Losing Faith in the SNP?

     Yesterday, Darren McGarvey – known as Loki the Scottish Rapper – wrote an open letter to Nicola Sturgeon on STV in which he laid out his frustrations with the SNP and the independence movement, along with his intention to not vote for the party on Election Day in May.

     The letter consisted of McGarvey describing the harrowing details of his mother’s upbringing in Gorbals, one of the worst slums in Glasgow, and how she had to deal with alcoholic parents who could not look after their children – leaving McGarvey’s mother to take up the slack. He spoke of the disgusting filth and squalid conditions of their home, personal belongings sold off to purchase cigarettes or alcohol, the lack of privacy (in the old-fashioned way), the debt collectors, the drug dealers, and the disgrace of children being made to fight over scraps of food as a spectators sport for drunks.

     It was in short, not really a home so much as it was an “open-plan torture chamber where deprivation, in the truest sense of the word, was the absolute default position” and where “poverty had not only corrupted people, but left them grotesquely deformed.” There was no place to hide and no one to find for comfort.

     Without a support structure, McGarvey’s mother could not properly cope with life’s challenges, and would descend into her own bout of alcoholism following the birth of McCarvey himself. From here, he vividly described his own upbringing, which included being at the receiving end of her drunken sprees, watching her calm herself with drugs via needles, the abandonment brought upon him and his siblings, and generally living in a chaotic atmosphere.

     Eventually, he too would fall into a similar trap with alcohol and drugs which rendered him unable to look after his brothers and sisters as the family tore itself apart.

     Thankfully, he has come out of this, been sober for over a year, is back to being active in the lives of his siblings, and celebrated the birth of his first child. Unfortunately, his long-suffering mother passed on long ago at the tragically early age of only 36.

     McGarvey’s heart-breaking personal story is one that can repeated throughout multiple generations in Scotland, and it speaks to the sort conditions which have led to what he describes as a “desperation for change.” For him and many others, this was seemingly answered by the SNP and the idea of independence, and as he continues to speak to Nicola Sturgeon (as well as the rest of us), he tells of how he has been voting for the SNP since 2006 “because something radical needs to be done about poverty in this country” and saw independence as a means of “paying more than lip service to tackling the deep social inequality that creates the conditions for deprivation to thrive.”

     He explained that Sturgeon was the first politician he ever believed in, and now he finds himself disappointed in the some of the proposed policies of Sturgeon and the party going into the election only a month away – policies such as keeping tax rates the same as the rest of the UK and halving air passenger duty, which are “aimed at affluent communities who voted No in 2014” and “providing assurances more of the same awaits them should they throw caution to the wind and decide to vote Yes at the next referendum.”

     The result is that he wonders that if this is going to be the case in a devolved Scotland within the United Kingdom, what does the future hold should Scotland become – as he campaigned for in 2014 – an independent country? How can Sturgeon expect to get the well-off to pay more in taxes as an independent country when she, “the most powerful First Minister ever”, won’t ask them to do so now for fear that they will leave Scotland?

     He watches as the SNP pursues policies based on pragmatism and the need for votes from the middle classes, and he expresses his frustration at the party “cultivating a tolerance for low taxation coupled with moderate incremental reform, peppered with comforting social justice rhetoric that barely tweaks the status quo never mind challenges it.”

     For McGarvey, separation was not simply about “getting over the line”, but it was about achieving a new direction with new policies which spoke to urgency of dealing with poverty. With the new powers under the recently-passed Scotland Act, Holyrood under Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP – with a fresh mandate expected in May – is in a greater position than ever to act on many of Scotland’s generational societal ills in a way that the SNP (dubiously) claimed could not be done under the old constitutional arrangements. Separation may be desirable in the long-term, but it is not necessary now to achieve many of the goals of McGarvey and others like him who have “more than just a passing interest in social justice.” His life experiences have shaped who he is, and as far as he is concerned:

“There is no pragmatism where inequality is concerned. There is only action and inaction. If you can't make an argument for slightly higher taxes to a class of educated people who are fortunate enough to be doing well in a terminally unequal society then I already know what is required of me as a citizen.”

     He further laments that Scottish independence appears to be “an increasingly elastic notion” with no real substance behind it except aside from being all things to all people, which breeds centrist policies to maximize votes and not “scare the horses”, but which fail to even come close to the radical vision he and so many others bought into.

