Eddie Barnes: Whatever he may lack in policy, he makes up for with bags of strategy

Published on Saturday 17 October 2009 19:51

IN BOURNEMOUTH, we had a party that claimed it was going to get power, but no-one believed it.

In Brighton, a party that had power but was about to lose it. In Manchester, there was a party without power that will soon get it. Only in Inverness this conference season have we had a party which has power and is planning to keep it.

Outside the Eden Court theatre, where the SNP is gathered for its conference, the waters of the River Ness drive purposefully and relentlessly onwards; inside, the mood is similar.

As a platform for new policy, the SNP conference, which climaxed with Alex Salmond's speech yesterday, has been a flop. The speech was so thin on detail regarding what his administration intends to do that he included plans to spend 7.5 million on 710 defibrillators in Scotland's ambulances; a doubtless important purchase but one that represents 0.00025% of his annual budget.

But the policy vacuum does not matter a jot. Salmond's confident, assertive leadership, and a united party behind him, mean the SNP is currently out of reach of its opponents.

The contrast between Salmond and his utterly anonymous Labour opponent Iain Gray is now becoming slightly comic. As his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, commented yesterday introducing Salmond, the First Minister "almost makes me feel sorry for Iain Gray".

And what Salmond lacks in hard policy, he makes up for in strategy. The conference this weekend has seen the First Minister unveil his general election campaign plan. Raising the very real prospect of a hung Parliament, the SNP will argue that a small block of SNP MPs will be able to go to whichever party is in power with a "shopping list" of demands, amounting to 800m of money which the SNP says it should have.

With Salmond claiming he could win 20 seats, that allows the Nationalists to say that each MP elected would be worth 40m to Scotland. It will counter the Labour message that a vote for the SNP is effectively a vote for the Conservatives.

Yesterday, a deeper strategy was at play as well. At the UK level, both Labour and the Conservatives have laid out their plans for public service cuts, having decided that it is better to "level" with the public than to continue with spurious claims that more investment is coming. Salmond could have used his speech yesterday to spell out his own plans in Scotland. But instead, he decided not to follow suit.

Instead, he very deliberately bracketed Labour and the Conservatives together as the parties of "cuts".

And he told voters that his party, unlike his opponents, would keep the money tap on. "There are Labour cuts and Tory cuts. They say there is no more money for Scottish health and education and choose to spend 100bn on new nuclear weapons. We say they are wrong," he declared.

It was a clear bid to reach out to Scotland's centre-left middle ground and to Labour's heartlands. They'll waste money on Trident, he declared; we'd scrap it and keep funding going for the NHS. The dividing lines have been set: the SNP to the left; Labour and the Tories on the compromised right.

Of course, Salmond's attack on the cost of Trident will do precisely nothing to help him out of his own spending problems over the coming two or three years. Soon, just like his opponents in Westminster, he will have to make some less palatable choices.

There is little doubt that the scale of the coming public sector cutbacks will enforce further, deeper cuts, involving real pain and job losses.

But the First Minister yesterday decided not to give notice. And why should he? "We can just blame the Government down south because they're to blame," said one minister, enjoying the beautiful Highland weather.

The sun has shone all weekend in Inverness. For the SNP, all looks set fair.