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Lies, Damn Lies and Party Leaflets

I was the recipient this morning of no fewer than three leaflets from the Labour Party. Sadly, two of the three are glossy (or should that be Panglossy?), so they have few alternative uses round the home. However, the one which really stuck out was the party’s official Election Communication for the Lothians.

It’s printed on a piece of very flimsy 1/3 A4 card, and says not a word about what Labour has achieved in office or what they plan to do if returned. Instead, they give an example of an ‘average family’ (Question - why does their ‘average family’ always seem to consist of a firefighter and a nurse cohabiting? Does their publicity guru have a thing for uniforms or something?), whom they contend would be £913 per year worse off if the SNP were to win power.

That seems an unusually precise figure, although sadly no-one in the Labour team has seen fit to explain how they have arrived at this amount. It’s also significantly at variance with the £5,000 per family figure they have on their billboards and party political broadcasts currently. To make things even clearer, there is considerable confusion amongst Labour spokespeople as to whether this £5,000 figure relates to alleged SNP spending commitments; or to the supposed ‘borrowing requirement’ identified by the now discredited GERS report, divided by the number of households in Scotland.

So far in this campaign, they’ve tried to terrify us with ‘deficits’ of £6bn (Labour’s North-East Scotland leaflet), £7bn (their analysis of supposed SNP spending commitments), £11.9bn (GERS), and £13bn (Labour press conference). Quite clearly, they just making it up as they go along. Perhaps more to the point, though, if I were to speak to their economic team (assuming it even exists), would I get an explanation for all these competing figures, or would they all be too busy sitting around on what they think are their elbows to give me a proper answer?

SNP Matures as Château Labour Turns To Vinegar

Making pre-election forecasts is always a dangerous affair. Having had my fingers burnt before when making a prediction in the ‘Flag’ about the 2003 election in the Lothians (Nostradamus I most certainly wasn’t), I’m disinclined to try anything similar this time round. However, reading the runes at the time of going to press, although the SNP still has a fair bit to do if we are to consolidate our current lead, everything looks to be pointing in the right direction.

We’ve faced an onslaught over the last few months, with some pretty hostile comment both in the press and from carefully-selected third parties. Yet if anything, our position in the polls continued to harden. From my own experiences on that much fabled ‘doorstep’, people who used to identify with Labour have shown a willingness to come over to the SNP, and are unapologetic about saying so.

Iraq, Trident and Cash for Honours continue to influence voters, despite Labour’s best efforts to convince us that these are ‘not issues’ in a Holyrood campaign. However, when you get your own slogan repeated back to you by voters that they think ‘It’s Time’, you know that something could really be on the move. And the puffs of black acrid smoke which now belch almost daily from the Labour campaign serve only to confirm the suspicion that we might be on the cusp of something big here.

Labour seem almost panic stricken at the moment, with a campaign mired in confusion. Do they soft-pedal on the anti-independence rhetoric, or continue scaremongering in the hope that it starts to pay off? Are the visits of Blair and Brown a help or a hindrance? No-one seems sure. And how to explain the charge that when the SNP talk policy, it’s to hide the true agenda on independence, yet when the SNP talk independence, we do so because we’re running scared of a policy debate?

As usual, Labour is claiming that the SNP has no policies, except of course for all the policies we do have, which would cause the sky to fall in and the economy to go into freefall. But the old tunes don’t seem to be pleasing the crowd as they once did. We’ve heard this all before, and since the picture painted by Labour of the SNP is not one which people recognise, they switch off.

However, 8 dismal years on from the bright hopes which accompanied devolution, what has Labour got to be positive about? Their problem was summed up succinctly back in March, when a ‘campaign source’ was quoted in a Sunday newspaper as saying: "There is nothing that Labour can say that will change peoples' minds about Labour. There is no point in having a positive campaign because it doesn't wash. There isn't a bit of evidence to suggest that going positive will make any difference. They don't know Jack and they don't like Labour." And with Alex Salmond on form, voters know that there isn’t another candidate for First Minister fit to lace his shoes.

