The Yes campaign has borrowed one of New Labour’s best tricks, and not in a good way.
The Yes campaign has borrowed one of New Labour’s best tricks, and not in a good way
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the latest turn of the independence referendum shows it to be true, as the Yes campaign has borrowed one of New Labour’s best tricks.
Those of us with long memories will recall various by-election campaigns in Tony Blair’s spell as leader of the opposition when Peter Mandelson would run a last-week leaflet bearing the headline ‘One Week To Save Our NHS/Hospitals’ etc.
This would appeal to the natural concerns of the local public who would then turn out to defeat the hapless Tory candidate who would be left shaking their head in bewilderment.
The Yes Campaign is now playing the same game, but with an important difference: where the New Labour case was based on genuine concerns, the Nationalists are spreading a pack of lies.
A further difference is that Labour was genuinely concerned about the future of the NHS, and later acted by doubling and tripling spending on the NHS and building a new generation of modern hi-tech hospitals.
In contrast, the interest of the Yes campaign in the Scottish NHS is solely to use it as part of its programme of attempting frighten people into voting for independence.
At the heart of the Yes Scotland NHS Scares And Lies Strategy are two assertions which are bare-faced lies of the highest order.
Big NHS Lie No. 1 is that the Scottish NHS is vulnerable to health policy decisions made in England.
The Truth is of course that for decades, the Scottish NHS has been run from Scotland by Scots, first through the Home & Health Department and now as a fully devolved service under the direct control and responsibility of the Scottish Government. The Truth is therefore that no decision made in Westminster can impact on the Scottish NHS.
Big NHS Lie No. 2 is that structural reforms of the NHS in the rest of UK can reduce the block grant available in Scotland, e.g., if parts of the NHS in England and Wales are privatised, the cash available (calculated by the Barnett Formula) would go down.
The Truth of this story is that even in the highly unlikely event of most or all of NHS treatment in England and Wales being privatised, it would still be paid for by the taxpayer. The Truth is that the bill for the NHS would not go down and so neither would the proportion allocated to Scotland.
There are two calculations behind the Yes Scotland NHS Scares and Lies Strategy.
The first is the knowledge that the usual drift of opinion in referendum campaigns is towards the status quo, and only exceptions are when the voters are convinced that only the change proposal can protect those things which they value. (The best examples are those of countries like Sweden and Austria joining the European Union in the belief that membership would protect their economies and social fabric better than isolation.)
So Yes needs to put fear into the voters to have any chance at all of winning in September. Hence the lies about threats to the Scottish NHS.
The second calculation is that they recall the way in which in 2011 Holyrood election the SNP took protest votes (overwhelmingly from Liberal Democrats) in the final weeks of the campaign. This time the party in the firing line is Scottish Labour, as the founders and saviours of the NHS – Scotland’s true party of the NHS.
So Yes needs to support its NHS Scotland Scares And Lies Strategy with a parallel onslaught of lies about the Labour Party’s record in office since 1997.
This of course ignores The Truth of Labour’s achievements of 10 years continuous growth, The Truth of highest-ever levels of employment, The Truth of rising living standards across all social and economic groups, The Truth of radical reductions in child and pensioner poverty, The Truth of big improvements in education and childcare, the UK’s largest ever programme of schools building, The Truth of improved maternity rights and statutory paternity rights, The Truth of the first ever Minimum Wage, The Truth of full employment rights for part-time workers, and The Truth of civil partnerships.
And, of course, in health matters it ignores The Truth that the NHS under Labour enjoyed its lowest waiting times and highest level of satisfaction ever, and embarked on the largest ever programme of hospital building, and The Truth that the Labour Scottish government took such bold steps as the early introduction of the smoking ban and the nationalisation of the Royal Jubilee Hospital.
It also neglects The Truth that Labour wrote off Glasgow’s housing debt, making possible the massive investment which has transformed the city’s social housing stock and made history of the old health hazards of damp and avoidable fuel poverty.
And it dismisses The Truth that devolutionto Scotland, delivered by Labour according to the wishes of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, absolutely guarantees that the NHS in Scotland remains a matter for the people of Scotland.
Pretty soon, Yes Scotland will put out the Mandelsonian message ‘x weeks/days to Save Scotland’s NHS’. However, voters are being asked to vote Yes on the basis of the Yes Scotland NHS Scares And Lies Strategy.
This is a proposition which is much more serious than a mere carelessness with the truth, or a little bit of tweaking it for a bye-election. It is an invitation to start a new state on a prospectus of lies.
There can be no doubt that Scots should all choose the rational truth instead, and vote No.
Peter Russell blogs at Planet Pedro!
173 Responses to “Yes Scotland’s NHS scares and lies strategy”
MopMop
It’s your argument as well. You’re a Yes voter. I already gave you a list of major problems with Holyrood’s system. Currently, the majority doesn’t even necessarily get the majority representation (a government with less than 50% is currently in power) And no one can actually challenge anything within the system. Few people in the UK would say there’s no issues with House of Lords, but, things that have happened in Holyrood (guardians, armed police, centeralistion) wouldn’t happen in the UK because of the House of Lords. Hilariously, Westminster is actually criticising our government for such things, as they should.
