The anti-social union

So Scotland, which way shall we go?  Straight ahead carrying on much as we are now, or off one way to independence or another to constitutional change but within the UK?  Its been argued that this is the political choice, but whatever happens a social union exists amongst the people of these islands and that will not change.  I wanted to write my thoughts on the idea of social union and how I believe Independence is in fact a process of separation that would change everything - including our ideas of social union.

Scottish nationalists will often argue that they are not separatists, rather they believe in Scotland having political independence with social ties remaining intact within a British social union.  I have heard this while comparing being Scandinavian with being from the British Isles.

This is a clever conceit and one that deserves serious consideration.  It is all the more clever because it is impossible to prove or disprove.  In that sense I need to go with my gut here.  However, I think it is important to test and challenge this argument because it is an all too easy one to make and ultimately, I believe, a false proposition.

The reason I think it is a false proposition is this.  If Scotland were to separate from the United Kingdom there is no Britain anymore and everything changes.  Yes we have a shared language, yes we have shared geography and yes we have a largely shared culture.  But it would be rather like a divorced couple.  The old family has gone, the old household is no more.  They no longer share the same life.  Sure there are ties, shared memories, shared children, shared friends even, but they are no longer married and they live separate lives.  If Scotland becomes independent, Britain will have ceased to be and very quickly no one in the south will be that interested anymore - it is no longer their business and we are no longer theirs. 

To suggest that life after independence is just the same except for eliminating the possibility of a Tory government is disingenuous and wrong.

Michael Ignatieff, the commentator and ex Canadian politician, drawing on Quebec and the Canadian experience, has pointed out that everything will change whatever the result.  Alex Salmond says we will have the Queen, the Pound and the BBC; Unionists say nothing will change because the nationalists will lose. Ignatieff thinks both are wrong.  A lot will change and will change quickly.  Pointing to the Quebec experience, Ignatieff says that the rest of Canada no longer have much to say to each other and that is without the step of full independence.

No, we should be in no doubt, if we become independent there will not be a continuing sort of quasi country existing in the form of a social union without the political union.  Britain will have ceased to be.

In fact the idea of a social union (with political autonomy) describes what we have with devolution and what we can have all the more with some form of developed devolution - not with independence.  Call it what you will - Devo Max/Plus, Home Rule or Federalism - developing devolution is the far more likely outcome of the Independence Referendum.  So, I believe we should be concentrating more discussion on that, what form it takes, how it fits within a wider UK settlement and how we get there. 

Given there is far more that binds us than separates us - culturally, linguistically and geographically; and given our separate identity within a United Kingdom of regions and nations, a significantly devolved Scotland within a United Kingdom remains, as it has always done, by far the most natural settlement.  That is how you preserve a social union.  Independence is the anti-social union.   

Alex Salmond, the Laird Protector

Yesterday saw a bravura performance from Alex Salmond announcing his administration’s programme for the new parliamentary session.

In his speech we saw a central tenet of his political tactics in that all things emanating from Westminster are to be considered bad and all things from Holyrood are considered  good.  The SNP will ride to the protection of the nation while others are impotent or tied to interests elsewhere. 

Salmond is building the case for independence like an Alabama governor railing against Washington.  As if somehow Scotland could do so much better on its own.  I expressed my issue with this in my last post when I quoted Jim Wallace’s interview in the Times last Saturday.  He noted the fallacy of this argument, “that somehow of all the countries in the rest of the world that have experienced economic difficulty, Scotland would be the one that doesn’t have to engage in deficit reduction and is only doing so because it’s being foisted upon us by Westminster.”

Of course, with the SNP, independence is in reality the only show in town.  In this regard the questions put out there by the Secretary of State as necessary to discuss are genuinely important to address.  It is not that there isn’t an answer to these questions, rather it is necessary to think through these core issues if we are to work out the direction of any future constitutional settlement.

Salmond said that Westminster needs to show humility.  Maybe it does.  However, so should he.

Alex Salmond has a mandate to run a competent Holyrood administration and he has a mandate to put the independence question to Scotland .

He does not have a mandate for independence.

The question as to whether we adopt the status quo, reform, devo-max or independence is for the Scottish people to decide. 

Myth busting with Michael Moore

Michael Moore, the Secretary State for Scotland, was in the news last week for making an important speech on the future for Devolution in Scotland.