     For many of them who voted Yes in 2014 and for the SNP in 2015, McGarvey goes so far to say that the current circumstances present a dilemma; some – likely most – are so committed to the dream of independence, that they will look the other way and will continue support Sturgeon and the SNP in a “bold and unwavering fashion.” McGarvey believes that this dilemma must be confronted head-on, but in the absence of that, he does not believe that the SNP is worthy of his vote this year.

     His story and his view is one that is being repeated throughout Scotland: people who voted Yes because they believed that separation would bring the change they desired, and then voted for the SNP because they saw it as being the best party to deliver that change – in or out of the UK.

     They had believed that with separation and breaking up the UK, Scotland could pursue radically different policies than the rest of the UK. Indeed, they bought into the rhetoric that Scotland and the rest of the UK were so different in political and economic thought, that separation was necessary; they painted a vision of radical Scotland needing to free itself from the reactionary conservatism of Tory England.

     They had believed the rhetoric of the Labour Party being “Red Tories” who were too scared to offend the English middle classes with radical policies and higher taxes, and that Scotland was much more egalitarian and amenable to paying more in taxation to pay for more public services and reduce poverty. They believed that the actual Tories were the root of all evil (and all of Scotland’s problems – not to mention “anti-Scottish” in the words of Nicola Sturgeon herself), that the LibDems were lapdogs at one stage or another for both parties, and that the Union was incapable of delivering on progressive policies because the overall electorate was too “small-c” conservative and required the main parties to compromise and be pragmatic.

     Now they are discovering that Scotland is hardly as radical as they had believed, that the Scottish middle classes aren’t that different in temperament and political/economic values as their English counterparts, and that the SNP – when given the choice – will stick to the middle ground on a centrist platform which embraces pragmatism, you know, like most political parties which aspire to have power and achieve other political goals.

     For the SNP, their main goal has been and always will be separation and breaking up Britain, and they know that they will need moderate Middle Scotland to carry them over the line. So while it is convenient to use left-wing rhetoric to get votes from the Scottish Left and displace the Labour Party, the reality is that the SNP will not do anything to cost them votes where they matter the most. If anything, the SNP is doing what the Tories and Labour did during their periods of dominance in the 20th Century: appealing to where Scots are comfortable at, and that’s in the moderate middle, which again, is the same winning formula in most Western democracies – including the United Kingdom as a whole.

     These sort of points were made time and again throughout the referendum to combat that simplistic notion of left-wing Scotland vs. right-wing England, but it was a notion that proved intoxicating to many people, including Darren McGarvey. If anything, the SNP shamelessly used long-term tragic circumstances such as his to get votes for the independence cause based on the idea that only with independence could Scotland build the sort of fairer society where children would not grow up in dire poverty like McGarvey and his family.

     Again, this was countered by the fact that there is deep poverty in other parts of the UK – in Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Swansea, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Belfast, and London itself – and that it made more sense for the UK to stay together as a country in order to achieve progress together through common solidarity among the British people and the pooling and sharing of resources.

     The SNP slickly attempted to appeal to people’s fears and anxieties by telling them that independence would make it all better, and many – feeling they nothing to lose – voted Yes. Since then, they have stuck with the SNP, and as they watch to see the SNP make compromises to stay in power, some have become dismayed like McGarvey over tax policy. Others are concerned about the Named Person initiative, the lack of transparency in government, and more recently, the SNP cozying up to China. Increasingly, they are venting their frustration on social media, some are leaving the party, and prominent independence-sympathetic writers such as Iain Macwhirter and Kevin McKenna are warning the SNP to not forget the people and ideals they had brought to the fore in 2014. At some point, people may question the point of separation and ask whether it is truly worth it.

     But in the words of columnist David Torrance during the leaders debate on March 24th:

     That being said – and with Labour and the Liberal Democrats proposing tax increases – it is difficult to imagine the SNP not being in power once again – likely with another majority. However, there does seem to be a realization on the part of some people that the SNP and its vision for separation are not magic bullets that can solve anyone’s problems. The sooner this is realized by more individuals, the better, so that folks of all persuasions throughout the United Kingdom can join together to move forward to create the better society that everyone wants.

Great British April Fools!

