Labour sharpens its knives over Scottish Futures Trust

Published on Sunday 18 May 2008 22:28

THERE was a good deal of disgruntled muttering last week when Alex Salmond, the First Minister, failed to mention anything about the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) in his statement on taking Scotland forward.

Even though the statement was not meant to be a programme for government, the SFT is a crucial part of taking Scotland forward, because it is the means by which the SNP intends to raise money for major capital projects, such as the 1 billion new Forth road bridge.

It is meant to replace the much derided public-private partnerships (PPPs) used by Labour, which the SNP has said allowed the private sector to profit at the expense of the public purse.

But the wait may soon be over. The Scotsman has been told by a senior SNP source that in just a few weeks' time John Swinney, the finance secretary, will bring the SFT proposal to the chamber.

To say it is eagerly anticipated would be an understatement. There are many MSPs who want a new school in their constituency and have not been shy of complaining that none has been commissioned since the SNP came to power, which has somewhat undermined their claim that they would match Labour's school-building programme "brick for brick".

It hasn't stopped SNP ministers opening new schools commissioned by the last Labour/Liberal Democrat administration and built through PPP, and taking the credit for them. The whisper is that Alex Salmond is due to do that again this week.

But the SFT is most eagerly awaited by Labour, which has adopted a bunker mentality following the referendum antics of Wendy Alexander. Leading Labour figures have been saying to anybody who will listen that the SFT will be the Nationalists' Achilles' heel and they intend to use its presumed failure as a means of exposing the "hollowness" (their new buzz word) of the Salmond government.

Perhaps in anticipation of the SNP's woes, Labour backroom staff have let it be known that they have started a covert internet campaign on the issue.

A message has gone round telling people to put Christine McKelvie's name into YouTube, where an edited clip comes up of the apparently hapless Nationalist MSP on Newsnight Scotland struggling desperately to explain the SFT. Like her colleagues, she struggles to do so, although she is clearly reading (badly) from notes and seems to concede that there is little difference with the SFT and PPPs. The clip ends with a "vote Labour" message and reveals how the opposition intends to try to fight back from a calamitous year and the troubles it may cause the SNP.