A new era has begun in Scottish politics. True, the most central ambition of most SNP voters - namely Scottish independence - now looks unlikely to be realised ((Unless of course the Liberal Democrats decide to hold true to their name and allow the people, rather than the politicians, to decide this important issue)). That does not change the fact that Neo Labour is no longer in power in Scotland.
Their campaign was nothing short of disgraceful. Instead of telling people their policies, they spent almost all of their time spreading misleading FUD ((Readers in the west of Scotland should note the capitalisation of FUD - it is an acronym, not an expletive. A definition is available on Wikipedia))about the SNP, for example:
- ‘The SNP will increase income tax by 3%’. Yes, this is true. What they didn’t mention is that it is the Local Income Tax, and that the 3% rise will be offset by abolishing council tax altogether. The end result would be that people on low and average incomex would be better off than they are at present - not worse off as Neo Labour’s FUD claimed.
- ‘Separation [sic] will bankrupt Scotland’. The first problem with this is that Scotland would take control of 100% of its revenue (instead of its natural resources and taxes going to Westminster coffers and the Chancellor giving us pocket money in return). Second, Scotland would not have to pay a share of the extraordinarily expensive, unnecessary evils enacted by Westminster - £70bn for new treaty-violating weapons of mass destruction, £20bn for compulsory, human-rights violating ID cards.
I could go on for ages, but Neo Labour’s campaign has been consigned to the bin by the Scottish people, where it belongs. What is important now is for the other four parties (plus Margo McDonald) to vote on a policy-by-policy by basis to honour the commitments they made to the people in their legitimate, positive campaigns.
May I just add that the SNP’s campaign was not all too good either. I got at least three electorial communications from them solely poised at explaining ‘The Lib Dems or Tories have not got a chance, look at our graph, instead - vote us to get labour out’. With no other information on it bar a photo of themselves.
I’m very interested to see how they manage affairs now they can start work. Hopefully they are up to the challenge.