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Tuesday 22 May 2012

Can Home Rule Solve Scotland's Problems?

Monday, 30th January 2012

This is not a Question To Which the Answer Must Be No. I too saw the headline Now 51% Back Independence and thought, "Well, that's interesting but implausible". Then I noticed it was a Sunday Express splash and revised my appraisal to "That's obviously cobblers". And so it is, making it mildly foolish for SNP types to boast of a breakthrough on the back of a sample of 200 Scots that's harldy more dispositive than polling, say, my Facebook pals. Nevertheless, Fraser's post yesterday won't quite do either. For instance, the boss writes:

My hunch is that Cameron’s intervention will not have helped Salmond. The idea that an independent Scotland would not be allowed to use Sterling knocked him for six, and the more one thinks about his idea of a Scottish Defence Force, the more ludicrous it becomes.

The currency question is a problem for the SNP but, whatever the extent of that awkwardness, David Cameron is ill-placed to determine the currency adopted by an independent Scotland (though, to be sure, he would, if he wins a second term, be well-placed to impose certain conditions as part of the negotiating process). Fraser's second point, however, is only credible if one has spent very little time thinking about Salmond's ideas for a Scottish Defence Force. My objections to the SNP's defence plans lie in the party's doubts about NATO (though here too one might pause to ponder NATO's own uncertain future), but the idea of a Scottish Defence Force becomes less. not more, ludicrous* the more one thinks about it.

That is, it is easy for folk to scoff at the Irish Air Force but only if one never pauses to wonder just how many planes the Republic of Ireland really needs. Besides, Irish troops have played their part in international peacekeeping efforts from the Lebanon to the Congo and this, for a country of its size, is scarcely a trivial contribution. Alternatively, one might look at another small country that has played its part in the ineternational arena. The Danes have deployed 750 soldiers to Afghanistan and endured more than 40 deaths. Are their defence forces, which consume approximately 1.3% of GDP, "ludicrous"? I suspect few would consider them so. Why must it be axiomatic that an independent Scotland's defence forces would be more ludicrous than those that serve other comparably-sized countries?

Fraser continues:

The remedy to nationalism is to examine the question closely, and to ask: just what major Scottish problem does separation solve? I really can’t think of a single answer to that question.

This is better stuff since the question of necessity is an important one and, perhaps, actually the only vital one. Fraser writes that he cannot think of a "single answer" to this before, oddly, providing an excellent answer to his own question:

To many Scots, the whole thing is a bit comic (the ballot paper mockup, above, is just one of the many circulating the internet). But there's a serious edge to it too. Scotland has the worst, most expensive poverty in the developed world. Foreign academics come to the east of Glasgow to study how a rich country can get social policy so wrong, inflicting such damage on a society and its people. The question is whether full self-government can yield the solutions that devolution patently hasn't. And the answer just has to be ‘no’ .

It is true that a good number of Scots - perhaps 15% of us were I to hazard a guess at this - do find the independence question comic or obviously a nonsense but whatever else it might be this is not a serious response to Scotland's past, present or future. It is appalling that this country suffers such social problems. It is not obviously the case that independence (or the transfer of additional powers to Edinburgh) would modestly improve matters but the present political and policy arrangements are scarcely solving these problems either. Would "full self-government" help "yield the solutions that devolution patently hasn't?" I'm not at all persuaded the answer "just has" to be 'no'. That is, I think it only has to be 'no' if one assumes the answer is 'no' in the first place.

But does it have to be 'no'? Surely not!

Moreover, self-government demands a balanced parliament. That is, one responsible for raising revenue as well as spending it. The present arrangements are manifestly unbalanced. This is unfair. Not just to English taxpayers (who perceive themselves subsidising Scotland) but to Scottish voters too. I recall an excellent piece written by an excellent journalist a couple of years ago in which the writer complained that the supposed "remedy to poverty – more money – has made the problem worse." He added:

The views of swing seat voters... are treated as utmost priorities in Westminster. This is a huge drawback to our system. Those in sink estates are regarded as being devoid of political capital for any mainstream party. The welfare ghettos are, for Westminster, terra incognita.