In the speech he highlighted the UK Government’s Scotland Bill and what he believed it could mean for Scotland, and he set out to show it as an alternative to Independence in the range of options Scotland now has.

As such he set out a rebuttal to nationalism and made the case to consider alternatives studied by Calman and being offered through the Scotland Bill.

Central to his argument was that there will need to be proper scrutiny of any referendum proposals put forward by the Holyrood administration.

He noted, as many of us will have observed, that the SNP thus far have been shy about fleshing out precisely what they mean by independence.

He challenged this by posing 6 questions that need answered in order to understand and then assess the viability of the independence options.

This much readers of this blog will probably be fully aware of.

There is something of myth developing in some quarters that this was a slightly tired and lame attack on independence.  I don’t think it was that at all, and to see it like that was to miss the point being made.

This seemed to me to be a totally reasonable speech and totally reasonable and pertinent questions.

The First Minister’s spokesman called the speech embarrassing and confused.  Many of the polemicists and iconoclasts amongst the cyber nats chose to follow what is very much the house narrative about Michael Moore - whatever he says.  Indeed they are invariably somewhat churlish if not just plain nasty about him.

Such is the business of politics.

Some of the press reaction surprised me.

Iain MacWhirter speaking on “Newsnicht” last Thursday said debate has moved on and the UK government was trying to create fear that Scotland can’t survive as an independent country – that our financial services industry will somehow fail in this set-up.

This was not how I read what was being said at all.

I think it is absolutely right to question Salmond and the nationalist agenda.  We need clarity from the SNP as to where they are taking us, especially as they are now saying things about the links they will maintain with the UK.

We need to move the debate forward ahead of any referendum.

Where I thought MacWhirter was uncharacteristically wrong was that this is not saying 'Scotland cannot survive, so don’t go there or your head will drop off'.  Rather, it is asking for the detail to be put on the table so we can have a detailed debate about all the options and decide where we are going.

This is important.  The SNP won big but it was not a mandate for independence.  They have earned the right to put a referendum and proposals for constitutional change to us.

These are big questions and hitherto most Scots have been against independence. This is a question that involves us all and involves all the options – not just what the national party of Scotland wants.

I also noticed some rather patronising swatting away of these 6 questions saying they had been answered in 2009 in the white paper “Your Scotland, Your Choice”

No they hadn’t!!  At least not in any detail!

If we are to have a referendum we need to discuss precisely these issues in some detail and the practicalities of implementing what is proposed. 

The point is not scaremongering – the debate has indeed moved on.  The point is considering the pros and cons of independence and the other options available, and then the Scottish people deciding on the constitutional direction we want to go in.

Some of these questions will have a perfectly good answer, others will not, but they are important.

Isabel Fraser on 'Newsnicht' seemed to think that issues about finance and the cost of independence had been settled and the debate on that had moved on too.  I don’t think anything has been settled.  As far as costs or financial regulations are concerned we continue to see different arguments being made, quite rationally, with different facts being used.  These issues need debated.   

Two other myths I would like to bust

First that Michael Moore is somehow confused.

Michael Moore is an extremely straightforward and reasonable politician and a first rate constituency MP.

As a minister he is highly intelligent and pays attention to detail.  His is a forensic mind suited to the legislative process and the hard yards of detailed policy implementation.

In fact he forms a highly effective double-act with the Scottish Lib Dem leader, Willie Rennie who is more the performing combative politician in the bear-pit.

The second myth is that Michael Moore is some sort of foreign interloper.

It’s his job as Secretary of State.  As such he is in a pivotal position between the national government and the Scottish administration.  And he is an extremely proud Scotsman representing us in the Westminster arena, just as there are proud Scotsman working in the Holyrood context.

The SNP inevitably try to drive a wedge between Michael Moore at Westminster and Scotland.   

Some of the nationalist writers, set firm in their fantasyland where no one is allowed to fall out of line with the national party, like to present him as some sort of last viceroy.

Wrong again!!  He is a Scot and he is performing a Scottish role in national government in our parliament – at the UK level – it’s not the empire!

But then the Nationalists seem to believe they are on the side of the angels in an evolving utopia under their own Laird Protector Alex.

At best this is a little delusional, at worst it is driven by a latent anti English sentiment.

