Hangovers. That horrible, sinking feeling of dread. The rueing of mistakes made in a haze of past bravado. Regrets building, wishing you’d charted a different course. That desperate, slow and painful attempt to salvage the situation until reality comes and abruptly slaps you across the face. Thankfully for Swinney and Starmer, I’m not sure either of them partake in the pitfalls of alcohol regularly. However as political hangovers go, the last few weeks has been top tier for both our respective incumbent governments.
In the case of Starmer, just two short months after the general election saw him propelled to Downing Street on an unreflective majority thanks to our ridiculous first past the post voting system, any pretence of a settling in period was quickly and unduly smashed. No sooner did his cabinet settle into their new roles (the sight of fresh faces in government departments a distant memory to most who even managed to register it) was the streets of towns across England beset by online led fake news race riots. The likes of which we have not seen on the streets of Britain for decades. Such is the depravity of the cesspit formerly known as Twitter, even the unimaginable horror of the murder of innocent young girls could not pass without some intent on using the tragedy to whip up racial hatred in our communities.
The sight of homes, shops and even places of worship being attacked beamed into every living room in the country night after night. The seemingly unimaginable prospect of hotels housing some of the most vulnerable people in the country being protected by Police from those intent on setting it alight – with those very people inside – will stay with those of us with a social and moral conscience for a very long time. With the violence now seemingly quelled thanks largely to a huge community anti racist and anti fascist response, Starmer and Reeves have set about creating the economic parameters for the Government in no haste and no uncertain terms.
Far from the cry of change that dominated their election campaign, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d been transported in time as Reeves delivered a financial statement to the Commons and press that could quite conceivably have been read by George Osborne in 2010 as the new coalition government set about pinning the collapse of the capitalist financial institutions on public sector investment and its workforce. The argument underpinning it was the same – we have no choice. The “hard decisions” are back. The “all in it together” mantra of those in power and authority who will evidently not face the sharp consequences of decisions they make between now and October’s budget has returned on stealth.
The unwillingness to dare to imagine a redistributive programme of reform is here and here to stay. First for the chop was the winter fuel allowance for pensioners – even as bills are forecast to rise 10% this winter and energy companies take in record profits – and billions of so called efficiency savings across every government department. So constrained are the new government by their own self defeating fiscal rules they are literally promising no new investment at a time of absolute crisis across every realm of the public sector.
Their own self defined number one mission of growth now reliant wholly and exclusively it would seem on private sector investment, a relaxation of planning laws and the stability of the same PM for longer than 50 days. Early polling is already showing a dip in support for Labour at what should be a time of maximum public support – yet again highlighting both the very fragile nature of the broad but shallow coalition built by Starmer and his inner circle discussed in previous columns and the real and present danger that a failure to deliver will quickly propel the far right into office who are organising and campaigning on the ground after an electoral breakthrough via Reform and a Tory leadership contest increasingly dominated by Kemi Badenoch.
To matters here in Scotland and the aftermath of a flat, uninspiring and at times ghostly SNP conference has seen the new Swinney government follow much the same path. First out the blocks was the finance Secretary Shona Robison who used the return of Holyrood to announce £500million of cuts to Scottish Government spending to come, abated by £400 million of a draw down on the Scotwind money to plug a financial black hole of £1billion. Our natural assets, this time wind, auctioned off at bargain basement prices to private sector polluters like Shell and BP now being used to fund day to day spending – the very same mismanagement of resources that has turbo charged the case for Independence for decades from Thatchers mismanagement of our oil reserves to pay for her sweeping deindustrialisation and social vandalism that followed. Gone too in the Swinney programme for Government are the scrapping of peak rail fares and in comes a watering down of climate change targets. Gone is the rollout of free school meals to all primary school pupils promised just last year by then First Minister Humza Yousaf.
The STUC have led the charge in presenting detailed proposals to the Scottish Government that can both raise in cash terms the amount the Scottish Government has to invest in services and continue to rebalance and redistribute wealth to working class people, all within the constraints and challenges of devolved Government. Calls it appears that have unfortunately fallen on deaf ears. Far from leading a national grassroots movement for Independence, those of us in the left of the movement are now in the previously unthinkable terrain of having to aggressively defend the universal provision of services like prescriptions, personal care, higher education and school meals that have previously been seen as the single biggest marker and positive change of devolution.
A sign that indeed politics can and should work for the majority. From outside looking in, the SNP looks a party that has finally suffered the fate it somehow missed for a decade. Political gravity has indeed pulled them sharply and painfully back down to earth. The Sturgeon era practices of politics of by press release, centralising command and control freakery & a vicious and aggressive approach to dissent has finally met its consequences with undoubted more chaos and stench of that period still to come. Increasingly the SNP and Scottish Government by proxy look and sound tired, stale and simply out of ideas. Many in the country have already switched off, so discontent are they with mismanagement and a failure to deliver even the most basic of Governmental responsibilities that has marked the last few years in particular. Their crushing General Election defeat has it would appear only added to the confusion and lack of direction rather than helped to clarify and shine a light on where it has went so badly wrong.
With this backdrop you could hardly be forgiven for carrying around a sinking feeling of despair, disillusionment and disappointment. A new set of taps and a roll of wallpaper this ain’t, perhaps under new management the fortunes can be revived? Impetus, innovation and imagination you say? Make mine a treble.
