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”
Hearthammer
Arthur, you won’t get an answer to that! These people are totally bankrupt of ideas and are yesterday’s men (and women!) They are redundant, as will be shown on September 19th! The big problem for London Labour in Scotland is that they are all facing their P45s and who’s to say they’ll ever be in politics again?
Hopefully, these bloodsuckers will fade into history just like socialism and the LAbour Party!
John
It is not because I am against independence that I support the UKIP, BNP or Conservatives.
So I took your advice and had a look at the Jimmy Reid foundation. What do I find? Again the same thing… the independence proposition being mixed with an entire bag of policies that have nothing to do with independence.
The yes-side made its independence proposition, you can’t blame the no-side for the yes-side having thrown in a lot of policy promises that have nothing to do with independence. I do not think there is much more to say about this unfortunately. I agree with you the independence debate should have been first and foremost about governance; it’s a missed chance.
John
I don’t trust any politicians. I attack the SNP more aggressively than the other parties because the SNP is promising a project which is entirely dependent on politicians’ promises.
I prefer taking the risk of the Tories getting reelected (low chance), them cutting the English NHS budget (they have actually ring fenced it quite well so far), subsequently them imposing a budget cut on the Scottish NHS (would they dare?) over now knowing which currency I will have to use, the cost of having to deal with two sets of laws and regulations for my business, to what extent I will have to change the set-up of my business, what the implications will be of our new admission into the EU (for instance will Schengen apply?), whether I will need to set up two pension arrangements for my small number of employees, how I will be able to tender for projects now in a foreign country, whether we will face a financing disadvantage (wider interest spread), the cost of setting up two VAT administrations, whether I can deduct losses in for instance England from my Scottish tax return or vice versa (probably not as this is not customary between different countries), how to deal with a period of local business uncertainty due to difficult independence negotiations, setting up a transfer pricing policy between England and Scotland which is acceptable to both tax authorities, dealing with rebranding (no longer UK), dealing with potential negative perceptions amongst English clients, etc. etc. I hope you appreciate these are valid reasons why I am in the no-thanks camp.
John
Hi JReilly,
I prefer taking the risk of the Tories getting reelected (low chance), them cutting the English NHS budget (they have actually ring fenced it quite well so far), subsequently them imposing a budget cut on the Scottish NHS (would they dare?) over now knowing which currency I will have to use, the cost of having to deal with two sets of laws and regulations for my business, to what extent I will have to change the set-up of my business, what the implications will be of our new admission into the EU (for instance will Schengen apply?), whether I will need to set up two pension arrangements for my small number of employees, how I will be able to tender for projects now in a foreign country, whether we will face a financing disadvantage (wider interest spread), the cost of setting up two VAT administrations, whether I can deduct losses in for instance England from my Scottish tax return or vice versa (probably not as this is not customary between different countries), how to deal with a period of local business uncertainty due to difficult independence negotiations, setting up a transfer pricing policy between England and Scotland which is acceptable to both tax authorities, dealing with rebranding (no longer UK), dealing with potential negative perceptions amongst English clients, etc. etc.
All of the above are genuine concerns and dealing with them will take a lot of time and energy. I hope you appreciate these are valid reasons why I am in the no-thanks camp; if any of them would appear to be a pure scare story to you please let me know which one.
Ken Bell
Gordon Brown stated the other day that organ transplants would be difficult in Scotland as the UK would not send organs over the River Tweed. It took five minutes to call NHS Blood & Transplant to demolish that lie, but we are still waiting for a retraction from Labour.
Look, when I moved up here last year, I realised that I was in the part of Britain that never accepted the post-1979 consensus. Labour’s claim to be the voice of ordinary people would ring true had it not elected Tony Blair as its leader and then pandered to the parasitic middle class in Southern England. It did, and that annoyed North Britain even more, hence the rise of the SNP in Holyrood.
Sorry, but I am voting yes just to get rid of the lot of you.