As Jim Wallace said in the Times this Saturday, this is unimpressive rhetoric, “that somehow of all the countries in the rest of the world that have experienced economic difficulty, Scotland would be the one that doesn’t have to engage in deficit reduction and is only doing so because it’s being foisted upon us by Westminster.”

Bigotry and Booze

Alex Salmond has been announcing his administration's programme for Holyrood.

He highlights the need to tackle bigotry and booze.  That probably neatly sums up the key social problems that affect the modern Scotland - not the only ones - but crucial ones.

I hope the Scottish Parliament as a whole can rally round tackling these problems in a positive way, working together to make policies and legislation that emerges as effective as possible.

I think our other big social problem is our health record with death rates from heart disease and cancer high by European standards.  I hope, as the parliament develops, policies to tackle these issues emerge.  I am concerned that things like free prescriptions are cosmetic and somewhat trivial in their actual impact.  I am concerned that we are not putting more resources into things like cancer clinics like they are doing south of the border.

Salmond also discussed what he is calling the social wage.  He defined this as a pact between politicians, public services and the people.  He went on to say, "We shall deliver the social and economic circumstances that allow for people to dream, to aspire and to be ambitious - but it is for the individual to realise their dreams, to reach for their hopes, to meet their ambitions".

A fine statement, which I agree with and I hope the whole parliament can come together to achieve these ends.

Salmond also said, "Elsewhere on these isles, the tolerance of the poor is being tested - budgets slashed, priorities changed, hope crushed in the braying tones of people who claim to know best".

This is interesting because Salmond does not have to deal with the structural deficit and the economy.

If he was in full government he would have to cut many things that given the choice he would not, and to suggest otherwise is wholly disingenuous!  Remember how marginal Salmond and his administration were to being able to deal with the global financial crisis!

Expanding the fiscal powers of the Scottish parliament does not entirely answer this.  Furthermore, if there was full fiscal autonomy budgets would have to be slashed and priorities changed by Alex Salmond too!

So let us work together on the problems of Scotland.  Be positive to advocate improvements where we can and oppose where cheeky Alex is spinning us.

We didn't vote for independence - did we?

Well, King Alex is safely sworn in as First Minister and he has announced his new cabinet.  And so the  electoral cycle begins again.

Alex says it is as inevitable as anything ever can be in politics that Scotland will be independent.  The wily old dog!

There is one problem.  I don’t think we voted for independence. 

The SNP seemed to gain support as a broadly competent government of whom we should have no fear.  I don’t think their record was particularly scrutinised that deeply as Labour tried to run against the cuts – or whatever Labour were trying to do.  And the others weren’t that effective either.

The writer Gerry Hassan, writing about the Scottish Spring picked up on a deep long term transformation which has been occurring for decades.  This is a change from an age of identifying with the Labour party and seeing the world defined by the workplace, politics and class.

I think also the passing of the generations who lived through World War 2 and identified with a sense of Britishness through that experience has played its part in this transformation, and with it seen the decline of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland.

Into this void has come the SNP, and during the 90s and 00s the Liberal Democrats – particularly under Charlie Kennedy.  Well, the LibDems have blotted their copybook big time while the SNP have grown.

Scotland has changed, tribal loyalties are decaying and the electorate is more volatile

The SNP positioned themselves with a wonderfully coherent sense of positivity and positioning,  A moderate left of centre party able to appeal to working class and middle class, and urban and rural Scotland.  A national party of Scotland.

Of course, the SNP also prospered from the perfect storm of a weak, poorly targeted Labour camapaign with a weak leader, and the collapse of the LibDems because they had gone with the Tories and lost credibility symbolised by the English tuition fees debacle.

So the SNP won and won big!  They have established, at Holyrood at least, two party politics of Labour and non Labour.  One party old, conservative and slightly authoritarian, the other modern, forward looking and aspirational.

But this doesn’t mean we voted for independence!

There does however seem to be support for increased devolution of power to Scotland.

Back in 2007 I for one did not foresee that the SNP were beginning to become more popular.  This may have been because I lived in Edinburgh which was not at that time an especially strong area for the SNP.  Nevertheless, their victory then surprised me.

I thought they would then follow a de-stabilising agenda seeking to undermine the relationship between London and Edinburgh.  In fact they didn’t.  They were much cleverer than that.  Alex Salmond has sought to evolve the parliament at Holyrood, little by little, into an independent Scottish Government.  Independence by stealth.

It is quite cunning and manipulative – but that is ok, that is politics.

