So we made our wee bit of history at the fag end of the century. A celebratory dram is called for – well, maybe a more modest half-dram. In years to come, the achievement and excitement of setting up the Scottish Parliament will be remembered. But it might be as well to forget its first few months.
The parliament and the Scottish executive between them have fallen short of expectations. They probably never could have matched up to the high hopes of last May, but at least they might have made a better effort. To save going into the new year-century-millennium on a downbeat note, let us accentuate the positive. It will prove decisively that it is not Billy Connolly’s “pretendy parliament” if it delivers on the planned programme of eight government bills including education, national parks, a much-needed new law on adults with incapacity and land reform.
The “numptie” count – the description on the first cover of New Statesman Scotland, which caused some surprise and petted lips – is decreasing. A heartening number of the 129 MSPs show signs of maturing into competent politicians. If the others, ranging from the elocutionally challenged to the utterly loopy, have the sense to stay silent or can be gagged by their whips, so much the better.
And if the MSPs can put aside their personal concerns – their pay packets and holidays, fox-hunting, smoking on parliament premises, whether they should have a glass of wine for lunch or (more likely) a pint of beer with their pies – they will also reduce the ridicule. Lobbygate, the flurry over access to ministers, blew itself out inconclusively, but lessons were learnt and lines drawn about lobbying and standards of conduct.
The Scottish executive, too, has turned in a patchy performance. It has reflected the personality of the First Minister, Donald Dewar, and, come to that, his virtually identical Lib Dem deputy, Jim Wallace – lawyerly, low key and lacking the smack of firm leadership.
Nice men both, but at this stage in our history Scotland needs something more incisive and inspirational.
For Dewar, the year ends in personal agony with the enforced dismissal of his chief of staff, John Rafferty. Why this hitherto unknown rose so far, so fast, is understood only by a few, but his promotion to an unelected position of power – which he was not slow to exercise – led to the debacle that has damaged Dewar and Labour.
The party’s UK general secretary, Margaret McDonagh, and Downing Street were smitten with Rafferty’s ability as organiser and fixer in what has come to be seen as Labour’s “rescue operation” in the Scottish Parliament election campaign.
Those who knew his background were also aware of the flakiness that led to Rafferty giving a hysterical and untrue briefing to the Scottish media that the Health Minister Susan Deacon had received death threats from anti-abortion extremists. The First Minister has to take personal responsibility for succumbing to the pressures to put Rafferty in charge of his private office and policy development.
Rafferty’s spectacular self-destruction and the mishandling of the fallout reinforced the impression of poor judgement and gave extra point to the jibe that the First Minister and his team of spin-doctors could not spin a top.
Earlier, there was the botched launch of a transport policy that, instead of roaring into the 21st century, spluttered like a blown exhaust. On the positive side, there have been long-overdue initiatives: from Deacon on health, and from Wendy Alexander, the Communities Minister, on social justice. Both ministers are increasingly impressive and are now on the shortlist to succeed the First Minister when he retires or, more likely, gives up in despair at those around him.
There appears to be a conspiracy of silence about the stitch-up that could cause the greatest crisis for the new Scottish government. The coalition with the Liberal Democrats is not the cosy arrangement it is made out to be.
The truth is that the Scottish Lib Dem leader is given a relatively free hand as Justice Minister, but on other matters he is either hamstrung by the need to cling to power or is ignored. His own MSPs were outraged when they were not even consulted about Labour’s launch of the UK-Scottish ministerial committees. On every other government initiative, they have to bite their tongues for fear of triggering headlines about the collapse of the joint government.
The next few months will see further strains on the Freedom of Information Bill, with the Scottish Lib Dems pushing for more freedom than Labour is prepared to concede in England. It is Wallace’s chance to prove that he can do something in Scotland that Charles Kennedy cannot do in the rest of the UK. But it could easily lead to frustration and a Lib Dem return to opposition – which might make a change from the sour-faced sniping from the SNP and the irrelevant noises from the Tories.
The Scottish Parliament was set up to correct the inbuilt democratic deficiency of Westminster rule. In his recent John P Mackintosh lecture, Dewar acknowledged that there is now a devo deficiency: “We are all worried about the gap between those who cast votes and our elected representatives. In July, there was much goodwill. Now there is impatience, too.”
What can he do about it in 2000? Re-launch the Devo brand – it may not wash much whiter, but it’s brighter and better than anything else on offer. What’s more, it gets rid of those nasty independence stains, and the packet comes in very handy for buttressing the Union.
Distracted by internal squabbles and the navel-gazing tendency, the new Scottish administration has taken its eye off the ball too often while there are urgent issues to be addressed.
On 1 July, the First Minister laid out the agenda, and fine-sounding it was: “We cannot accept a Scotland where 4,000 children leave school without formal qualifications, where heart disease and cancer have given us a mortality rate among the worst in Europe, where one-third of Scottish households have below half the average UK income and one-quarter of our housing stock suffers from dampness and condensation.”
He could have added raising the average income and lowering the premature death-rate of Scots, but that would have been drawing attention to a north-south divide that, we are assured by Tony Blair, does not exist. The Scottish public is increasingly alarmed by headlines about continuing crisis in the health service. Parents are worried by authoritative reports that, instead of improving pupils’ performance, standards are being lowered to achieve higher pass rates. The handover of council-housing stocks to privately financed “trusts” is viewed with deep suspicion by those most directly affected, the tenants.
These are the people’s priorities and should be the parliament’s. The millennium policy for MSPs and the executive should be “back to basics” – although it may be advisable to call it something else.
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