[...] When you look at Scotland on any statistical dataset, it is one big horror story. Welfarism, health deprivation, drugs, drink – there are reams of data about what a socioeconomic nightmare the country is. When I was writing about this as a journalist, it seemed utterly alien to the country I had grown up in and (I thought) travelled well in.

[...] It is so easy to ignore Third Scotland – and Third Britain, which I’m sure also exists – because there is such little social interaction between this and Prime Scotland/Prime Britain. Glasgow is constructed so you can zip past the grim parts.

[...] Prime and Third Scotland are half a mile apart in some places, but the two nations don’t interact. Somehow along the way, we – as a country - learned to look the other way: to worry about climate change, but not the poverty just a few miles down the road. To think that the taxes Labour charge somehow promotes a more cohesive society, when in fact it’s pouring petrol on the flames. State handouts may have been the cure to post-war poverty, but it’s the cause of 21st century poverty as we see in Glasgow East.

The writer who wrote this and urged action on "the most urgent and neglected problem in Britain today" was Fraser Nelson. It is certainly possible that Britain can or will alleviate these problems; it is plainly the case that it has not done so yet. Equally clearly, the Scottish government lacks some of the powers that might assist its efforts to solve what, in shorthand, one might term its "Glasgow Problem".

Evidently, it is not the case that "full self-government" would necessarily be better government. But it has a better chance than anything else of breaking the Scottish consensus about which Fraser and I each despair. I would not go so far as saying "full self-government" must help solve these problems; I merely suggest it is not impossible it could. It may be that the country would be a slow learner and that self-government would, for a while, be worse and more expensive government. But that's fodder for a discussion about what sort of country we wish to be after the next constitutional settlement, not an argument for suggesting the existing settlement is as good as it can get when, by Fraser's own admission, it - the Union, before and after devolution alike - has failed (at least thus far) to create the conditions in which this "most urgent and neglected problem" can be solved.

Can Home Rule improve things? Pessimism suggests the answer is "probably not"; a more open mind suggests "perhaps" and this is certainly preferable to an immediate, unthinking 'no'.

*PS: Since the present government is a) cutting 20% of the army and b) building aircraft carriers that will not, for some years anyway, have any aircraft to carry Whitehall owns plenty of "ludicrous" defence policies of its own.

Filed under: Defence (353 more articles) , Denmark (7 more articles) , Glasgow (12 more articles) , Ireland (195 more articles) , Poverty (48 more articles) , Salmond (83 more articles) , Scotland (500 more articles) , SNP (219 more articles) , Welfare (256 more articles)

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and I'll go to bed at noon

January 30th, 2012 4:23pm Report this comment

As an interested observer, reading these discussions of the Scottish independence question has been fascinating and I thank you for it. As a Welshman, it makes me wistfully wonder what it must be like to have a nationalist movement that knows what it's doing.

Rhoda Klapp

January 30th, 2012 4:38pm Report this comment

So, is the problem poverty, or being in the union? Or maybe the two things are not the same? Here's the thing about problem-solving. You must de3fine the problem properly first. Agreeing on what it is helps too. Now, if it is poverty, how can we fix that? Well, probably not more of the same. If leaving the union will fix poverty by some sort of magic, well, you don't NEED to leave if you know what the magic is, and if you don't know what the magic is, leaving won't do it. Except to remove the universal excuse, the English did it to us.

Now, all scorn aside, how to fix poverty, having defined that as your problem. Find out somebody who has done it, and do what they did. No matter how it disagrees with your instinct or your ideology. So, who has done it? What nation or state has solved a problem of endemic poverty and dependence? Anyone?

R.G. Bargie

January 30th, 2012 4:48pm Report this comment

Indeed. Nelson's piece is juvenile stuff. Against what threat does Scotland need militarily defending? Who are our enemies? Only one country has invaded Scotland in the last thousand years, and we all know which one. A very modest navy and air force will do us fine, thanks. Who's invaded Belgium recently?

Rhoda Klapp

January 30th, 2012 5:12pm Report this comment

RG, I believe you have invaded us twice* whilst being in the union. Maybe your forces are intended for offensive use.