With the SNP project has come a growing movement.  They have money, and the support of many key people in business and the arts.  With this comes resources for research, clever young strategists and thinkers.  They also have a cause.  Scratch many a nationalist and you find a hopeless romantic.  Labour have the moral high ground (or so they like to think!) The Tories fight for their values and prosperity.  So too the Nats have a cause that brings passion, people and bright young Turks.

Indeed, with many bright thinkers they are redefining what they mean by nationalism and independence.  For their thinkers Independence is about “...interdependence, partnership in these islands and more widely across Europe.”  They are talking about Scotland, the UK and Europe all still being connected but in a different and more appropriate way.

This is all very interesting.  It strikes me, as a firm believer in a federal solution for the UK and for Scotland , that the SNP may be coming round to a position I hold – maybe!

The Nats have placed their focus firmly on Holyrood.  This includes all their resources and intellectual capital.  It is another reason why they are winning at this level.

The LibDems and Labour need to use the intellectual capital they have with their Scottish contingents at Westminster if they are going to do well again in Scotland – this is especially true of the LibDems who have just taken such a pasting at the Holyrood election.

It is in fact a point I feel is important to not forget – Holyrood is Just one level of government!  Just because the SNP focus on it to the exclusion of other levels and have the agenda at the moment does not alter this fact.

This is the SNP agenda – to evolve Holyrood into a national government – which is not what most of us Scots want!

The Holyrood administration is not, for example, running the economy.  It was noticeable how irrelevant Alex Salmond was during the banking crisis and I can’t imagine how we would have coped with massive global entities like RBS or HBOS with balance sheets many times bigger than that of Scotland’s, if we had been independent!

 I therefore feel there is far more that binds us in the UK together that separates us.  I am a proud Scot and I want to see a strong measure of devolution.  At this juncture in our history I feel it is important we emphasise and celebrate that which binds us together lest we slip unwittingly into the nationalist spider’s web.

We are one island with one language – this is huge!

We are part of one economy – so many of our large companies are British companies based in Scotland.

This is nothing to say of the ties of kinship and friendship across the borders.

I also believe there are many British cultural traditions – some English in origin which have become assimilated into Scots culture like the waters of two streams merging together.

I think of things like:

·         Parliamentary democracy

·         Shakespeare

·         Morecambe and Wise or Coronation Street

Cultural things, English in origin, that have become part of our own culture.

I talked to one Nat recently who pointed out that Scotland once had its own parliament.  I know this! But it never reached the depth and the maturity that the English one did.  Nor did the Scots develop the tradition from medieval times, of rule with the consent of the people from Magna Carta, through the reforms of Henry iV, to the Tudor Settlement of sovereignty in parliament.  These natural rights of Englishmen, tracing themselves right down to Tom Paine, are part of the Scottish radical tradition.  True we have other traditions of thought and politics as wellt that are Scottish in origin, but we must not falsely separate our culture from other parts of Britain.

‘Wha’s Like Us?’ We have so, so much to be proud of as Scots for such a small nation but we should not build up a myth of superiority and wonderful traditions that are not quite as perfect as we would like.  But then sometimes nationalists do this.  Sometimes they are no strangers to a good measure of baloney!  

So there we have it.  I am concerned that the nationalists seek, through Holyrood, to drive a wedge to separate Britain by stealth.

This is not what most Scots want I believe.  A move towards a federal settlement may on the other hand be something there is support for and a basis on which we can do business.

It is important in the UK, before we run away with the nationalist fairy, that we recognise there is far more that binds us than separates us.

After all – we didn’t vote for independence – did we?

When the SNP are sometimes irrelevant

I read with enormous interest what Vince Cable had to say in the Guardian today.  I also note what Ed Miliband has been saying over the weekend.

We face some enormous issues.

Cable argues that we are facing profound long term change because of the banking collapse, the recession and the changing world economy.

He argues that some fundamentals were wrong with our economy based on consumer spending, a housing bubble, and an overweight banking system where three banks had a balance sheet larger than the British economy.   The deficit was only one of the symptoms of the financial crisis. This is a profound weakness and will take a long time to fix.

He also highlighted some fundamental shifts in the global economy he points out that the UK now takes prices from international commodity markets driven by China and India.  This means we are vulnerable to rising prices on commodity markets in a way we weren't before.

