Scotland’s new government are asset strippers, not nation builders, argues David Jamieson.
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It’s tempting to simply ignore the new Scottish Government front bench. An air of exhaustion and pointlessness surrounds it. A generational shift has observably taken place, with most of the old stalwarts making way for relative newcomers, yet the new cabinet wears every one of the 16 years of SNP power on their faces.
Tired, lacking in purpose and adrift, it has set itself no higher task than to keep promising independence and continue the management of Scotland’s national decline. The pathetic spectacle of Humza Yousaf asking Rishi Sunak for a referendum again, only to be turned down for the umpteenth time should kill any remaining notion that independence is earnestly sought. So, the decline bit is your lot. And that decline is a thriving industry.
To understand why, we need to think about what make Scotland’s politicians specific to their time and place. A copy and paste analysis will tell you any government is seeking to maximise profitability, attract investment, and keep the population disciplined. But these axioms don’t explain the diversity of class backgrounds of our rulers – and their self-description. Much – far too much – has been made of Humza Yousaf’s self-declared socialism, even his ‘centre-left’ credentials, as though these labels were more important than what he actually does. There’s also, in the cabinet itself, a marked absence of people from the two social classes so central to capitalist production – workers and capitalists.
State governance is not typically carried out by capitalists. They are, in many ways, a people unsuited to executive power in the state. Captains of industry are usually busy captaining their industries. ‘Direct rule’ can be a bad image, leaving the state open to accusations of corruption.
Capitalist presidents and prime ministers are controversial among capitalists themselves, as they might advance the narrow interests of their industry, or fraction of the business class. Indeed, when capitalists do become national leaders, it is quite often the consequence of populist disruption – as with Donald Trump in the US or Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand. When they are leaders in ‘good standing’ with state institutions, they must be seen to set-aside their own business concerns, networks and friends (though this is sometimes more in appearance than reality). Rishi Sunak, for example, is at pains to play down his own background, and that of his wife.
The need for a special stratum of administration provides capitalist regimes with their colourings of national character. Some modern states are haunted by their military officers, others by royal households (most of the world’s wealthiest leaders are Kings, Princes, and Sheiks). There are a few countries where clerics still wield much power.
European countries have special educational institutions to produce this class of state managers by the generation. France has the Grande Ecole system. Macron was a student at theschoolfor public administration established by the old general, Charles De Gaulle. Britain has Oxbridge of course, though the English were lucky to be equipped with patricians and aristos to fill senior civil service roles.
Scots were a bit different. The Scottish Reformation deployed its own officer class around religious, educational and welfare organisations. As the modern state developed, churchmen and their friends infested it. Tensions with Anglicanism were easily contained and faded after the act of Union and the growth of empire.
And so, Scotland had its distinctive elites, with their renowned paternalistic sympathy for the emergent working class. As the 19th century wore into the 20th, Scotland’s middle classes learned to see the English as somehow not quite good enough to steward the masses north of the border. Too individualist, too materialist, not a firm-enough hand.
Perhaps ideas of national character are generally over-stated. But I think you can make a case for the lasting cultural mood of elites. Revolutions at the top of society can leave that character curiously preserved. From the 1960s onwards, the Kirk entered full retreat. It now barely features in public life. And yet, something of the Kirkish tone remains in Scottish civil society, in the sphere of arts funds, academia and NGOs – the handwringing moral concern, the suspicion of the mob, the assertion of a national separateness intended to keep meddling English elites out our honey pots. With instruction, and correct doctrines, the moral sickness of our people can be remedied – but never by those uncouth and unruly southlanders.
Behind this culture is a simple material reality – our absentee capitalists. So much of Scottish capital is owned abroad, leaving many social and political functions to a big-headed but provincial local elite. Their essential function is as estate and letting agents – just look at the recent leasing of Scotland’s seabeds to big oil in the ScotWind project. It grants oh so little to Scotland’s workers and communities. But that’s the point. This is asset stripping, not nation building.
ScotWind isn’t a one-off. It’s part of a long-term strategy, that involves attacking planning rules, environmental protections, workers’ rights and much more. In 2020 the Scottish Government’s Green Investment Portfolio announced a run on national assets for international investors. The Government’s Economic Recovery Implementation Plan called this “a new collaborative partnership between business and government”. You can always tell its dangerous when it sounds so beige. All this before we even mention Scotland’s new Free Ports – that Scotland’s paternalist elites begged those scoundrels at Westminster for
It’s no surprise to find, as The Ferret reported this week, that Gillian Martin MSP, our new energy minister, spent a decade working in PR for oil and gas firms. This is the continuity our new government really shares with the last.
There’s more to be found elsewhere. Kate Forbes became persona non grata during the leadership race – but she had been a darling of Sturgeon’s wing of the SNP when she was an anti-public sector crusader. Her replacement as finance minister, Shona Robison, shares a liberal economic orientation – or at least she did when I last spoke to her in 2019, when she told me that issues like tax, the size of the state, monetary policy and bank regulation were not relevant to tackling poverty or reducing inequality.
This is the creed that spans SNP administrations – the sale of assets abroad, and a light-touch, responsibility-shedding state that enables this operation. Our estate agent elites can seek to cover the auction with any amount of spaff about inclusion, diversity and, above all, Scottish independence. It’s we who no longer have any excuse to be taken in by the salescraft.
