Dictation Speed

People sometimes ask “how it works”, the paid-to-comment business. Out there in the Land of Blog, one school holds that anyone bearing a by-line in the dead media – the redundant media who yet obsess tomorrow’s tribunes – is a stooge. To those in Scotland’s (You’ll Have Had Your) Tea Party it’s obvious: orders are given and the puppets dance. Yes and no.

            Only a fool would argue, for one example, that mere chance explains why Scotland’s party of government has not a single supportive newspaper to its name. As someone who happens to have quit both Andrew Neil’s Scotsman and the Record – a serial resigner: extra-smart – I know better than most that, sometimes at least, no accidents are involved.

            In those cases, the editorial position is/was plainly the product of political, ideological, or even commercial considerations. You can take your pick: puerile Unionism, Labour’s influence, or the vaunted “business community”. Here’s your bread, now decide where you’d like your butter.

            Sometimes, though, editorial choice is a matter of mere habit. The line is handed down like a legacy, justified by a belief, tested or not, in what “our readers” favour. It’s a matter of complacency, not conspiracy.

            Sometimes, equally, the truth bitter to the evangels of independence is that some people are sincere. They require no orders. They believe in the Union, or coalition government, or the inherent superiority of Westminster’s ancient (etcetera) wisdom.

            Finally, there are a few wrinkles within the continuum. I offer only the one closest to home. In the matter of Scotland, a few curs happen yet to believe that the SNP holds no copyright on nationalism, nationhood, or the route to independence.

            An example, for what it’s worth: the present First Minister once paid something I had written a compliment with the back of both hands. “Friendly fire,” he called it. I doubt he’d go so far these days.

            So: “how does it work?” First, I am a freelance writer, under contract. Staff jobs (see above) tend not to work out. I therefore attend no editorial conferences, and no one invites me to join those top-secret diabolical cabals.

            Of a morning I speak to the editor in question in charge of the page in question. I put up a few ideas, generally – for that’s my taste – related to what seems to be going on. I know enough to frame the discussion in a way that will spare the editor the old hassle, whereby three writers want to share their thoughts on the same topic. But no one, believe it or not, gives me “the line”.

            They don’t alter the copy, either, unless – perish the thought - it contains errors of fact, spelling, grammar or punctuation. I don’t often trouble the lawyers: press law isn’t deeply complicated. Since I’ve done a good deal of editing myself in former lives, I cut my own stuff to fit, as any columnist should. I play no part in writing headlines or standfirsts. Beyond that, what you get is me.

            With one proviso: it is a slow day when I don’t write more than is needed. There’s a lot of overmatter. Hence, in part, my belated decision to occupy this sort of space. Sometimes, when the ego has landed, I have a hankering to preserve the words that went over the limit. What follows is an example.

            The original came to a shade over 1200 words in The Herald on November 20, 2010. The controversy it discusses has inspired comment, so they tell me, in this Land of Blog. The piece may therefore retain some relevance. The row, I judge, is a long way from over. More follows.

Pennies from Heaven

In Dublin, the government of the Irish Republic has been fighting tooth and nail, you may have noticed, to hang on to sovereignty. In Edinburgh, a foundation stone of autonomy – flawed, notional, merely symbolic though it may be – is lost without a fight, a fuss, or even, it seems, an argument. A tax power, the Scottish Variable Rate, wasn’t worth the bother. This is mysterious.

            It is mysterious because “full fiscal autonomy” has become something of an issue. It is mysterious because the SNP, though wary of devolution, campaigned hard for a double referendum Yes vote and a parliament with the unambiguous power to set an income tax rate. For Nationalists, it was all a long way short of ideal, but it was a start.

            The mystery deepens. In most circumstances – make that “all circumstances” – you would expect the SNP to kick up a stink over being “held to ransom by London”, and by HM Revenue & Customs in particular. That organisation has been somewhat unhelpful to Scotland in the past. You would therefore have bet on the Nationalists denouncing another flagrant attempt – and so forth – at interference in Scottish affairs.