These things will be a challenge for government to put right

Miliband said, “We need a different kind of economy, fairer to the lowest paid and demanding greater responsibility from the higher paid: broader based, less reliant on financial services.”

Interestingly, and correctly, Miliband also highlighted that the problem of tuition fees began with Labour.

I suspect both Cable and Miliband broadly share the same analysis.

Cable pointed out that Labour are in denial that there is a big structural problem with the UK economy. “So we stick to this short-term, tit for tat: why has growth in this quarter been slower, the scale of cuts should be slower - there is genuine debate we should be having about how radical reforms to the financial sector should be - but there is not, from the progressive wing of politics a sustained critique or pressure and argument.”


These are big questions and I think both Cable, and now Ed Miliband, are trying to get to grips with that critique and how we can make a fundamental difference for the better.   

What of the SNP in Scotland?

The SNP administration is not the same as a government at a national level.

The have no direct responsibility for macro economic affairs.

They are not in charge of foreign policy.

The SNP administration is actually quite marginal to many of the most important issues to our lives.

They were actually shown to be powerless and rather on the fringe of events when it came to dealing with the banking crisis in 2008 and 2009.  In many ways I thought Salmond and his administration lost their way at this time.

This, I believe raises some tough questions.

The Scottish economy with its major financial institutions belongs most effectively as part and parcel of a larger national economy, not a smaller one.  And I believe that national structure should be a federal one not an independent one – because it isn’t independent!

And saying we are part of Europe does not fully deal with this conundrum. There is a national dimension in terms of economic cycle, fiscal policy, inflation and currency policy.  We fit into the Pound Sterling zone, not the German based Euro zone.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am a fan of Europe.  It is incredibly important to us now and in the future.  It is an important supra-national building block in a global economy and society.    

I am no Conservative with their Euro scepticism and outright hostility from some quarters.  This seems to me to be an outdated and unreconstructed philosophy in which I do not share.

So long term the re-engineering of the UK’s economy is vital.  In Scotland we badly need a stronger private sector so we are not so reliant on the public sector and the financial sector for jobs.  This is a big issue for the modern Scotland, as it is for all of Britain.

While there is a Scottish dimension and a role to play by the Salmond administration in Edinburgh, this is a problem that I think is best dealt with at a UK level.  The financial services sector for example is on too large a scale and organised on a national UK level and beyond for it to be purely the remit of Holyrood.

I see the potential for the misplaced romanticism of the Nats to be actually quite destructive – particularly if their game is to make believe that they are a national government until it actually becomes so.

Politics is all about context of course, but in the context of the changing world economy and the UK model, what Cable and Miliband have to say is more important than what Holyrood is doing.  The SNP has chosen to largely ignore Westminster and focus on Holyrood.  Just because the SNP has decided to focus on this context and have been swept to a stunning victory in the conditions of 2011 does not make the economic facts of life different.  In just this context, the SNP administration can at times be somewhat irrelevant - #just sayin’. 

What next for the LibDems in Scotland?

No getting away from it but the results for the LibDems last week were an unmitigated disaster!

In England and Wales it takes them back to the early 90s but in Scotland it takes the Scottish Liberal Democrats back to where they were in 1979 - if not before.

That is over 30 years of incremental steps flushed down the toilet - disappeared like snow off a dyke, destroying all the advances under Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Chris Rennard!

Someone in the blogosphere said to me before the results, that In Scotland it looks like we are finished – no-one is listening! And sure, I have already noticed the BBC completely marginalising the LibDems from their political discussion - perhaps given our derisory result this is fair!

But, there are a few crumbs of comfort.

Where we had established MPs in the UK as a whole the LibDem vote held up.  The wipe out came where we had made very recent advances in Labour areas – perhaps that is entirely understandable.

In fact, we held on in many parts of the south and the south west.

I am conscious that a 15% vote is a whole lot better than our poll ratings and not far off our typical between election ratings – albeit at a local election where we always do tons better than at a General.

Scotland is where it is most dire and where I am worried about the future.

But even here let us think some more about where we are.

This is a low water mark with a freak tide.

In these conditions there are still several seats where we achieve a large vote. Much like we had in 1979! It is imperative for the LibDems to stay engaged and active with the electorate in these areas and make sure we hold as many Westminster seats as possible and can come back at a subsequent Holyrood election.

This is of course no mean feat because some of this ground once lost could be gone forever.