But it’s not just on personalities that the SNP are ahead. Labour and Lib Dem proposals to remove tolls on the Forth and Tay Bridges look opportunistic in view of their failure to back such a move in parliament only a few weeks earlier. And pledging to increase the number of modern language teachers sounds good, until you remember that it was a Labour education minister who removed the requirement for Scottish pupils to learn a language up to the age of 16, which led to a 13% reduction in the numbers presented for examination.

Labour had been fighting a rearguard action on Local Income Tax, again playing on people’s fears about change. However, by breaking cover on their own proposals to make the tax ‘fairer’, they have shot their credibility through. The idea that increasing the tax burden on 11,000 Band ‘H’ householders could ever deliver meaningful reductions for 530,000 Band ‘A’ householders, simply defies reason and basic arithmetic. Labour's position before was a bit of a mess, but to describe it now as shambolic would be an act of irrational charity.

Labour has been found out on the economy, with people seeing straight through the argument that Scotland outperforms the UK but somehow needs a ‘union dividend’ to make it so. People today seem more confident, and are in no mood to feel grateful to Labour or anyone else for the fruits of their own hard work. The SNP’s confident, positive message seems to have caught as much of the mood for change as anything ever could in Scotland’s fragmented and sceptical political climate.

The idea that the SNP could be the biggest party and form the next government has got out there, yet few seem unduly perturbed by the prospect. Even those who do not yet support independence seem relaxed at the possibility of a referendum being held. We’re not there yet by a long shot, but the prospects for reforming Labour’s patronage state and restoring Scotland to sovereign status in the world, have never looked brighter than they do today. We must use the days remaining to make sure that this time, it really is time for hope to triumph over fear.

Taxing Times for Labour

The Labour Party has been scathing in recent weeks about the SNP’s proposals to scrap the Council Tax and replace it with an income based alternative. It’s been described variously by Labour spokespeople as a tax rise for low earners (Not so - 90% would pay the same or less); and as a tax against small businesses (Again, not so - businesses pay separate business rates, not council tax or the SNP’s proposed replacement).

The argument for a local income tax is a simple one. Essentially, the value of your property bears little or no relation to your ability to contribute towards meeting the costs of the local services we all use. And if you are on a low income or live on your own, despite the various ‘reliefs’ which exist, the tax can still represent a very large proportion of your overall income.

Labour knows this, which is why wee Jack is waffling at the moment about including ‘extra bands’ for the Council Tax, in order to make it fairer. The trouble is, including more bands does no such thing, since the general rise in house prices since the last revaluation would move only a small number of homes up or down a band relative to where they sit currently. It does nothing to counter the ability to pay argument which is currently driving the debate forward. And the killer for Labour is that as history shows, the property tax revaluations which would be required are about as popular with the voters as a fart in a space-suit.

As it happens, by introducing a new top band and a new bottom band, Labour is expecting 11,000 householders to bail out nearly 530,000 others. In the Orkney Islands, for instance, there are only two homes in Band H, so the entire burden will fall on either one or two householders! Labour's position was a bit of a mess before, but to describe it now as shambolic would be an act of irrational charity.

Labour’s arguments don’t seem to be cutting much ice just now, since according to SNP polling, 71% of voters want to see the Council Tax gone. This is most likely why the Edinburgh Labour Party has made a very welcome concession in its local manifesto, where with commendable candour, it states that:

“The other big expense for everyone is Council Tax… …we know that Council Tax, as it is organised at the moment, isn’t always fair, with poor people paying a larger proportion of their income than rich people".

Sounds like an argument for a local income tax to me. Trouble is, notwithstanding this display of local disquiet, Edinburgh Labour is running on the same commitment to keep the Council Tax as wee Jack and the rest of the Labour Party. Despite this plaintive plea for mercy from Labour’s Embra Cooncillors, the fact remains that the only way to get rid of the Council Tax is to get rid of Labour. Period.

The Working Life of Linda Fabiani MSP