While Salmond landed some blows in the debate about Scottish independence last night he was still unable to answer the crucial questions
While Salmond landed some blows in the debate about Scottish independence last night he was still unable to answer the crucial questions
In some ways it is rather heartening that there is an audience left for the utopia Alex Salmond is trying to sell Scotland. One in which the cuts agenda will not give way to the bedroom tax, nor draw money away from the National Health Service. This is the kind of society I want to live in.
And clearly the way Salmond sells it is working. After his lacklustre performance last time round he has, according to a snap poll of 505 voters in Scotland for the Guardian by ICM, the backing of some 71% of viewers compared with 29% who backed Darling.
But as Darling said last night in the debate, a good line is not always the good answer.
Indeed Darling, the more critical and analytical of the two, was correct to pursue answers to questions that had not been previously answered. Is Scotland safe in Salmond’s hands given the estimates of oil barrels in Scotland? Has the currency question been sufficiently settled yet?
Darling was right to say that in the 670 page white paper, Scotland’s Future : Your Guide to an Independent Scotland, there was just one page of numbers for just one year, and as it turns out estimates were lower than originally thought. Without the right data it is fair enough to accuse the Yes campaign of “gambling children’s future.”
This is backed up by a recent interview with Energy Voice, where Sir Ian Wood pointed out that Scotland’s oil reserves had been “massively overestimated” and the prediction that 24 billion barrels remain in the North Sea is “45% to 65% too high”. Rather, Sir Ian estimates there remains between “15 billion and 16.5 billion barrels.” This requires significant alterations to the economics Scotland’s future.
Once again showing that the letters pages in The Scotsman provides better analysis than debates between campaign leaders, Paul Wright of Edinburgh last month said:
When we read the small print of Scotland’s Future we discover that the claims of vast oil wealth are built on a flimsy foundation. They are based on a hypothetical economic model which assumes a geographical distribution of reserves. This in turn relates to a principle (the median line principle) that has been established for purposes of economic analysis and determining zones of civil jurisdiction (but not for distribution of oil and gas reserves).
Salmond fell flat again on currency (three plan-B’s is an idiotic line to deliver, obviously making Plan-A sound impossible) and scare-stories about hospitals in the UK, whereas the blows that landed were on an odd statements about the shared platform of his campaign (though the Yes vote has support from various political parties, including Labour, as well), and a point about the cost of replacing Trident, which while relevant, in context of the evening (Darling was pressing Salmond on his own number crunching at the time, and winning) was classic smoke and mirrors.
The truth is that an independent Scotland would still face the same struggles to deliver quality public services as the rest of the UK does. While of course we must accept the political dimension of this within the cuts agenda, there are other external factors that must be appreciated, for example an ageing population that will require more investment money into a national health service.
And we mustn’t forget that the SNP themselves are given to short-term strategies that are contrary to the social-democratic tradition. We hear less and less of, for example, the party’s desire to lower corporation tax in Scotland.
Salmond is happy to criticise Darling for sharing platforms with the Tories, some fuss had even been made in the past about the Better Together campaign accepting money from a major Conservative Party donor, but the SNP does not exist only from the good willing of normal people off the street of Scotland. It also has multimillionaire backers such as Brian Souter, the owner of Stagecoach.
Working people, who it has to be said have been more pro-independence throughout the campaign, should not have to put up with the grotesque policies of the coalition government, sure. But an independent Scotland will not exist in a utopian vacuum. Even the SNP woo millionaires for funding and doth their caps at rich businessmen by promising to lower corporation tax.
The point is we have to tackle this crisis, perpetrated by establishment politicians of all colours, together. Alex Salmond remains a snake oil salesman.
Carl Packman is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
99 Responses to “Alex Salmond is still a snake oil salesman”
Donald Carthlan
@kryten2k35:disqus
Yes considering that he was Chancellor at the time. more to the point can you point me to a speech/statement etc where Darling opposed the privatisation of the NHS?
Donald Carthlan
That “private equity” firm you refer to is Cinven Limited, the company is a leading buyout firm, who in 2008 bought 25 private hospitals from Bupa for £1.44bn. Other UK investments include Spire Healthcare, who run private healthcare hospitals, and whose clinical director Jean-Jacques de Gorter said the use of private sector would “spiral” as a result of Conservative MP Andrew Lansley’s reform proposals.
This is important in the context of the NHS because In 2011, Alistair Darling received over £10,000 for addressing a dinner organised by Cinven Limited.
Sidney Ruff-Diamond
But it isn’t rejecting it. It is operting a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy along with Denmark, if the Nats proposals are accurate. They can say they refuse all they like; their actual policy is to bury their heads in the sand and pretend they aren’t hosting subs carrying nukes.
Donald Carthlan
“why should the UK take back the subs? ”
Seeing as its the UK who wants the subs and based them in Scotland in the first place.
“part of the military would go”
Only a tiny minuscule part as evidenced by this article here – http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/political-news/labour-and-tories-under-fire-for-inflating-trident-job-losses.19262922
In Trident’s place Scotland would replace the utterly useless Trident with conventional forces that under the UK are non-existent. Within the UK at the present moment Scotland’s coasts and maritime assets are almost totally unprotected. When a Russian warship ventured close to the Moray Firth in December 2013, the Royal Navy had no vessels to intercept it except HMS Defender, which took a full day to sail from the south of England to monitor the intruder. This article here – http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/portsmouth-based-warship-sent-to-shadow-russian-ship-off-scotland-1-5787359 states:
“The missile-carrying Russian warship came within 30 miles of the coast before Christmas. Portsmouth- based HMS Defender was the only ship available to respond due to Ministry of Defence cutbacks and had a tense stand-off with the Russian ship. The Type 45 took 24 hours to reach the coast of Scotland.”
Meanwhile the UK government has also closed RAF Leuchars, leaving only a single air base in the whole of Scotland, and is reducing the size of the British Army by a quarter, cutting 20,000 jobs . All this is being done in order to continue to afford the Trident nuclear weapon system and its replacement, at a projected cost of £100bn see here- http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/sep/18/trident-replacement-hidden-cost-revealed/
Yet almost everyone acknowledges that Trident serves no military purpose. Tony Blair said of the system in his 2010 autobiography that:
“The expense is huge and the utility [is] non-existent in terms of military use.” see here -http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/27/britain-decline-military-superpower
While former Conservative defence secretary Michael Portillo said of Trident in 2013:
“It’s completely past its sell-by date. It’s neither independent, because we couldn’t possibly use it without the Americans, neither is it any sort of deterrent, because now largely we are facing the sorts of enemies – the Taliban, Al Qaeda – who cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons. It’s a tremendous waste of money, it’s done entirely for reasons of national prestige.”
And the UK’s major allies also want the system abandoned. The right-wing UK magazine The Spectator reported in 2013 on claims that the US military was urging the UK to scrap it, noting that:
“From the American perspective Trident serves no useful purpose whatsoever whereas other things upon which Britain could usefully spend the cash presently earmarked for Trident DO matter to the Americans or would, that is to say, be useful to them. And to NATO.” see here – http://tinyurl.com/weebluebook71
Trident didn’t deter Argentina from invading the Falklands. It didn’t prevent the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Indeed, even the vastly larger nuclear arsenal of the USA didn’t stop Iraq invading Kuwait, nor avert the destruction of the World Trade Centre.
Donald Carthlan
So to summarise Scotland like Spain, Denmark and Norway will be in NATO.