeen West & Kincardine	22,949	6.4%
Perth & North Perthshire	27,379	8.9%
Moray	24,384	9.2%
East Renfrewshire*	23,013	9.3%
Aberdeen South*	20,221	9.4%
Edinburgh South West*	22,168	11.4%

* = currently third placed in this constituency

While the SNP are perfectly correct in saying that they hold a mandate to hold a second referendum thanks to that Holyrood win, perhaps the question should be whether they should.  With the EU Referendum and the result of the last UK Election, everything has changed.  Except that nothing has really changed at all with the SNP’s outlook towards selling an Independent Scotland firmly within the EU.  And that’s a problem when there’s a sizable minority happy to be leaving the EU.  The other issue the SNP have created is their creation of and interpretation of “material change”.  It is this interpretation which, given the Holyrood election last year, might backfire.

For the first time, and due in no small thanks to the EU Referendum, the SNP are not in control of the narrative.  The signs though were there in the Holyrood elections with those unexpected reverses to the Lib Dems.  It is the Conservative’s who are in charge of the media narrative and the SNP on the defensive.  While we are certainly past peak Tsunami SNP, and this was self evident two weeks ago whether you believed in the nominal figures or not, whether we have gone past ‘peak Nat’ is another matter entirely.  The latest polling suggests a swing to the Tories of around 10.5%.  If this is to be believed, then both Pete Wishart (Perth & North Perthshire) and the Westminster Leader Angus Robertson (Moray) are at risk of losing their seats to their Conservative opponents.

Top 5 Lib Dem Target Seats
Seat	SNP Vote	Swing Required
East Dumbartonshire	22,093	2.0%
Edinburgh West	21,378	3.0%
North East Fife	18,523	4.8%
Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross	15,831	5.6%
Ross, Skye & Lochaber	20,119	6.2%

Polling also suggests a drop in support for the SNP.  It might be because of the SNP’s post EU referendum tactics or it could be because of dissatisfaction with the SNP’s performance as Scottish Government.  This drop could also enable the Lib Dem’s to repeat their trick from Holyrood.  The Westminster equivalent’s to the seats taken by the Lib Dem’s last May do appear in the five winnable seats but are topped by John Nicholson’s East Dumbartonshire.  The re-run of 2015 with Jo Swinson attempting to retake this seat looks like being a contest to watch.

The Tory narrative is to vote for them to derail Indyref 2.  I think the only way that this can be derailed will be if the Tories make big gains, gains which at the moment look highly unlikely, having said that I think that the SNP can maybe afford three losses.  On the other hand, if the Lib Dem’s regain North East Fife and Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross and if Pete Wishart or Angus Robertson lose their seats to the Tories – scenarios which are likely – then all of a sudden the narrative shifts once again and Indyref 2 will look like a not very winnable prospect.

Holyrood 2016: The Tale of the Tape

Just before 9am yesterday morning the last of the list seats were allocated in the North East Scotland Region.  This confirmed the final outcome that had always been the highly likely outcome of this election - that of a first full term for the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon which will only be fully confirmed once the new Parliament convenes.

Nicola Sturgeon on the steps of Bute House, Friday afternoon.

That final result did not look as good as it looked as if it would be when the SNP took the seat of Rutherglen at about 1:30am this morning.  The swing that removed Labours James Kelly was 9% from Labour to the SNP – that uniform swing across Scotland would be enough to wipe out Labour in the constituency vote.  However, as constituency results started to come from the east and rural areas, a different picture emerged.  If Glasgow and the west of Scotland was a picture of the SNP laying waste to Scottish Labour’s heartlands, then the east & Edinburgh was a picture of the SNP advance being checked and, in some instances, being pushed back by resurgent Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. 

This pushback, among other factors, led to the SNP falling two seats short of another majority government with the final result of:

	Votes – FPTP - % - Seats			Votes – List - Seats		Total seats
SNP	1,059,897	46.5% (+ 1.1%)	59 (+6)	953,587	4 (-12)	63
Conservatives	501,844	22.0% (+ 8.1%)	7 (+4)	524,222	24 (+12)	31
Labour	514,261	22.6% (- 7.8%)	3 (-12)	435,919	21 (-1)	24
Scot Greens	13,172	0.6%	0	150,426	6 (+4)	6
Lib Dems	178,238	7.8% (- 0.1%)	4 (+2)	119,284	1 (-2)	5

The collapse in Labour’s vote was most apparent when the first tranche of results were coming in, when the SNP were taking seats from Labour in the West and around Glasgow.  I mentioned Rutherglen earlier, but that was only the first.  Previously rock solid Labour seats like Provan, Maryhill & Springburn, Greenock & Inverclyde and Coatbridge & Cryston fell to the SNP on swings of 15.6%, 15%, 13.9% and 12.6% respectively.  Those swings were not confined to SNP gains either.  Glasgow Anniesland was the most vulnerable SNP seat going into this election with a majority of 7.  Bill Kidd’s majority, after a swing of 12% is now 6,153.  Similarly, George Adam’s majority has been transformed from 248 to 5,199 via a swing of a mere 8.1%. 