     And what a day it was indeed as I came across several amusing prank statuses on social media throughout the day from across the Great Pond. Some were more obvious than others, and some looked quite serious until I had taken the time to actually read and think about them to come to the conclusion that it was an April Fool’s joke. Either way, this year's April Fools was a great exercise in British humor on display, and in this post, I am going to share some of the more memorable statuses and articles based on people and things involving the United Kingdom!

Royal Brexit Intervention

     The first sign of April Fools for me came in form of an “exclusive” article by the Guardian which claimed that the Royal Family was “seriously considering making a dramatic intervention” in the debate over whether Britain ought to continue its membership of the European Union. On a united front, the family would come down in support on British membership and in doing so, were prepared to risk provoking a constitutional crisis by running contrary to the long-standing precedent of the Royal family not getting involved in political campaigns and taking sides.

     It was claimed that the decision to do this was an indication of how “deep their anger is at parts of the British press and senior politicians.”

     With regard to the press, the family was reportedly dismayed by the way the Sun newspaper depicted Her Majesty as a Brexit supporter, the claims of Prince William being “workshy” by the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, and a story about Kate being “posher” than the blood royals. As for politicians, they supposedly had reserved criticism for Michael Gove (“that awful little leaker who put it about that the Queen wanted out”), Boris Johnson (“a cycling maniac from Islington”), Nigel Farage (“another awful little man”), and David Cameron – who couldn’t be trusted with this referendum because he had made a “damn close-run thing” of the Scottish referendum two years ago.

     So to prevent this current referendum from going south, the Royal family (based on advice from outside experts) decided that their pro-EU effort ought to be lead by Prince Philip – “a figure with impeccable European credentials, a strong affinity with the continent and the character to speak out.”

     The Greek-born Duke of Edinburgh was said to be “hugely impressed by the way the EU stepped in, not just once but several times, to save Greece” and that he “admires what [Greek prime minister] Tsipras and [former Greek finance minister] Varoufakis achieved” – seeing a bit of his younger self in Varoufakis, but also stating his belief that Greece would have been better served if the military junta of 1967-74 had stayed in place.

     It was at this point that I realized that this was an April Fool’s joke. It is true that Prince Philip speaks his mind, but in no world could I imagine him speaking in admiration of the utterly inept Tsipras government or the EU’s hyper-austerity measures upon the Greek people. Besides all that, the Duke comes off as a Euroskeptic anyway, and some Royal commentators have made note of his views being oriented in that direction.

     I looked back at the top of the article to see who wrote it, only to find no name, but instead a byline with: “By our royal correspondent.” The other parts of the article, which looked humorous to begin with, were now hilarious as I laughed at some of quotes attributed to members of the Royal family, and laughed my myself for taking it seriously and almost getting a heart attack!

     The rest of the article made cheeky references to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon having her eyes on living in Royal family’s private Balmoral Estate in Aberdeenshire and princes William and Harry deliberating on whether to an interview with Tom Bradby or appear on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (SNT). Both are on ITV and would have been a way for them to get back at the BBC (the Bleating Broadcasting Corporation) for its “cocking up the Queen’s water pageant with those disc jockeys instead of using a [David] Dimbleby”, while SNT in particular would appeal to “people in the north with accents.” There was also another jibe at Prince Philip – claiming that his forthrightness and propensity for swearing would necessitate a recorded broadcast.

     As if to make the point about April Fool’s clear, the article ended by saying that there was plenty of time to “iron things out between today – 1 April – and June.”

     So this was a genuinely good effort on the part of the Guardian at an April Fool’s joke. It certainly got my attention when I first read the headline as it came across my Facebook feed, and I must say, others initially feel for it as well before realizing many of the statements were a bit outlandish. Of course, I knew that the Royal family should know better than to get so brazenly involved in a political campaign for one side, but this is a testament to how good of an article it was, and it was great fun to read it.

The Fourth Forth Bridge

     Meanwhile on VisitScotland.com, there was a blog post announcing plans for constructing a new railroad bridge across the Firth of Forth – right next to the iconic Victorian original of 1890 and becoming the fourth bridge to connect the Lothians and Fife.

     It said that in the Year of Innovation, Architecture, and Design 2016, VisitScotland and Network Rail had joined up to build a new bridge as “an exciting new project” which would help ensure that the current rail bridge “can continue to wow visitors and locals alike for hundreds of years to come.”

