Archives for March 1, 2008

Good showing by Nicol Stephen, I thought.

One or two moderately good gags. Substantive content, well delivered.

The Scottish LibDem conference here in Aviemore liked what they heard.

High notes? Condemning inflated energy company profits as "obscene". Think what he's offering there is a new model version of old style liberalism.

Gladstone backed the rights of the individual. Today's LibDems say they're also backing the rights of the consumer.

On council finance, an offer to Alex Salmond to discuss Local Income Tax. Scottish Ministers will publish a consultation document on this matter the week after next.

Snag is the LibDems and the SNP have different views on what local income tax might entail. LibDems would allow councils to vary the rate of LIT levied, within limits. The SNP want a 3p rate, set nationally but levied by all councils.

Snag (number two) is that SNP plus LibDem doesn't quite equal majority in Holyrood. Labour, Tories and Greens oppose LIT.

Snag (number three). SNP Ministers have gained a considerable coup by freezing council tax rates. Do they really - no, really - want to throw that away by embarking on a new form of council finance which will have losers as well as winners?

On the constitution, Mr Stephen restressed his opposition to returning any powers from Holyrood to Westminster. He'll take his party into the Commission/review - but opposes Gordon Brown's view that the re-evaluation of powers involves a two-way street.

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The sense of ambition, if not presumption, lies in the title.

Alistair Carmichael was introduced to the LibDem conference in Aviemore today as “the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland.”

Last time I checked, Commons nomenclature awarded that title to David Mundell, Conservative MP for a large swathe of southern Scotland. As a representative of HM Official Opposition, Mr Mundell rings the bell.

Snag is he toils alone, at least as far as Scotland is concerned. L’état, c’est moi, he is obliged to say when asked to line up the Scots Tory strength in the Commons.

So, the LibDems with a dozen Commons tribunes from Scotland – second behind Labour – say they’re more entitled to the title than the bold Mundell.

Doesn’t stop DM occupying the front bench at question time or during debates, but it adds to the fun of the place.

Hence the billing for Alistair Carmichael in his speech today.

He opened incidentally by recalling his political beginnings quarter of a century ago.

Apparently, he was at Glasgow University with Wendy Alexander. In those days, he said, she was “a socialist dynamo” wont to quoting at length from Karl Marx and John Maclean.

But no matter. The substance of his argument was that the Holyrood result last May had opened great opportunities for the Liberal Democrats.

Hold on. Give me that again slowly. Didn’t the LibDems lose ground, come in fourth and end up ejected from power? You’d need to be the Scotland rugby coach to see that as an advance. (Apologies, Frank)

But wait. There is a more subtle argument here – and it has lurked in the background throughout this conference. (See earlier blogs)

It is that Scotland has been liberated from the presumption that politics will always be dominated by Labour.

Mr Carmichael put it thus: “For the first time in my adult life, the Labour Party has lost its stranglehold.”

That applied, he said, not just at Holyrood but throughout Scottish local government.

And, he forecast, it would eventually turn out that way in the Commons too.

Hence, he argued, the LibDems could take Westminster seats from Labour. Scarcely a word about the Tories, note.

Like Nick Clegg yesterday, this was a speech positing the premise that Scotland/Britain was embarking on post-Labour politics.

G. Brown, speaking in Birmingham today, naturally dissents – and that somewhat strongly.

Thought, however, it was worth sharing LibDem tactical thinking with you.

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