So Rupert Murdoch had lunch with Alex Salmond at Bute House today. At a time when politicians are scurrying to distance themselves from the Dirty Digger he is still welcome in Edinburgh. This annoys, even angers, many of Salmond’s own supporters (see Kate Higgins for example) and, I daresay or if Gerry Hassan is a useful indicator, most of the rest of public Scotland too. Anyone but Rupert!
Well, fine. The important thing here is not what Salmond thinks of Murdoch but what Rupert thinks of Alex. Their chumminess is another indicator that Salmond, whatever the SNP’s leftwing think or hope, has no intention of turning an independent Scotland into a socialist basketcase. Granted, this has been obvious for some time but it is always useful to have more evidence to support this notion.
I think it possible to argue that Salmond’s relationship with Murdoch (like his past relationships with Donald Trump and Fred Goodwin) demonstrates that Salmond is too easily impressed by wealthy businessmen and too quick to get too close to them. This, however, tends to be a characteristic of smaller polities (though it’s scarcely unknown in larger ones too) and, perhaps, close to unavoidable. At the very least it is so ordinary that it’s close to being unremarkable.
However: we may expect Scottish Labour to seize upon this and use it as a means of attacking Salmond. His closeness to big business, I suspect they’ll argue, shows that he’s really not that different from the Tories. Alex Salmond, they’ll say, is busy prostitutig himself to Rupert Murdoch but doing nothing for hard-pressed Scots, too many of whom are losing their jobs. Why are his priorities so hideously out of touch? Yeah, yeah, whatever.
You may also measure the extent to which the Tories remain leprous by the fact that Labour and the SNP each try to tie the other to the poor old Conservatives. Labour are returning to the good old days, attacking the SNP as Tartan Tories and suggesting any tax cut is some kind of dismal “race to the bottom”. For their part, the SNP argue that Labour is as Unionist a party as the Conservatives and the two of them are in cahoots to frustrate Scotia’s march to a happier, brawer future. There is, on the big questions, nothing to differentiate them and so Labour might as well be dreadful Tories. Labour are aware of this which is one reason why senior Labour figures are so wary of sharing a platform with David Cameron or any other Conservative. I gather the SNP’s polling shows that attacking Labour as being just as bad as the Tories is an effective tactic. There will be more of it.
Nevertheless, Salmond’s careful courting of Murdoch (there’s some speculation the Sun on Sunday will eventually be out for independence) carries some risk. In the first place there is the Murdoch stigma to deal with but it’s also a question of party management. For good reasons, Salmond has been granted great leeway by his members and he has certaily rewarded them richly. Power, it turns out, is worth having and if that requires the occasional compromise then so be it.
However, there must be some on the SNP left who look at how Salmond has softened the edges of independence and are now beginning to wonder: Is this it? Was it really worth all the hassle and hard work to say nothing of the long years filled with defeat after defeat to reach a destination where Scotland is supposedly “independent” yet retains Queen Elizabeth as head of state, remains part of a British currency union and is led by a First Minister keen to cut taxes for corporations and curry favour with plutocrats such as Evil Rupert Murdoch. And, damn it, the First Minister keeps emphasising how little will change after independence. Was this what is was all for?
For the time being these voices are still pretty quiet. Nonetheless, I think we can expect to hear some more grumbling along these lines. And with some justification: Salmond really has moved the party a long way from where it once was. That helped make it electable. But there must be a limit to all this. One wonders how the left would react if – or perhaps when – the SNP keeps Trident on the Clyde, renting facilities to the rest of the UK. This, of course, is a long way from SNP policy but I fancy Trident won’t be a red-line issue in any independence negotiations. The SNP will be flexible because there are bigger matters to be resolved.
Anyway: that’s one reason why Salmond might want to be cautious about courting Murdoch too openly. Not much has stuck to the First Minister n recent years but he might need to be careful about pushing his luck too far. There are obvious benefits to enjoying a good relationship with Murdoch but it’s not by any means a risk free friendship.
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