A new leader will bring with it a chance for renewal.  At time of writing I am expecting this to be Willie Rennie.  We need him to have all the charisma and intellectual rigour he can manage.

The UK context

We must also remember that in the UK context - and yes Scotland is part of the UK - we are still a big party – and in a UK context bigger than the SNP.  We are also in government.

We need the LibDems to be distinctive within a coalition of two parts! We need Clegg to be our leader.

We must also beware! Beware of looking too English.  It doesn't always do us much credit here in Scotland, but to look too English is political suicide.

The LibDems at Westminster need to realise this.  We need Charlie Kennedy and Ming as an elder statesman.  We need our stronger performers like Jo Swinson and Alistair Carmichael.  We need Danny Alexander to look as bright and able as he is - and he doesn't always get this over. And we need Michael Moore to step up to the plate more than he has done. 

Our fortunes are very tied in with the coalition and the perceived performance of the LibDems and of Nick Clegg in particular.

What of Nick Clegg?

Clegg has had a torrid time - and there is a fair amount of absolute bilge written about him.  However, he has not always seemed sure footed with political nous.  Last year I was very impressed with the preparation for and the run up to the election campaign.  The website was good, the positioning was good, the party platform was good, Cable played a blinder, the launch was excellent, Clegg showed real quality in debate, and the Daily Fail et al trying to kill him off was seen off well - not least with the internet trumping the print media!  I was a little unsure of how Clegg handled the close of the campaign allowing himself to be too drawn on the who would you support afterwards question.  I felt he handled that less well than his predecessors.

Since the election I felt they handled the coalition negotiations well - but, with hindsight some mistakes have been made and Clegg seems to lack political nous at times.  The way tuition fees was handled was a huge mistake.  The way the coalition operates and the way Clegg appears as an ambassador for the Coalition rather than the Liberal Democrat's leader appears not quite right.  Someone has suggested some of this may come from working in Europe where the fighting is done behind closed doors more than our public bear-pit adversarial tradition.

Whatever the case I am glad Clegg is coming out fighting, as are others.  They need to think this through and to change perceptions.  And, I would say that Ashdown, who was an enormously successful leader, was wooden and unsteady in the early days.  So all power to Clegg who, I think, as more steel and more intellectual depth than his enemies realise.
  
LibDems defecting to the SNP

The SNP gained lots of previous LibDem voters.

We need to remind this group of why they liked the LibDems in the first place if they are going to come back to us. 

We lost badly because of the loss of credibility over English tuition fees and going into coalition with the Tories - still an unforgivable sin in Scottish politics.

I knew the writing was on the wall for the Scottish LibDems when three things happened in that final week. 

First, a co-worker announced they had voted LibDem last time and no-one would be voting LibDem again.  No hostility just for him a complete lack of credibility because he perceived we had gone back on our platform and gone with the Tories which he could never accept.  We had become irrelevant to him.

Second, a close relative who is also English (unlike me) announced they would vote SNP!!!  They don't like the SNP, as an English person they don't really realte to them.  But to them the LibDems couldn't really be trusted to do anything they said if in a coalition situatuion and they liked the SNP stance on tuition fees given they have kids coming to that stage in the next two years.

Third, when I read Tory Gavin Brown's good morning leaflet which very effectively put over that the LibDem vote had collapsed all over Scotland over the campaign.  It was so effective and spoke to the polls and the national mood - we had no credibility even as an electoral force in our strong areas.  This meant all those pretty bar grapphs and betting odds were de-bunked with a few words.

I knew then that even our rump support and LibDem fanboys would be washed away by an electoral tsunami.

We need to rebuild


We need to reassert who the Liberal Democrats are and what we stand for - and we need to particularly do this in Scotland.

We have been down before - the late 60s when we had only 6 seats in the entire UK.  The late 70s when we fell back from the success for the 74 elections, again in the late 80s following the bust up of the Alliance when the Greens outpolled us at the Euro-elections and the national poll ratings weer worse than now!. 

Then, as I hope now is the case, we came through because there was market demand for many to vote for a moderate left of centre party! 

There is however a problem in Scotland - that is EXACTLY how the SNP present themselves! They also have a charismatic and polical genius of a leader in Alex Salmond.  They have the credibility of being in government and being perceived as doing ok.

This is of course an easier gig.  They are the government not the junior partners.  They don't have the fall-out from a global financial storm of the century to deal with directly.

