| Archive for Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org Scottish Politics Discussion Forum / Messageboard - Dedicated to online discussion about Scottish Politics and an Independent Scotland, as well as Scottish Society today. We also have a section dedicated to Banter, Sport and Recommended Sites. |
| Reluctant Hero |
Lib Dems - what are they all about?Lord Lucan, I mean, Nicol Stephen has spoken ahead of the Lib Dem Conference.He claims that
Well why the @"!? doesn't he support independence? I just still can't get my head round it, even after nine months! They want all this extra power for the Parliament, but when it comes to the ultimate power ie. independence, they back away! What are they all about? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7266876.stm
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| Lochaber |
Here is what the Lib Dems propose
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| Reluctant Hero |
If there is one thing that was demonstrated during the first two terms of the Scottish Government, then it is we should not trust the Labour Party or the Lib Dems to stand up for the interests of Scotland. |
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| Aventinian |
Oh Christ... Right, go on then, why not? |
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| Red Justice |
Because the last Lib-Lab administration in Holyrood introduced plenty legislation much which was not very meaningful and even less so to improve the lives of Scottish people. I woke up after the night of the May elections and discovered I had blinked and the wishy washy politicians were gone and birds in the trees were siniging a to a different tune. I could breathe a sigh of relief and hope for better. Ok the SNP are not brilliant, but bring some notable improvement to Scottish government. |
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| Aventinian |
So what exactly do you think they were doing for all those years? While I disagree ideologically with Labour, I can happily say that they did a great deal of governing and introduced a large number of reforms; not that I wanted them, of course. Every piece of legislation that goes through that sadly inaugust chamber is of meaningful to the lives of Scottish people. |
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| Morph |
whilst i am not a fan of Labour by any means you must admit that teh smking ban was a good piece of government.
I do feel that now things are moving quicker in Scotland e.g. the free prescriptons brought in by the SNP are a good start, and i hope they get the chance to continue |
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| Aventinian |
Well I think it was a shockingly bad piece of government, but all the same it does counter the point in that it was done for what Labour perceived to be the 'good' of the people, and it was a particularly massive social change. It's worth remembering that it was the Labour Party who created the Scottish Parliament and have made perhaps some of the most significant changes to the government of the UK in modern times. |
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| Red Justice |
What reforms? The only iniative that Labour in the Scottish Executive will be remembered in history for is introducing the no smoking ban. The Liberals however had looked for a deal over electoral reform to prevent themselves from throwing their toys out the pram. While electoral reform was a good thing the Liberals were then willing to sell their soul to every Labour policy even also if that meant a threat of closure to certain hospitals. Never again should the Scottish people trust the Liberals in government in Scotland. The Liberals are a party that will always promise much when they can get power but deliver very little in the clear light of day for lives of ordinary Scots. I am afraid the Lib-Lab administration was a great disappointment in the devolutionary process and many Scottish people are left wanting more powers for the Scottish parliament which is the unstoppable road to independence. Like it or hate it there is no halfway house to get good government for Scotland the doubters in the Liberal party are therefore going to have to accept ultimately the independence solution for Scotland. |
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| voiceofourown |
Aventinian wrote:
It's also worth remembering that they did so reluctantly, under a great deal of political pressure and with the express intention of killing off the SNP. It should also be remembered that it was us, the Scottish electorate, who brought it into being via a referendum. |
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| Holebender |
It is also worth remembering that the Labour Party had Home Rule as a policy for almost a hundred years before being forced, reluctantly, to deliver it. They would never have done so without pressure from the electorate, and have done just about everything they could to bugger it up along the way. | ||||||||||||||
| Anthropos |
The Labour Party did not do so reluctantly, there was a strong commitment within the party long before the 1997 election, "unfinished business" as John Smith put it, and yes Gordon Brown too was a supporter of devolution. They hoped it would - as Geroge Robertson put it - “kill Nationalism stone dead”, but the idea behind the Scottish Parliament was to entrench the already existing Labour Party establishment in Scotland. I doubt they ever expected an SNP government to be sitting two terms later.
No, we the Scottish electorate were merely asked to formally endorse what our political masters had themselves decided, and there were many in the Labour Party who were strongly against a referendum and considered the election of the Labour Party to government as sufficient. But the Scottish electorate got no say in what shape the parliament should take or what powers it would have with the sole exception of very limited tax varying powers. |
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| Anthropos |
Well as stated above they were not reluctant, however it must also be remembered that Home Rule as an issue was largely irrelevant until the 1960's and this was due to structural problems with the Scottish economy after competitor nations had recovered from the war. The Labour Party were generally in favour of central planning so it was hardly surprising that they had little interest in devolution, although Harold Wilson (and Ted Heath) did notice that it would be awkward for Labour in terms of governing the UK.