     Indeed, the blog post seemed plausible with its mention of Network Rail reporting a “huge rise in demand for train travel in Scotland” spurred by the opening of the Borders Railway and the launch of the Spirit of Scotland Travelpass. The new bridge, it claimed, would cost £1.4 billion and allow 400 trains to cross the Forth every day. In fact, it would carry the majority of the daily crossings while the existing Victorian structure would be “free to become an even more fantastic attraction, with special steam train rides, bridge climbs and themed excursions available throughout the year”, along with special round trips over both bridges.

     There was even a blueprint of the bridge design – a triple arch design complementing the current bridge and with an appearance that would make it seem as though three Sydney Harbour Bridges were being built back-to-back, and the post also featured a beautiful artists impression of what this new crossing would look like alongside the other ones, including the still-building Queensferry Crossing. Construction would begin in 2018 and be overseen by Ailsa Polyford, a Scottish architect, “whose current work includes bridges in Berlin, Tokyo and Manchester.”

     The blog also featured a video with Network Rail Senior Communications Manager Craig Bowman explaining the rationale for the bridge and its mid 20th Century design – saying that they didn’t want something which “clashed” too much with the Victorian design of the original.

     This one was harder to decipher as an April Fools prank, but the first red flag was the name of the bridge: the “Fourth Bridge” (geddit? ;-)). This seemed a bit too cartoonish/cheeky, and then I looked up Ailsa Polyford, only to find that there was no information to be found on what should have been a globally-recognized individual.

     However, it may have also difficult to sniff out due to the fact that there is an element of truth to this “new” bridge. When VisitScotland updated the blog to admit the hoax (with a new video featuring Craig Bowman), they explained that in the course of creating the new visitor’s experience for the existing Forth Rail Bridge, plans for an actual second rail bridge were unearthed. As the plans are dated from early 1945, it is currently speculated that they were drawn up to provide a back-up railroad bridge during the Second World War, but there is really little known substantively about this proposed structure and Network Rail and VisitScotland are asking for anyone who may know something about it to come forward.

     So there is not a “Fourth” Forth Bridge in the works, but with regard to April Fools however, the people involved did a fabulous job in presenting this prank with something seeming so plausible, precisely because it was plausible - at least, in another time.

The Celtic Union

     Later during the day, there was an article in the Independent about members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly being in discussions to split away from the UK in the event of a Brexit vote in which the UK as a whole decides to terminate its EU membership, but without the majority of Scottish and Welsh voters going along with it.

     The article presents heavily redacted documents “leaked from the resulting Cabinet Office committee meeting on ‘Brexit consequences’” which claim that David Cameron and Number 10 know of these discussions, which have been dubbed as a “joint cessation” between Wales and Scotland, who will form a new country known as the “Celtic Union.” In addition, there were plans for a “Celtic Gateway” tunnel linking the two counties via the Isle of Man, with a map included and costs estimated to be £7 billion (and partly funded by the EU).

     Downing Street’s “Brexit Committee” also raised the issue of passports being necessary in the new union and Bank of England expert warned that breaking up the UK in two would result in “a prolonged period of stagnation” for both economies. Other issues were discussed, such as building a Trump-inspired wall or moat around England and mulling over a name change for the remaining English-Northern Irish UK rump – potentially dropping “Great” from Great Britain.

     The article also states that the Independent has attempted to obtain information on these meetings via a Freedom of Information Act request, but was turned down. They were able to get their hands on them via a whistle-blower, whose identity they have promised to protect, and who has taken safe shelter “in an undisclosed location in Moscow.” An “update” later cited the protest punk group Pussy Riot as giving their support to the whistle blower and added: “It is testament to the lack of transparency of world governments that Russia, with its history of media censorship and government unaccountability, has become the destination of choice for international whistle blowers.”

     Unlike the first two pranks, this one was rather obvious off the bat – at least to me. Perhaps by this time during the day when I found the article, my mind was set to believe that it was a hoax, but then again, the whole thing just read like a fantasy. The tunnel plan looked quite unrealistic compared to the “Fourth” Forth Bridge. Reading further down, the “documents” appeared too redacted – almost a cartoonish and over-the-top vision of government censorship, and the Whitehall whistleblower was so obviously modeled on Edward Snowden.