*OK, I know, not all of you.

Fraser Nelson

January 30th, 2012 5:13pm Report this comment

For a glorious moment there, Alex, I thought you were going to tell me what Scottish problem would be solved by giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament. The UK government is implementing tough welfare reform, yes, but when given the chance Holyrood opts out of reform - it'd so the same in welfare, I fear...

R.G. Bargie

January 30th, 2012 5:25pm Report this comment

Sorry, Rhoda, I've lost track of who "we" and "you" are in this context :D

Kittler

January 30th, 2012 5:28pm Report this comment

Fraser gives a false representation of Scotland, a caricature.
The reality is more prosaic. All the statistics, the facts and figures on the economy and society, reveal that Scotland and England are very much alike.
They are not disparate regions but nations each with problem areas.
If Scotland is a nation, the economic stuff should not be the issue, it is about having equality of status.
And the economy? in there somewhere, with all the other north European nations, most of them of similar size to Scotland, and possibly with less the resources.

Rhoda Klapp

January 30th, 2012 5:36pm Report this comment

RG, sorry, making assumptions there. We, english, you scots. Apologies if inaccurate.

I find myself agreeing with Kittler, there is little point in discussing details of indepencence, I am sure reasonable people can work something out. All it needs is the will, whether to make independence work, or make the union work, once the people of Scotland decide. To go on about what Alex calls pink herrings is to drown in pointless detail. There is only one question.

Alex Grant

January 30th, 2012 5:47pm Report this comment

Congratulations Mr Massie. You are the first of your tribe to utter some sense on this subject. Of course I believe you have a long way to go but it seems that your boss and his effective boss (Call me Dave) just don't even begin to get it!

R.G. Bargie

January 30th, 2012 6:12pm Report this comment

"For a glorious moment there, Alex, I thought you were going to tell me what Scottish problem would be solved by giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament."

Tory governments.

R.G. Bargie

January 30th, 2012 6:16pm Report this comment

Rhoda - completely agree with you. The referendum is not about membership of the EU or the Eurozone or currency or military or any of those things. It's about deciding if we want to take responsibility for those things ourselves. If we decide to do that, we'll elect governments to determine our policies on those issues, like every other country does.

Voice of Reason

January 30th, 2012 6:29pm Report this comment

And not a word of thanks to that nice Voice of Reason #surfmybrainwave

ThigArLatha

January 30th, 2012 7:27pm Report this comment

Good article.
You and Fraser are the Good cop/Bad cop of Unionism....

andrew kerins

January 30th, 2012 9:44pm Report this comment

What becomes of the UK Parliament - particularly MPs from Scottish constituencies - in the event of Home Rule for Scotland ?
Those who are ridiculing Salmond's 'army' do so on the basis that he would withdraw three regiments from the UK forces but not the support units that would allow them to
go into combat. They would be able to parade at Edinburgh Castle and no more. This may be what Alex Salmond wants.

ButcombeMan

January 30th, 2012 9:57pm Report this comment

R G Bargie would be well advised to look at Fraser's original post (link in the text above) and see the comment of Silent Hunter. It is so true.

What the third world Scots have done to
themselves is their own work and first world Scotland in the shape of Salmond is not showing any idea of how to solve it.

Plainly more State handouts in euros or pounds, will not cure it.

Think of all the political and financial capital that Salmond will expend on his monstrously irrelevant, leaving of the Union and you realise how much better spent that effort and money could be, if Salmond actually truly cared about his people.

Also, maybe R G Bargie should remind him or herself, of why Scotland joined the Union. They were bankrupt after the Darien fiasco.

The Scots have no capacity for managing money. It has long been thus and the Big Brown socialist Mess has just reinforced that view.

Robin of Bagshot

January 30th, 2012 11:46pm Report this comment

Mr Massie the answer to your question ought to be no.