            It’s called, for want of a better word, negotiation. HMRC is demanding £7 million for an upgrade to a system that cost £12 million to establish and £50,000 a year to maintain? So turn that into a very public dispute. Force the taxman to explain his position, his justification, and his costings. Ask – Nationalists can write this stuff for themselves – why Scots are “being treated as second class citizens”. Ask why there should be any sort of payment: it’s an excellent question.

            And if you believe – for you do, don’t you? – that devolution is but a necessary step on the road to independence, remind the world that the power to vary income tax was the democratic choice of the Scottish people. Then repeat ad nauseam: the people will not be blackmailed.

            Instead, not a word. Until this week, in fact, no one appeared to know that the power had been foregone. This is beyond mysterious. After all, when John Swinney, finance secretary, presented his draft budget on Wednesday he made careful, explicit reference to his considered decision not to use the tax-varying power.

            He did not add “if only I could”. He did not explain, as an SNP minister generally would, that outrageous HMRC manoeuvrings had robbed him of a legal right. Instead, Mr Swinney spoke as though the tax varying power was still available, as though, indeed, he really did not know any better. Is that possible?

            Put it this way: it no longer seems impossible. The finance secretary has a certain reputation for rectitude. He is known, even by the distressed standards of Holyrood, as a decent man. He was trying to put together a budget in hellish circumstances, with his hands tied (as ever) by London, and with a difficult election on the horizon. Though few in the parliamentary bear-pit would care, he also has a new baby at home, barely a month old. Given knowledge of the facts, why would he walk into this mess?

           In his statement, Mr Swinney gave the impression that he had thought hard about the variable rate. In later exchanges, he offered a “sympathetic” response when Patrick Harvie of the Greens raised the issue of income tax. Only when Michael Moore, Scottish Secretary, afterwards let it be known – doubtless with a heavy heart – that the power was in abeyance did Mr Swinney’s behaviour seem strange.

            If the SNP has a problem, then, it begins with this: who made the decision to suspend payments to HMRC in 2007? That had to come from, as they say, the top. It had to come from someone who knew full well that the variable rate – devolutionist shibboleth or not – was no mere administrative detail. And that decision was taken long before the Unionists dreamed up Calman, and before the SNP’s hopes of a local income tax ran up against the usual petty obduracy.

            But what of the Scottish Secretary? He made his disclosure, he said, because party election manifestos are being prepared, and because some – the Greens, certainly – might make reference to the tax power. Yet Mr Moore’s own party affected outrage over the SNP’s deplorable failure, or words to that effect, to hold on to the variable rate. Hadn’t Mr Moore even mentioned the development to Tavish Scott, his party’s Holyrood leader?

            Let’s grant that the latest Lib Dem in the vice-regal post is new to the job. Perhaps it has taken him a few weeks to come to terms with the dull details of IT “platforms” and the tax code boxes HMRC must tick just to recognise the existence of Scots as Scots. Perhaps the issue of payments, their suddenly inflated prices, and the taxman’s history of bloody-mindedness towards devolution had slipped his mind. (They certainly slipped from his letter). But still: why was the Scottish Secretary another of those – the cast list expands by the hour – claiming to have just discovered the dismal truth?

            Why, for that matter, did Des Browne and Jim Murphy, Mr Moore’s Labour predecessors, utter not a word about the dispute over the variable rate? For years the propaganda line was obvious. There go the Nats, Labour would have said, banging on about more power, yet they can’t even be bothered to maintain the power they have. Instead, silence. So the mind leaps to thoughts of powder kept dry, and election surprises long prepared.

            Amid all the long and – of course – fascinating discussions over the Calman recommendations, mouths were kept tight shut. Throughout the SNP’s “conversation” with Scotland voters were allowed to believe – to put it no higher – that the tax provision still had relevance. As the coalition surrendered to austerity mania, indeed, some trusting souls were still trying to work out if and how Holyrood’s power to vary income tax might come into play.

            It amounts to a key indictment, central to this bizarre episode. It was one thing for the SNP government to conclude that HMRC was attempting to diddle the Scottish taxpayer for the sake of a power no one intended to use. Keeping quiet about the episode – so quiet that Mr Swinney could overlook the whole affair – was another matter entirely.

