In Crieff on Friday morning on the second day of the annual conference of Scotland’s local authorities an otherwise unremarkable panel session took place to discuss local government reform. In the middle of the proceedings, Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dems’ leader who always looks like a small-town bank manager about to admonish an old customer for his prodigal spending habits, threw out a challenge to the audience. “Are there any SNP members here who want to put a question of the government,” he asked.
The government was represented on the panel by Derek Mackay, the recently appointed finance minister. To the surprise of no one in the room the silence of the grave rapidly descended. There were plenty of SNP members present but, as everyone in Scottish politics knows, any nationalists who valued a future in the party would rather go dooking for chips in a deep fat fryer than question its financial husbandry. Rennie’s interjection was timely and pertinent. In a Scotland dominated by the SNP on every political level the task of maintaining the daily conduct of democracy, the practice of holding central government to account, falls a little more heavily on the shoulders of those party members who have been elected to office. Rennie’s challenge to the SNP faithful came just a few hours after it had been announced that their party had taken the council ward of Garscadden and Scotstounhill in the north-west of Glasgow.
This area, long a Labour stronghold, was furiously contested as each side sensed that the outcome would act as a weathervane pointing to the overall outcome of next May’s local authority elections. The SNP have coveted control of Glasgow city council since they came to power nationally in 2007. At the 2012 local elections the SNP were just beginning to break out the champagne in Glasgow when it was announced that Labour, against all the odds and the prevailing nationalist headwind, had managed to hold on to the most prized of its municipal jewels.
Since then though, all the indications have suggested that the SNP has virtually annexed the city. In 2014, Glasgow was only one of four Scottish local authority areas to vote Yes in the independence referendum. The following year, every one of the city’s seven Westminster seats fell to the SNP, in the fierce after-shock of the constitutional division. And although Labour recovered a little lost ground in Glasgow in this year’s Holyrood elections, the momentum is firmly with the nationalists. If they do take Glasgow then their writ will effectively run in every important area of Scotland. This is why Rennie’s challenge is such a pertinent one.
Tories have made much of their elevation to become the official opposition at Holyrood and there has been much silly talk about the emergence of their leader Ruth Davidson as a credible future first minister. In reality though, Davidson has been a major disappointment at Holyrood. She has failed adequately to distance herself from the hard right, which has annexed the UK Conservative party at Westminster with its sinister anti-immigration views. Her policy programme begins and ends with opposing a second referendum in independence. She charges the SNP with obsessing about independence; in truth though, no one is more obsessed by it than she and it has made her position as leader of the opposition faintly ridiculous.
It is virtually certain that the government of Scotland will remain in the hands of the SNP for a generation, yet already this party is beginning to fall into the same bad habits that finally did for Labour in Scotland. They talk a great deal but so far have delivered little. At the local authority conference, Mackay, whose performance was described as lacklustre and predictable, could only say that people had to be prepared to pay more if they wanted improved public services. Not a scintilla of fresh or innovative thinking in funding models, which the much-lauded community empowerment bill might have been expected to open up.
Mackay was saying this even as it was being revealed that the NHS 24 computer project has experienced a 73% hike in cost to more than £130m. Elsewhere it was revealed that NHS Tayside needs to make £58m of savings following years of government bail-outs. ScotRail, the national rail operator has long been a national disgrace. Last week it was revealed that its Dutch owners Abellio has admitted making so much money from the deal that it can plough the profits back into its Netherlands operation. Despite all of this, the SNP have become politically untouchable. Yet Labour is in no position to land a single blow.
No matter how you try to crunch the numbers from Thursday’s by election they convey disquietude for Labour. Certainly, the turnout at 24% was ridiculously low and the margin of victory slim, but it still represented a 20% swing to the SNP. In 2012, Labour gained 60% of the city vote. If the SNP do take Glasgow next year it will be less of a testament to its popularity and competence than the utter failure of Scottish Labour to engage at any level with voters. They really ought not to be losing so much ground in Scotland’s biggest city. The SNP’s antipathy to Glasgow is both real and historic.
This city, which has suffered disproportionately from re-drawn local authority boundaries and health inequality, continues to drive Scotland’s economy. Yet the SNP annually cuts its Holyrood block grant while throwing a third of Scotland’s overall budget at a failing health service, which excels only at the rate at which it has increased managerialism and secured the financial futures of the children of thousands of NHS executives. Glasgow is lamentably under-represented at cabinet level in the SNP government. The neglect of Glasgow by the SNP should be on every Labour councillor seeking re-election next May.
On 10 October, Glasgow will reveal its blueprint for thriving in the face of Brexit uncertainty. The theme of this fightback document will be Glasgow is Open For Business. It’s not dissimilar to London’s response but it doesn’t have the vast riches that make it easier for the English capital. If Glasgow can convey and then maintain a sense of optimism in the face of Brexit and of deploying its gifts for innovation laughing in the face of adversity the SNP threat may yet be put to flight.
