In seeking to put as much distance between it and the SNP as possible, Labour is alienating potential voters in Scotland
Writing for the Scotsman over the weekend, Jon Curtice of Strathclyde University had a dire warning for Labour: “Rather than beginning to puncture the nationalist balloon, Scottish Labour is if anything falling even further behind the nationalists in the polls.”
Labour’s problem is that they are playing to the Tory tune. In seeking to put as much distance between it and the SNP as possible, the party is effectively alienating pro-independence supporters who previously voted Labour. In the process they are choking off the only viable option to a stable Labour-led government that can go on for a full Parliament.
Politics has changed – and potentially for good. The UK is fractured; but rather than embracing Scottish voters and seeking to tie the SNP to the difficult decisions to come, Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are slowly prising the Scottish-England border apart.
All of that aside, what of the content of the SNP’s manifesto, which Nicola Sturgeon today declared to be ‘bursting with ideas and ambition’?
At its heart is a commitment to bring an end to austerity. What it dubs a ‘modest’ spending increase of 0.5 per cent a year would, the manifesto argues, enable at least £140 billion extra investment in the economy and in public services. On the basis of an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Labour could potential sign up to such a plan and still meet its fiscal targets.
On housing, the SNP commit to the construction of 100,000 new affordable homes a year each year and to increasing the minimum wage to £8.70 an hour by 2020 (Labour has committed to increasing it to ‘more than £8 an hour by October 2019’).
Restoration of the 50p top income tax rate mirrors the commitment made by Labour. It would also be difficult to find a Labour politician willing to argue against an increase in the Employment Allowance, or to support the £3 billion cut in disability support which, the SNP argues, ‘threatens to cut the income of a million disabled people by more than £1,000 a year’.
For the rest of the day, politicians of the major parties will be doing their utmost to undermine the SNP. In reality, however, the differences between the SNP’s plans and Labour’s are not as stark as some in Miliband’s circle might have you believe.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
55 Responses to “The differences between Labour and the SNP are smaller than you think”
uglyfatbloke
However if the gnats put up income tax (which they can to the tune of 3p) whatever they raise gets deducted from the Holyrood block grant, so what’s the value of that?
uglyfatbloke
No, Holyrood is nort elected by PR, the version of the De Hondt AMS system has an ‘element of proportionality’ and was designed to protect Labour and the Lib-Dems at the expense of the gnats. The gnats won a majority because they got enough votes for the FPTP part of the system to work strongly in their favour.
Malcolm X
Just because they refused it once does not mean they cannot and will not again – and despite your posturing you are well aware, as are the lib/lab/con liars – that this is very much the case. The fact that The SNP have swept across Scotland and are set to take EVERY seat says it all.
Yes, I am a separatist and proud. Why should I not be? What has Westminster offered us in the last three decades apart from selling off my children’s futures and colluding with mass murderers in illegal wars and disastrous foreign policies that have carved up the Middle East with a death toll from WESTERN bombings standing at over 1m civilians – just over the last two parliaments??
More of the same or people power?
I know what I’d vote for.
Malcolm X
Oh and if you are muggins enough to fall for the contents of the dodgy dossier still, or consider our record in Iraq is to be proud of – there is no hope for you.
Philip Thomas
No, funnily enough I don’t. Are you aware that Scottish Labour voted against their OWN amendments because the SNP agreed to adopt them? I should correct myself: they do have one principle. It’s called the Bain Principle, which can basically be summarised as warped self-interest.
Keep trying…