Queen of Twitter strikes again!

     Far more hilarious than the hypothetical separatist scenario outlined by the Independent were real separatists in real time getting trolled by none other than J.K. Rowling.

     It started when the founder of the so-called “Scottish Resistance” James Scott posted a doctored photo of the Edinburgh-based Harry Potter author wearing their t-shirt with the caption: “Breaking News: JK Rowling has joined the Scottish Resistance and has started her new book The Fall of the House of Westmonster.”

     When alerted to the prank by BuzzFeed’s Jaime Ross on Twitter, Rowling responded, “They needn't have used photoshop, though”, and posted a picture of herself wearing a Scottish Resistance shirt, which was hugely received by the Twittersphere as she had the last laugh.

@JamieRoss7 @ExcelPope They needn't have used photoshop, though. pic.twitter.com/V1JRdKV5Yc

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2016

Ocean Liners for Fools

     The next couple of April Fool’s pranks from yesterday are actually inside jokes within the ocean liner community, but are focused on British vessels, with the first two dealing with the phenomenon of people believing just about anything they see with regard to the Titanic.

     There’s this bit about a Titanic “lifeboat” being found in Iceland – having been pushed up there by the Gulf Stream and now only recently exposed by melting ice as a result of global warming. This status was written by Steve Hall, a prominent author of Titanic books, and believe me, there are many people who would fall for this if they didn’t know any better.

     Then there’s the situation when some people will look at just about any ship with four funnels (smokestacks) and conclude that it’s the Titanic. Enter this from Jonathan Smith, another prominent Titanic historian, which features a "newly-discovered" photo containing the great ship, but with a cartoonish vessel laid over it with four funnels and slapped with the name Titanic. To add more of a joke to it, the doctored photo is captioned as Titanic leaving Belfast for her sea trials on April 1, 1912, when in fact, her sea trials – though scheduled for April 1st – actually took place on April 2nd due to unfavorable weather the day before.

     Finally, there is this photo (courtesy of ocean liner enthusiast, Brent Holt) of what the Cunard Line’s RMS Queen Mary 2 will look like when she is returned to service from her overhaul this summer.

     In fact, this paint scheme is actually reminiscent of two past Cunarders, the Mauretania (1939) and the Caronia (1949), which had similar green paint schemes. In the case of the Caronia, she used this paint scheme throughout her career and was nicknamed the "Green Goddess", but the Mauretania only used it for the last three years of her career as she did more cruising.

    However, it is fair to say that when the Queen Mary 2 returns to service, she will do so with the traditional black and white scheme which she has used and which most of her predecessors have used since the beginning of modern ocean travel in the 19th Century.

     So, it’s fair to say that April Fools Day 2016 was quite an interesting one as a Britophile, and I hope it was just as interesting and light-hearted for everyone else out there! Remember - if it's too good to be true, it probably is!

Pragmatism, Taxes, and the SNP

     Last week, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that going into the Scottish Parliament election in six weeks, her party would maintain the 45% top rate of income tax for the highest earners in Scotland once Holyrood has full control of tax rates and bands during the course of the next parliament. This marks a reversal by the SNP leader, who had argued for restoring the 50% rate at the UK general election last year in the name of raising additional revenue for public services and education.

     The reasoning for abandoning the policy was that it would not raise much revenue and cause tax competition that could see high earners earner more than £150,000 leave Scotland or relocate their address in the rest of the UK – thereby not paying any income tax in Scotland at all once full devolution comes about.

     If this sounds similar, it is because it the same reasoning that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne used to reduce the top rate from 50% to 45% throughout the UK in the belief that some investors and entrepreneurs already in the UK would leave for a lower-tax country, and thereby not paying any income in the UK altogether.

     Now, regardless of your views on tax policy and the merits of taxing people according their ability to pay, the reality is that most people don’t like paying taxes and when they do, they would rather not pay more – even if they tell opinion polls that they do, and this applies to Scotland just as everywhere else. This is why the SNP is reluctant to raise taxes on anybody, not least the middle and upper classes who have helped the party rise to prominence in the last decade.

