Election 2001
In Scotland, politics never stops. What with local, Holyrood, Westminster and Europe elections, it seems that if we have not just had an election, we are about to have one - and the parties are in perpetual campaign mode. An entire class of public affairs junkies has been created, and the nation runs the risk of overdosing. There is such a gush of report, comment, analysis, navel-gazing and nit-picking that the place sometimes seems like a political vomitorium.
During the UK election phoney war, writers with serious (and others with spurious) qualifications have fretted over the post-devolution potential for driving a deeper wedge between Scotland and Britain and undermining the Union. Scotland, they point out, is already distinct for its policies of free higher and further education, its 23 per cent pay rise for teachers over three years and its free care for the elderly. There are suggestions that the Scots want to go even more their own way, and that they want their parliament to engage in significant wealth redistribution, with full fiscal autonomy and control of social security spending.
Scottish Labour MPs grumble that their Westminster seats are endangered by the succession of cock-ups and controversies in the Scottish Parliament. Their fear is that the electorate will not distinguish between the fumbling of Labour at Holyrood and the sheer perfection of Labour at Westminster - and why should they?
But none of that fretting and fearfulness is justified by the evidence of polls and the public mood in Scotland on the eve of the election campaign. Post-devolution, the Scots are sophisticated enough to take one view about Scotland and another about the UK. The more that things Scottish have changed, the more that things UK have remained the same. Scottish public opinion has remained remarkably consistent on UK matters, and the big Labour lead in England is mirrored north of the border.
The May poll of Westminster voting intentions by System Three for the Herald indicates that the PM's decision to delay the election cost Labour five points of its poll lead in Scotland. But that lead is still commanding enough to ensure the same result in Scotland as four years ago - a Labour walkover, a Tory wipe-out and the Nats stuck under their ceiling of one-third of the vote.
The poll trends are uncannily similar to the 1997 general election, when Labour won 45.6 per cent of the vote but returned 56 out of 72 MPs. Now, despite the 5 per cent drop in the past month - which is probably accounted for by dissatisfaction in the areas hit by foot-and-mouth - the party is at 47 per cent.
It makes no difference that most of the non-economic issues to be highlighted in Labour's campaign - health, education, crime and the environment - are devolved. The overarching argument about the need to defend public services will play well in Scotland, where the voters are more radical on these issues, as well as on the redistribution of wealth.
The coming election is likely to demonstrate that the devolution gamble has paid off and is working as a safeguard of the Union. Whatever they think of the antics of their MSPs and Scottish Executive ministers, the Scots believe that their parliament is a good thing. As the Secretary of State for Scotland, Helen Liddell, points out, this will be the first general election for 30 years where the constitution will not be the dominant issue.
True, most of the Scottish Labour representatives at Westminster have dropped off the political radar. But that's their own fault for not stirring themselves. Westminster still controls the taxes and fuel duties paid by Scots, as well as the benefits they receive. Sooner rather than later, Westminster MPs will decide on the UK division of public spending calculated by the Barnett formula - at stake in any down-ward revision could be £2bn of the Scottish Executive's £26bn budget. And MPs will also have the final say on growing demands for more powers for Holyrood.
The Nationalists have recognised this by sidelining the independence policy that is the very reason for their existence. Instead, they will fight on the need to send a band of guerrilla MPs to Westminster to "stand up for Scotland". They believe the real battleground for independence will be at the next Scottish Parliament election in 2003.
We lucky Scots get the chance to do it all again in two years' time. With a huge Blairite majority at Westminster, will we decide Labour needs to be taught a lesson in humility? One thing at a time . . .
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