            You don’t have to accept the HMRC version. IT “upgrades”, and their cost, are one of the taxman’s notorious little foibles. Equally, the claim, repeated by Mr Moore, that it would take two and more years to “restore” the system should anyone wish to use the tax power is arrant nonsense, typical of Whitehall. No one hangs around for two years when the Chancellor of the Exchequer tinkers with income tax.

            So what of the SNP response, as offered – post mortem, if you like – by Mr Swinney? I paraphrase: we wouldn’t allow the Scottish taxpayer to be held over a barrel for the sake of a power we never meant to use. The so-called power is “unusable and expensive”. What could be wrong with that statement? Only this: you do not build a parliament, or advance towards independence, by ceding power, any power.

            Granted, the variable rate is problematic. No one seems to be quite sure how it would work, or if it would work. Yet that very fact ought to offer a point of interest for the SNP. Just how do you carve out an autonomous Scottish area – a Scottish economic identity, if you like – from pre-existing British structures? Infinitely gradualist it may be, but the Nationalist government should have prepared a few thoughts on the subject.

            Is the variable rate dismissed as a Labour sop? Is it defined habitually as a trap set by the late Donald Dewar? Is it a distraction from the real business of fiscal autonomy, a useless piece of window-dressing? Is it irrelevant thanks to Calman? No doubt. But consequences flow from these things. Your response defines your aspirations. It’s like – bear with me – offering a glowing Nationalist welcome to the latest royal nuptials. One “gesture” means no Scottish republic. Huzzah.

            Power is never meaningless for a nascent parliament with few enough resources. If you are “gradualist” you build on what little you have, no matter how flawed. Or, if that’s your taste, you content yourself with the status quo. All of which raises an interesting question. Patrick Harvie asked it on Wednesday.

            Why is an SNP government, proudly left of centre and all that, refusing even to consider the issue of income tax as it sets about implementing £1.3 billion in cuts? Mr Swinney is obliged, as he observed, to balance his budget, but complains that he lacks economic powers. Income tax is the primary domestic power of any government. And the Nationalists won’t hear of it. 

            The tax varying power has not been “lost”: of course not. The issues are technical and financial: they could be fixed. The “unusable” power could even be improved. They could, given enough evidence of HMRC high-handedness, be the basis of an alternative to Calman. So: any takers?

            It is avowedly the SNP’s business to offer distinctively Scottish solutions to problems as it picks its way towards its version of independence. A good place to start would be with an argument over the balance to be struck between taxes and spending cuts. You might remember an old slogan: a “Penny for Scotland”.

            Would Scottish voters go for it? In dark times, that’s open to doubt. But the argument for an alternative to George Osborne’s fiscal enemas has to begin somewhere. Mundanely, the argument over London’s shell game, whereby any attempt to tax is answered by effective reductions in the block grant, has to be addressed.

            We talk of Unionist parties. The description is accurate, but partial. These are also, unashamedly, parties of the right, united in their “economic thinking”. The SNP proposes itself as an alternative to that sort of brutalism. It has cause – whether in social policy, its opposition to Trident, or its defence of the NHS against parasitic privatisation – but it also has its limits, self-defined and self-defeating.

            The truth remains that its economic policy is sketchy. It wants the power to “grow the economy”, it says, over and over. So: which government does not? Yet the evidence says that the SNP has alienated a power, even a symbolic power, even the chance of holding a mere symbolic power.

            That speaks of timidity, at best, dishonesty at worst. It isn’t left-nationalism, by any stretch. It involves no “alternative” worth the name. It also – no minor detail – involves the repudiation of a choice made by the Scottish people. That’s not a good look for a modern nationalist party.

            You can denounce the fraud that has seen wealth transferred wholesale from the public realm to the private just to cover the bankers’ losses. Who hasn’t? That alone explains the depth of the crap in which the world swims. That also explains, after a fashion, the UK’s deficit, Osborne’s deficit mania, and his Tory opportunism. But it doesn’t explain the failure of a “left-leaning” party to insist that sane governments must have other choices.

            Even if you accept the “need to address the deficit” – unlimited liability, in other words – you must decide how to set about the grisly task. You can cut, in short, or tax, or arrive at some mixture of the two. So would the SNP pursue increased taxation as a progressive alternative to the destruction of the public realm? On the evidence of the variable rate farce, two words: no chance. That pass has been sold.