     But for many of the more recent SNP voters – many of them working class former Labour voters in Glasgow, Dundee, Dumbartonshire, and Lanarkshire – they believed that the SNP was supposed to be a more radical, progressive, and bold party than the party they had left. It was not merely that they had been disappointed with the party standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the Conservatives to save the Union, but it was the discontented feeling that the party had taken them for granted for some time and were seen as drifting to the right and away from their socialist political principles in the pursuit of power at Westminster.

     New MP’s such as Mhairi Black defeated Labour heavyweights such as Douglas Alexander at the general election last year on the wave of this discontent, and with the message that Labour had left them, not the other way around. They made speeches filled with platitudes about fairer and more progressive taxation, and standing for left-wing principles – and in this regard, Black cited one of Labour’s left wing stalwarts, Tony Benn, as one of her political hero’s.

     However, the problem with Benn was that many of his cherished principles were not widely shared by voters throughout the United Kingdom, at least not at the ballot box, which explains why Labour lost with its infamous “suicide note” in 1983 and found that it had to moderate in order to be in sync with the center ground of British politics. Today, the SNP is doing the same with regard to Scotland in particular, and this means chucking away the 50% top rate in order to stay in power at Holyrood.

     To be clear, this article is not advocating anything on either side of the tax debate, but is merely pointing out that many ex-Labour voters found a new home in a party they believed was chock full of social justice warriors, and would be bold and do things differently than the other parties, like hiking taxes on the well off and getting away from the “austerity agenda” of Westminster. Now alongside dropping the 50% top rate for high earners, these people are watching as the SNP also effectively gives a gift to well-off frequent flyers via the halving of air-passenger duty.

     Now, some people who are politically savvy may say that this is just politics, and that of course you place yourself in the middle ground to win an election. Grow up and smell the coffee, they say. Again, that’s politics.

     Sorry, but so often during the referendum and general election, the SNP/anti-Union rhetoric was how Labour was basically too frit to raise taxes because it would have cost them in marginal constituencies (the UK equivalent to “swing” states or congressional districts in US politics), where only a small swing is needed to flip a constituency from one party to another. Many such marginal constituencies – usually inhabited by middle class voters not keen on tax increases – happen to be to England. Thus, the implication was that Scots are more amenable to paying higher taxes, and that Labour betrayed working class Scottish voters (who wanted tax increases on upper earners) to chase after middle-to-upper income English voters (who didn't want taxes increased), and this was used to argue for separation and voting for the SNP.

     Not only does the SNP admit that the same holds true in Scotland, but Sturgeon herself has said that higher taxation is only possible as part of the same UK tax base to prevent people from shifting money and company headquarters outside of a tax base that benefits Scots and everyone else (and because Scotland has comparatively fewer higher income earners than England). In the face of this, during First Minister’s Question’s last Tuesday, she went so far as to say that increasing the top rate would be “reckless” and “daft.” The First Minister would later say that she would consider the 50% rate during the lifetime of the next parliament, but still cited civil service experts warning her against it - at least initially - during the first year of full income tax devolution.

     Again, this article is not arguing the merits of tax policy for one of the issues here is the SNP selling itself as a radical, left wing, redistributing party that did things differently than everyone else, like raising taxes on those who can – at least in theory – afford them. In fact, it has proven not to be that party, and is every bit as cautious as the others, so as to not "scare the horses" (i.e., the middle classes).

     The other issue is selling this premise that Scots are vastly to the left of the English (and making this a reason for secession), when again, this is false. If this was the case, the SNP would have no problem raising taxes, but like every political party, it wants power, and rarely do parties win power on the promise of raising anybody’s taxes.

     The Labour Party learned this in the 1980’s and 1990’s as it clawed its way back into the British political mainstream and eventually into power in the landslide of 1997, which infamously included the wipeout of all the Scottish Tory MP’s. However, it may be a mistake to conclude that anti-Tory sentiment alone was responsible for this, whether in a Scottish or UK political context. If this had been the case, then Labour should have won the 1992 general election and the Tories should have by all rights been wiped out in Scotland following the Poll Tax debacle of 1989-90.

