New Statesman Scotland
It is now 20 years since the Tories pulled off their first big political spectacular - the sale of council houses at huge discounts. "Freedom," rhapsodised George Younger as the Tenants' Rights, Etc (Scotland) Bill made its way through the House of Commons. "The freedom to choose, the freedom through one's own hard work to acquire an asset which can be enjoyed and passed on to one's children." Iain Sproat was even more passionate. "The bill will bring about a massive redistribution of wealth within Scotland." And Labour watched stunned and helpless as the municipal tenantry (most of them Labour voters) fell over themselves to snap up the bargains. It was the sale of the century.
Well, a good idea is a good idea, whatever the source. Who among us does not approve of freedom and the redistribution of wealth? So how about Holyrood and/or Westminster offering the same kind of freedom to Scotland's and/or Britain's hard-pressed tenant farmers? How about a further "massive redistribution of wealth" by giving tenant farmers the right to purchase their farms and farm-buildings, at a proper discount? Let's say up to 70 per cent, scaled to how long the tenant has been working the land. In many cases that has been for generations, so the discounts would be at the maximum.
The aristocracy and the gentry would squeal. Their lobby - the Scottish Landowners' Federation - would fulminate at length and in detail. But any such "Agricultural Tenants' Rights, Etc, Act" would have its advantages. It would improve the lot of Scotland's farmers by lifting the burden of rents, some of which are crippling. It would give them assets against which they could borrow money. It would (or at least should) make them better disposed to Labour. It would delight the urban masses by making rural toffs deeply unhappy. And the Tories could hardly complain: what's sauce for the council-tenant goose must be sauce for the agricultural-tenant gander. Besides, it was a Tory idea in the first place. Over to you, Ross Finnie.
Still on the subject of Tory wheezes: it was a good one by Tory backbenchers to tot up the voting record of Scotland's "dual mandate" MPs (ie, the 15 worthies who are members of both Westminster and Holyrood) to discover that the SNP's six are rather more assiduous voters in London than their Labour and Lib Dem counterparts. It seems that in the 73 Westminster votes taken since 19 October last year, the hardline Scottish nationalist Alex Salmond took Westminster seriously enough to vote 22 times, while the arch-unionists Donald Dewar and Jim Wallace managed five votes and Henry McLeish none at all. Which prompts this diary to ask, what is going on? Is the SNP failing to shake off Westminster's ancient psychic chains? Or is Westminster beginning to seem less and less relevant in the upper reaches of the Scottish executive?
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