I doubt electoral pressure was much of a factor, but I don't think they have tried to bugger it up, devolution was designed with the Scottish establishment in mind rather than good governance. The lack of tax raising powers meant that the parliament was fiscally irresponsible, it spent money with no responsibility for raising it. That could only lead to bad government. |
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| Holebender |
Ah... that'll explain Ramsay Macdonald's Home Rule Bill of 1924. Never heard of it? Neither have I, because it never happened. Home Rule was like Clause 4, a theoretical commitment but ultimately an empty gesture. The only times Home Rule ever gets considered by Labour are the times when the SNP do well in the polls, electoral pressure in other words. |
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| Anthropos |
When I said "long before the 1997 election" I wasn't meaning anything like that long, more around twenty years or so.
Prior to the 1997 election the SNP's popularity was not much different from what it had been for a couple of decades, the idea that the Labour Party were running scared of a rampant SNP does not tally with voting patterns. |
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| Lochaber |
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| Morph |
lochaber is right. There are pamphlets dating as far back as the 1800's with regards to home rule for scotland | ||||||||||||||
| Shagpile |
So this is the Liberal federalist view. I think it will be as popular as a fart in a space suit (and rightly so) to the English voters. Surely they delude themselves! How much milage is left in their reliance for the English block vote to return unionist MPs to Westminster? My rekoning is not a lot. How can they possibly believe that a Federal UK can exist without an English Parliament? (And to be fair, that parliament should also be PR). But no, to preserve their precious union, they'll break up the English Nation into regions. I believe that the chance for a federal UK was lost when devolution was enacted. The English should have had a Parliament, and The Lords reformed into a 'British Senate', with responsible for reserved union matters. They should IMHO, get over it. They chose to get into bed with Liebour to give the Scots (shock horror) a parliament where they could get their backsides into their ministerial mondeos. Mind you, least you forget. Lib Dumbs true to their promise, did actually abolish tuition fees, but gave the students tuition bills instead. Tasked with an alternative to poindings and warrant sales..... they gave us.... poindings and warrant sales, yet they were keen to stress the new name.  I'm surprised that they didn't reintroduce 'burning out the peasants' and call it 'disposal of debtors' assets'! That would; of course, have been contrary to human rights, so they lumbered the Scottish tax payer with the bill for the 'slopping out' fiasco instead. 
A Federal option for the UK has gone, I'm glad about that. Independence, is the only fair and completely transparent way foreward for Scotland, we have PR, the press would have to be fair in reporting stories without unionist masters calling the tune. The Lib Dumbs, the political camelions, consigned to history's dustbin. |
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| Anthropos |
Being debated in multiple times in Parliament does not make something relevant. The reason Home Rule was abandoned by the Labour Party was due to economic factors, the harsh economic climate of the 1920's and 1930's was in their opinion best countered by central planning using the economic resources for the whole of the UK. The National Party of Scotland was founded largely due to the Labour Party's lack of interest in Home Rule, but it - and later the Scottish National Party - fared badly in elections, and indeed it wasn't until the 1970 election that the SNP actually got more than 10% of the vote. In the 1950's they didn't even get 1%. But to put it more succinctly "Home Rule as an issue was largely irrelevant until the 1960's". |
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| voiceofourown |
'fraid I disagree with you Anthropos. It seems abundantly clear to me that the Labour Party had no interest in devolution (at least post ww1) until the early/ mid 70's when the SNP began to take a few strategically important seats. The McCrone document on Scotland's viability as an independent nation shows a party trying to formulate a counter to the SNP's emergence. Part of the strategy was, of course, to keep the Scots in the dark about the potential of an independent Scotland (and indeed lie through their teeth about our prospects) and another strand that developed later was the paying of lip service to the idea of 'home rule'.
The 1979 referendum showed the reality of Labour's game. The taking up of the cudgel of devolution was only ever a cynical ploy. They only ever intend to 'give away' what they have to. Wendy's commission (review) was similarly inspired. I have no faith in Labour's committment to devolution. |
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| Anthropos |
Actually you seem to be more or less agreeing with me here.