The shift from Labour to the pro-Independence SNP is a huge problem for Labour and has serious implications for Corbyn’s attempt to unseat Cameron in four years time.  If Labour’s problems only stem from being pro-Union, you can understand calls for Labour to soften their line regarding the constitution.  However what the second half of the constituency votes showed is that there is still a large pro-Union constituency in Scotland – a voting bloc now empowered to use their votes tactically to thwart Indyref 2.  Those people who have switched rightwards from Labour will be, as I’d mused earlier, soft right voters attracted to Labour through Social Democratic values rather than out and out Socialism. Professional people who may, in a previous age, have been so called ‘Tory Wets’.  Think fellow bloggers Ian Smart and Kevin Hague.

More than Rutherglen, perhaps Eastwood was the real harbinger result of this election.  A three way marginal, where the SNP didn’t quite do enough to overtake both Labour and the Conservatives to win.  The Tories Jackson Carlaw only needing a swing of 5.7% to unseat Labours Ken McIntosh.  It was after that result that the shock results started to come in.  Those results hinted at pro-Union tactical voting.  The SNP lost North East Fife to the Lib Dem’s Willie Rennie and then Edinburgh Western.  Both seats were not exactly vulnerable – requiring swings over 4% for the Lib Dems to take the seat yet the Lib Dems produced swings of 9.5% and 7.8% to take these seats.  The biggest shocks came with the Tories constituency wins.

Davidson’s win in Edinburgh Central came from out of the blue, given the Tories were third in this constituency in 2011.  A swing of 9.7% to the Tories saw them home with a majority of 610.  A bigger swing came in the Tory win in Aberdeenshire West, when they took the seat on a 12% swing.

There was some relief for Scottish Labour when they took Edinburgh Southern from the SNP, coupled with holding on to East Lothian and Jackie Baillie’s…  ah… ‘popular’ win in Dumbarton.  Bearing in mind that Labour has traditionally gained far fewer votes on the list vote than the constituency vote, this left Labour with too much ground to make up on the Tories going into the list seats.  So, as a result of both the Tories aggressive re-positioning as defenders of the union and Labour’s continuing impersonation of Stretch Armstrong culminating in their two stools approach to the constitutional question, the Tories had their best share of vote in Scotland since the 1992 General Election and Labour finished third for the first time in an election in Scotland since 1910.

The SNP though serenely moved towards a third consecutive term.  Except that, in spite of their highest constituency vote in a Holyrood election and the highest list vote ever in a Holyrood vote, due to the vagaries of the list vote the SNP fell short of a second overall majority.  The gains in the constituency vote had a negative effect on their list vote, only 4 seats were picked up on the list system.  So much for the #bothvotesSNP effect and the architects claims that only both votes would guarantee a majority SNP government that craves an Independent Scotland.

Sturgeon has already said that the SNP will govern as a minority, as they did during their first term.  While the SNP would ideally have wanted a majority, the new parliament gives them options.  Funnily enough, I suspect that there won’t be that much love lost between the two pro-Independence parties in Holyrood given the SNP’s aggressive #bothvotesSNP campaign and their attempt to run the Scottish Green’s off the road (as they did with RISE).  One by-product of this election will be that I think that Indyref 2 will not happen in this parliament.  Not that this is a bad thing, when the SNP have still to come to terms with their own failure or to hold any sort of post mortem into how they failed.  Patrick Harvie’s sober but realistic view on Indyref 2 is certainly not what the hard line pro-Indy supporters want to hear, but they are views that should be listened to if people are to be convinced about Independence.

While Nicola Sturgeon is comfortably back in Bute House and no doubt planning for the next weeks and months of SNP government, the other big winners are the Conservatives.  Ruth Davidson’s tactic of running as the out and proud pro-Union party clearly paid dividends and made things much more difficult for Scottish Labour by targeting their indecisiveness over the constitutional issue.  Scottish Labour’s meltdown has also made things clear down south that there is now a Scotland shaped roadblock to their route back to government.  Sturgeon might have won, but in the longer term the spoils will go to David Cameron’s successor.