And in other words, you don’t know. You can’t give me an answer. No one can, actually. You and you’s just like to ramble on and on about how it’s all Westminster’s fault, how terrible Westminster is and and how we can change it all, that we’ll do it better…yet no one has a clue actually *how* other than “we just will”. And the fact that that’s apparently okay to so many people, is truly terrifying.
(And seeing as we don’t get a choice with the Nato membership, you’re gonna meet some issues with that nuclear want of yous. A handful of European countries have been trying for years to get rid of nuclear weapons that are only on their land semi-legally, with absolutely no success. There’s technicalities for every Treaty – SNP are quite a fan of such things, actually.)
Arthur
It’s my argument as well because I’m a yes voter? Ok, so you’ll be defending UKIP because they’re no voters too? And the Orange Order, and the BNP, and the Scottish Defence League? And the Tories? Well, go on then – why should we get out of Europe? Why should we stop immigration? Why should we keep the bedroom tax?
When was the last time a UK government had a majority of the vote? Didn’t Tony Blair get something like 55% of the seats on 21% of the electorate in 2005? (Quick calculation based on Wikipedia, please correct me if I’m wrong) Or 36% of the votes cast. The SNP got 53% of the seats on 45% of the votes at Holyrood, a far more representative result.
We have armed police in the rest of the UK too – the house of lords didn’t stop that, did they? One of the major problems of the UK is the centralisation of everything in London – the house of lords didn’t stop that either. I have no reason to believe the house of lords would have stopped the guardian thing either – what makes you think they would?
You seem to accept that there is something wrong with the house of lords (I hope I’m not misrepresenting you here), so we can agree on that. Perhaps where we differ is in what to do about it. I’m afraid I am fundamentally opposed to it, and can see no option other than getting rid of it entirely. I would be open to replacing it with another second chamber, and would happily discuss what that could be, but the important principle for me is that it is removed.
Why do you think we don’t get a choice over NATO membership? It seems to me that that could easily be something that could be decided in an election, as part of a partie’s manifesto, or perhaps a referendum. Personally, my vote would be decided upon nuclear weapons. If a condition of NATO membership was having nuclear weapons based here, then I would vote to leave NATO. I don’t think that would be the choice though. Spain removed US nuclear weapons from it’s soil and later joined NATO, so why couldn’t Scotland?
Can I ask you a few questions?
Do you support nuclear weapons being based in Scotland/UK?
Do you support what the current Tory administration is doing to the NHS in England?
Do you think we’re better with the current implementation of the house of lords, or would we be better served by getting rid of it?
Peter A. Russell
The Scottish Government can support its NHS by using funds from any other area its budget. This already takes place, for example, in the case of the extension of free prescriptions to the better-off.
Another example is in education, where over 100,000 FE college places have been cut to fund university fees.
Ross R. Smith
Both points are totally and utterly wrong, pretty much the same thing too.
While it is true that the NHS in Scotland is controlled by the Scottish Government, the funding we receive still comes from the UK.
Our funding is based on a percentage of what England spends, say it was 10%, They spend £100, we get £10 to spend, they spend £7000 and we get £700.
While they can’t (at the moment) directly legislate on our NHS matters what they do in England DOES matter a significant deal.
They are selling off parts of the NHS in England to private companies, to drive down costs (which also provides a poorer service for us).
The more money they save by selling off their NHS, the less money we receive – it’s pretty simple – by doing so the Scottish Government will have no choice but to follow suit and privatise our NHS also.
Prefacing lies with ‘The truth’ in bold type does not somehow miraculously make them true.
All this is proving is that you’re a bitter Laboru fan that can’t accept that Labour no longer have the interests at heart and because of this you aren’t too fond of the SNP taking the limelight and actually doing good for the country.
Scotland doesn’t have to vote for Labour anymore and a decade of ignoring ‘safe’ Labour seats in Scotland to focus on winning Tory voters down in England has bitten them in the arse.
Arthur
The Scottish Government can’t choose to use funds from other areas of the UK budget though. What if the Scottish Government thinks the NHS is more important than having a nuclear weapons system? What if it thinks that dualling the A9 is more important than funding Crossrail, or HS2, or HS3, or Londons sewers, or another illegal war? In that case, we don’t have a real choice. The Scottish Government is already financing the bedroom tax by taking funds from other areas of it’s budget. At some point it stops being a feasible solution.
We already pay enough to finance our NHS, and we’ll continue to pay enough to finance our NHS in the future. Westminster won’t hand our money back though. This is one of the big problems with the current system. You don’t see a threat to the Scottish NHS with the current system but I do. I don’t believe your views are anything other than heartfelt, considered and honest. So are mine. I’m not lying.