With regard to the 1979 referendum; the Labour party was split three ways with regard to devolution, there were those who though central planning were the remedy for Scotland's economic ills and were against devolution on that basis, those who thought devolution was essential to counters the SNP, and those who though devolution was capitulation to the SNP (Tam Dalyell being the most prominent) and therefore a bad thing. However after the 1979 failure the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly was mostly comprised of Labour Party members, though there were quite a few SNP members too. This was the forerunner to the Scottish Constitutional Convention which largely developed a framework for a devolution. Although some Labour MP's like Brian Wilson were opponents of devolution, others like John Smith and Gordon Brown were strongly in favour, so it is not true that Labour were opposed to devolution and only brought it in due to electoral pressure. A section of the SNP also opposed devolution on the grounds that it was a unionist trap and the proportional representation system would prevent the SNP ever winning a majority. |
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| Reluctant Hero |
Pretty funny article from Iain McWhirter about Nicol Stephen.
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2086766.0.0.php |
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| Aventinian |
Not really. It shows some conclusions that nobody particularly need agree with and is probative to no point at all. The best that the SNP could say is that 'the Government knew!' - well, I'm sure the government would only have needed to read the SNP's own documents to be given that case, and their position was certainly no secret. The fact that one man believed something, and presented it to the cabinet office is meaningless in itself - it does not demonstrate any conclusions from the cabinet, nor does it present any information on the opinion of the government.
I wonder if the SNP frequently goes around singing the praises of the Union? No, I thought not.
If you're trying to suggest that Labour didn't actually want devolution, that is quite simply ridiculous. They spent a great deal of time and money putting together the framework for it, and the provision that saw the over 50% result rejected was a Conservative amendment. |
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| Lochaber |
The revelance of Home Rule to Scottish politics in this period can be seen in the number of attempts to place a Scottish Government bill on the statutes. An adequate analysis of why these failed to obtain wider parliamentary support from (mainly) non-Scottish MPs would need to look at a number of issues. Certainly economic factors and the growth of European fascism (culminating in the second world) being important but probably less so than how Home Rule was perceived in the aftermath of the collapse of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland into two successor states (1922). So too, the change to parliamentary politics brought about by the collapse of popular support for the Liberal Party - the traditional party of Home Rule - must be considered. It certainly wasn't a lack of support for constitutional change amongst the Scottish people. In 1932 The Scottish Daily Express organised a poll in 35,000 homes and found 113,000 people in favour of self-government and only 5,000 opposed. The effects of personalities - for good or ill - should not be ignored either. (We now know that Ramsay MacDonald's volt face to oppose what he once claimed to believe in is a common trait amongst certain types of once left-leaning Labour leader, e.g. former CND member Tony Blair). The reforms introduced by the admirable Secretary of State for Scotland, Tom Johnston (who, in 1927, was one of the introducers of an Home Rule bill) had a considerable impact on Scottish politics.
Anyone wishing to undertand the history of Scottish nationalism can do no better than reading any of Chris Harvie's various books on the subject. |
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| George |
Good grief, have the SNP Government commissioned an independent report on the 'Union Dividend' only to suppress it because it showed how much better off we are within the union? If they have then they are no better than the lying, two faced Unionist self servers who suppressed a report over 30 years ago. That was the Unionist strategy then, I see no evidence that the strategy has been altered. We are all free to support the strategy or otherwise, but trying to deny it existed is simply ridiculous. |
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| Lochaber |
'Section' is somewhat of an exaggeration. I was at the Perth National Council which voted to support and campaign for devolution. The motion was recorded as being carried by 'very many to very few' (there were 100s for and only a dozen votes against). I remember this conference very well because Perth Town Hall was full to bursting and I sat in the balcony seats surrounded by several of my fellow delegates wearing national dress - from Pakistan! I saw only one person wearing a kilt and it was his photograph which was used by the press accompanied by the usual remarks about 'tartan' and 'fundamentalist splits'. |
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| Anthropos |
You are not disagreeing with me here is any substantial way, but I would dispute that economic factors were less important that the events of 1922. Home Rule was popular - as you have stated - in the early 1920’s, but as the economic climate got worse opinions changed, the Trade Unions opposed it and central planning was seen as the way to remedy Scotland’s economic problems.
Newspaper polls say a lot of thing, actual voting figures tell a diffarent story, in the 1929 General Election 3,313 electors were committed to Home Rule while 25,037 wanted to prohibit alcohol. The fact of the matter is that Home Rule parties did badly in elections until the 1960’s thereby corroborating my point that the matter was largely irrelevant until that decade.
Tom Johnstone also spoke for many in the Labour Party when he said of Home Rule:
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