So cracking Scotland will be very hard.

We could build credibility using the local elections.  We are after all in power, with the SNP, in Edinburgh.  But this will prove difficult as the ill fated trams project threatens to derail this as the vehicle back from the brink - as local government did for us in the 1990s.  

Our future is bound up in how the public perceive the SNP over the next few years every bit as much as our future is bound to how the LibDems perform and are perceived to perform at Westminster.

The future

The SNP will have their challenges over the next few years.  However, Salmond is clealy a political genius.

The SNP were nowhere in 80s, slowly stumbled forward in 90s and early 2000s but over the last 5 or 6 years they have got professional.  I always think you can tell the party that has mementum at an election count because they have lots of young people in suits! Last Thursday the SNP had a lot of young people in suits! 

The LIbDems need to pin a lot of hope on the SNPs fortunes over the next few years or otherwise.  Will they prove to be a house of cards?

There is a tough time ahead.  While they can hope to deliver some low hanging fruit in terms of policy initiatives the deficit cuts will bring challenges.  The Scottish government will have to deliver cuts and the expenditure environment will restrict their room for manoeuvre, and possibly their room for deivery on their agenda. 

They are also Nationalists, hitherto most of Scotland is not.  Much of what they do and the national discussion will be seen through a prism of the relationship with the rest of the UK.  There is a risk that some of them will start to sound shrill! (Even if in election mode they have done so well to sound positive)

The Times on Saturday put it very well - the vote for the SNP was a vote for an aspirational Scotland, not a vote for independence.

Of course in the wave of enthusiasm and optimism the SNP may be able to change hearts and build confidence in this matter.  Time will tell.

However, I am sensing a fair amount of tosh been written about the constitutional question at the moment.  The election of an SNP government with a majority means this question will be to the fore and we will debate this a lot in the next few years - and all the options of developing autonomy.

I look forward to it.  I hope we get it right.

LibDem positioning

The LibDems have always been a non socialist alternative to Tories - and in Scotland we have been a non nationalist alternative to Labour. 

We must be clear of this and rebuild on this basis.

Never mind anyone else - we need to communicate who we are and what we are about from first principles upwards.

I believe we understand the needs to have a have a successful business environment to empower Scotland as a country and to prosper.  We also believe in having first class public services free at the point of delivery.

We are Internationalist in outlook and believe in reform and looking forward.  We are modern and aspirational and open minded.

Being green is part of our DNA and has been since it was less fashionable - we have a passionate interest in developing renewables and alternative forms of energy for the future.

We are also great believers in community politics, of decentralisation - and I think empowering micro groups out in society doing things.  The big, blunt statist solution is not for us.

We want Scotland to grow and to prosper - both as a society and as an economy.

The SNP may be similar but Salmond, rather like Tito and the old Yugoslavia, holds a disparate group together – they are doing it rather well but it may not always be so.

We have to be us.

One good thing is that Scotland's political world has been turned upside down with the debunking of Labour.  It opens up the chance to have a new politics that is not ruled by a Labour single party state.

The old tribal loyalties are dying as the generations move on.  As in the rest of the UK the electorate is far more volatile.

These changes have delivered growing success to Salmond’s SNP

In the recent past they delivered success to us in the suburbs of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, in parts of rural Scotland - an aspirational open minded electorate.

Scotland has always done well as we our outlook in terms of science, ideas and trade look beyond our borders – and our dreams and ideas are allowed to soar.  The SNP, ultimately, may not be the best vehicle for this.

Holyrood is about to see the return of two party politics and a stale fight of little differences between SNP and Labour.

In that fray we need to take our part in the thought leadership of the nation.  We need to be clear about who we are and what our ideas are that will allow Scotland to prosper. 

I think we also need to be clear that we are very much part of the UK - the time has come to remember the things that hold us together because I believe they are rather more than the things that tear us apart.

And we must play our part in Europe - because globalisation will not go away whatever UKIP or some Tories may think.

In conclusion

There we have it.

The LibDem future in Scotland depends very much on the pereception of the LibDems at Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood.

But we must also work hard at playing a full part in the thought leadership of ideas to take Scotland forward - and then establishing a simple and clear positioning.

We need Willie Rennie to be good and our Westminster MPs to be strong and visible.

None of this will be easy but I hope we succeed - I know we will try!