     Alongside the anti-Tory sentiment, the strategy of becoming “New Labour” and moving rightward to the center ground under Tony Blair allowed Labour to win in places it had never won before, or in a long time, throughout the United Kingdom, including Scotland, where the party had made itself acceptable to the middle classes, just as they had done in England and Wales. This helped it to win in constituencies that had been sending Conservative MP’s for decades, such as Edinburgh Pentlands, Dumfriesshire, and Eastwood – the safest Tory seat in Scotland which fell to Labour’s Jim Murphy in 1997.

     With devolution and the Scottish Parliament, the SNP probably thought they could show up Labour’s progressive and social justice credentials with their “Penny for Scotland” platform to raise the standard rate of income tax by 1% under the power to vary taxes by up to three percent. This was in response to Labour cutting that standard rate by 1% for the UK overall, and SNP looked to cancel this out in Scotland to provide more money for public services. This proved unsuccessful for the SNP’s electoral chances, and the policy was subsequently dropped.

     After that, the SNP worked on building its own moderate, centrist, and middle class credentials by painting itself as a party that would govern with modesty and with an eye on being competent – in short, a safe pair of hands that would not rock the boat. In many ways, they were first attracting the people who would have voted Conservative, but did not, perhaps because of the toxicity of the Conservative label in Scotland.

     From here, the SNP made itself increasingly presentable to the middle classes and were able to dislodge the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition administration from power by winning one seat more than Labour in 2007. Then the SNP went after the Labour and Liberal Democrat vote by painting itself as the true defender of the social democratic order in Scotland, while Labour and the LibDems were in cahoots with the Tories in attempting to dismantle it by following an “austerity agenda” of low taxes and spending cuts. This worked to pave the way for the SNP majority government in the election of 2011, the ability to get 45% of Scots to vote for separation in 2014, and the near sweep of the Scottish seats in the House of Commons last year.

Journalist David Torrance's reaction to those expressing surprise that the SNP is not as left-wing as advertised.

     All the while, the party’s use of left wing rhetoric to help whip up discontent with Labour and drive up the pro-independence vote betrayed its true nature – like all parties – in being cautious with the reins of power, and even willing to pursue policies that don’t fit the typical mold of socialism or social democracy, such as dropping corporate tax by three points in order to attract business and investment and incentivize job creation.

     Such a policy is usually seen as a good thing by economic conservatives, but as an unnecessary giveaway to CEO’s and wealthy shareholders by those who see higher taxation as indicative of a fairer society. That policy was abandoned, but now with Nicola Sturgeon going against a rise in the top rate of income – at least for now – there are questions about her and her party’s credentials as a social democratic party. Writers Iain Macwhirter and Kevin McKenna have written about this phenomenon of the SNP apparently not even willing to use the powers it now has or the huge electoral mandate it is destined to have this May – largely on the back of people who became politically engaged during and following the referendum.

     SNP members and supporters have already taken to social media to express their discontent with the party on taxes and other policies where they believed it would at least try to take risks to create the fairer society the SNP has been talking about. Some have even announced their withdrawal from the party – wondering what point there is in voting for the SNP if it’s just going to be another party of the establishment. Indeed, what is the point of secession when the risks of raising taxes will be just as great if not greater, and if an independent Scotland more-or-less follows the economic policies of the rest of the UK?

     That being said, there is little to suggest that the SNP will do nothing other than win an unprecedented third term in power in May. If it does so ruling out a tax increase or no firm commitment to raise taxes, it will partly be a manifestation of that fact that there are people out there who may like the idea of higher taxes, but when it comes to actually doing the deed of voting for higher taxes (especially when it effects them), they tend to go with the party that either pledges to lower taxes or keep them the same. A Survation poll in February showed that most Scots wanted either a decrease or no change in the basic rate of income tax, and even a combined plurality of 47% wanted a decrease or no change in the top tax, as opposed to 38% who wanted to see an increase.

Survation online poll - February 25th-29th.

     Labour or the Liberal Democrats may not win this election (or even gain any seats) on a pledge to raise people’s taxes, but this may show that when it comes to paying for higher taxes, Scotland is not different than England, and the SNP will likely act in a pragmatic fashion that may well disappoint its new voters.

     Brian Wilson probably said it best in the Scotsman this past December:

Nobody ever lost money by reassuring the Scots that we are the most caring, altruistic, welcoming people in the world, uniquely blessed with an egalitarian gene which makes us a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns.

Equally, it is some time since anyone won an election through even the most timorous effort to translate that self-image into votes.