It is not very helpful to keep constantly tinkering with constitutional arrangements to deal with this month's issues and some groups' special interests. The Scottish Parliament hardly uses its existing powers to their full extent and its record, especially since the SNP became the ruling party, has not been one to inspire confidence in it if its powers were slightly increased without some sea change. One suspects too that tinkering without a major event would neither diminish the girning to any great extent nor alter anything about the current political culture in Scotland. We have had too the report of the Calman Commission's proposals for improved devolutionary arrangements which are supposedly to become law by 2015.

We need stability and a political arrangement of a lasting nature, broadly acceptable to the electorate. We in Scotland have to make a decision whether we want either to be an independent country or a make a fist of the current devolved Parliament. A referendum on this issue offers a chance of making matters clearer and of concentrating minds.

R.G. Bargie

January 31st, 2012 12:57am Report this comment

"Think of all the political and financial capital that Salmond will expend on his monstrously irrelevant, leaving of the Union and you realise how much better spent that effort and money could be, if Salmond actually truly cared about his people."

I prefer to think of how better we could spend the billions wasted by Westminster on useless nuclear weapons, illegal wars and silly games in London.

Simon Stephenson.

January 31st, 2012 11:53am Report this comment

Fraser Nelson : 5.13pm

With respect, Alex Massie's argument is not "you're wrong because I'm right", it's "you're wrong to claim that you are right, because all your arguments have demonstrated is that you may be right".

His assertion is that you overstate your case, not that it is necessarily a false one.

ButcombeMan

January 31st, 2012 12:23pm Report this comment

R G Bargie
"I prefer to think of how better we could spend the billions wasted by Westminster on useless nuclear weapons, illegal wars and silly games in London".

Of course you do dear because it avoids Scotland having to take responsibility for its own problems. Scotlands problems are always the fault of another. The whingeing Scots have become a joke.

Salmond is indulging himself in pointless Braveheart rhetoric. If he wins his vote he will in it because of the votes of third world, undereducated, drunken, drugged Scotland. The Scotland of bad diet, heavy smoking, overwhelming reliance on the charity of the State and an early death.

This is not statesmanship, this is wilful waste, wilful neglect of the real needs of Scotland all in pursuit of a myth. The man is the worst kind of charlatan.

Sadly our politicians are too frightened of adverse reaction to tell the truth about Salmond. One hopes for a Scottish political figure to do it but no, they have been busy bankrupting the whole Union.

DB

January 31st, 2012 12:31pm Report this comment

It's impossible to put figures on it, but I suspect the increased sense of national pride and self-respect that independence would bring could do wonders for Scotland's problems. There would be a changed mindset... similar to the difference between renting a council house and owning your own property.

R.G. Bargie

January 31st, 2012 5:10pm Report this comment

"Of course you do dear because it avoids Scotland having to take responsibility for its own problems."

Um, I'm pretty sure the definition of independence IS "taking responsibility for your own problems", you dimwit.

Paul

February 1st, 2012 7:15am Report this comment

Response to Butcombe man
How unpleasant-an architypal petit rosbif.
Please see my last post on two small aspects of Scotland's contribution to the UK. I would argue that given the sabotage that the square mile has recently meted out to the UK economy that Scotland makes a greater contribution to UK PLC than the city despite a smaller population. At the same time the city gets a larger per capita share of the pot than the rest of England, Scotland and Wales and this doesn't include the benefits accrued from capital projects funded by the UK tax payer including the Olympics, the Jubilee, Crossrail, Thames Link 2 (or is it 3?), major sewage works, London Gateway, amongst many other things.
Why should such an uneven union be maintained in it's current condition?

ButcombeMan

February 1st, 2012 4:09pm Report this comment

R G Bargie & Paul.

You surely need to stick to the point and Frasers question:

"just what major Scottish problem does separation solve? I really can’t think of a single answer to that question".

You have failed to answer that question.

thomas brady

February 7th, 2012 12:39am Report this comment

independent scotland currency.
Scotland could have its own central bank
print and control its own currency.
this would free scotland from the clutches of the bank of england and the fractional
reserve bank formula,which the bank uses to
create money ut of thin air,lend it and add
interest.this is called everlasting debt creation,great for banks,pity about us.
this system needs abolished.
a second question on the referendum ballot
should be.
"do you want an independent scotland to be
in or out of the european politburo?"