What Scottish Futre?

Scothist · What Scottish Futre?

Is it possible for us to please do more of the imagining and constructing the possible Scottish future and less of backward-looking or arid contemporary pre-occupation? Many of the threads on this board can have a tendency to start well then deteriorate into:

a) Short-term and self-serving argument about ‘whose the worse among us just now’; discredited Tories, corrupt Labour, fanatical Nats etc. etc. All of which is a turn-off for disenchanted and potential voters who see these arguments as a continuation of the present, failed, politics.
b) The dreaded blood-line arguments, such a the way the ‘Ten Good Reasons thread has gone – OMG please preserve us, in a modern nationhood debate context, from arguments over whether ‘I am/am not a celt’ or the obscure use long ago of surnames in the Highlands.
c) Victimhood – even to the ludicrous extent of continuing to blame the ‘English’ or ‘British Unionists’ and being unable or unwilling to comprehend that most of the relevant decision-making powers, for example on the strategic control of oil, long, long ago passed over to those controlling such matters for the benefit of pax Americana.

Might it be more challenging, relevant and productive to ask ourselves about how an independent Scotland might look and work at an everyday level? I’m not thinking here of intriguing but pointless scenario-building or game role playing on the basis of this or that present-day set of statistics. I’m thinking more about what values and aims that society will have and how these are articulated in the workplace, social spaces or debating chambers.

As a feeder, I offer the recent views of Michael Fry and other Scottish Tories who have been forced by the marginalisation of their party into radical rethinking. In a total about-turn they now plead for voters on the right to support independence. Their argument is that Scottish society is an innately socially conservative society that is being politically neutered by a British Liberal elite. They assert that that a post-independent Scotland would revert to kind.

I find, with regret, this very convincing on the basis of the dominant Labour political class’s constant self-preserving deference to socially reactive interests in Scottish society. Need one cite more than the dismal way that Scottish Labour continue to show overly-polite and unctuous respect to the deeply reactionary Cardinal O’Brien despite, for example, his seeming attempts to derail even Jack McConnell’s lightweight, but welcome, spin against sectarianism

Michael Fry and others have also conceded that no Scottish political movement or party can, over the long-term, defeat Old or New Scottish Labour’s system of pork-barrel politics and historically deeply-embedded cronyism. Again I have to agree with regret with this on the basis of my front-line experience in west and central Scotland. Fry’s argument is that an independent Scotland would be forced to accept financial realities and the need to more transparantly ‘balance the books’ rather than exist off the economically wasteful system of the pork barrel and cronyism, all funded through high taxes and (mis) managed by a bloated public sector - the well-salaried members of which often continue to call themselves supporters of the Scottish working classes and vote Labour despite their uniquely cosseted lives paid for through a regressive tax system falling increasingly disproportionately on the lower and middle income earning voters.

Incidentally this is not a matter of whether an independent Scotland could 'make it' economically - I have no doubt that the money is there; but how would it be spent, by who, for what... we hardly know all of this on any one aspect of public expenditure or policy-making in Scotland.

This type of thinking was referred to in the excellent piece by Matthew Parris cited by IF Convenor when starting the ‘Tories need to become Nationalist..’ thread. I tend to agree with IF Convenor that there is a great deal of mythology around a supposed left-leaning Scottish society.

So what values, pre-occupations and aims would an independent Scotland have… what would be expounded and sought after in the streets and the pub and clubs? What might it be that we could be doing to help build that possible future society we want to see?

Mctosh45

Scothist,

Good to see your conversion and a very good post.

How many of your fellow (Tory) travelers are of the same mind?

It is a question I've asked before, that the Tory party should become a nationalist party if they want any relevance to the Scottish electorate.

But in reality all they have to do is vote S.N.P. And get an independence referendum (WHICH WE WIN) And bingo they're back in business! Wink

Scothist

Well Mcintosh, I'm truly sorry that my first posting on Scottish politics here resulted in such a first response. Were your remarks about "your convertion" or "your fellow (Tory) travellers" intended as rather childish insults, or some sort of ironic humour? Or was it a glaring early confirmation of my point a)?

You cannot know anything about my political inclination or beliefs - or even whether I have any. But I can confirm that certainly your remarks are way off the mark, and anyway uncalled for. You remarked that it was a very good post but then seem to have either misundertood or misconstrued it Confused

.

I hope that any other responses are of a more thoughtful and incisive nature.

Mctosh45

My post was meant sincerely, no sarcasm or irony intended. Shocked

I do apologize for presuming you to be a Tory, please elucidate as to the meaning of your post, if it's not in part, about your regret that the Tory party is unelectable in it's present form?

Then we can maybe take this further. Smile

Mctosh45

Away with your knickers in a twist are we?