Too much personal bile, not enough objective analysis

Published on Friday 27 April 2007 01:03

THE pool of advisers in Tory HQ must have been salivating at the prospect of the headlines in Monday's Scotsman. Arthur Midwinter, visiting professor at the Institute for Public Sector Finance at Edinburgh University, had just praised the Conservative manifesto, declaring it "transparent and realistic".

Having reviewed all four of the main parties, the Tories had, unexpectedly, come out top.

Surely this was just the sort of good news to be seized upon and exploited? Yet strangely, three days later, there is still not a murmur, no press conference, nothing; not even the hint of smugness on Annabel Goldie's face. Why on earth not?

It's simple. Nobody in the political trenches, from the mere privates that do all the foot-slogging to the donkeys that lead them over the top, believe anything the professor says, and still fewer care. His analysis is dismissed as attention-seeking and his willingness to personalise the debate and trade punches suggests to many that he is, at heart, a frustrated politician without the guts to put himself before the voters.

It is not for me to defend Labour MSPs, but when Midwinter says in his report about Labour's manifesto that under devolution there has not been "a finance minister with a mastery of the brief", I consider it little more than personal bile that undermines his occasionally accurate financial observation.

What passes for academic objectivity is slagging every party off, so no-one can accuse him of being anyone's poodle. The "confused political and economic theorising" of the Liberal Democrats, the SNP's "uncosted wish list" and Labour's "muddling through" have all been mentioned, and back in the 2005 election, when I was Tory finance spokesman, he accused us of DIY accounting ( I rebutted this after first checking I did have ten fingers).

Even so, why have the Tories not used Midwinter to their advantage? Closer reading of his paper reveals that, like the three others, it is full of personal barbs and asides, often unfounded, all of them gratuitous.

If it had been presented as political opinion, then fine, but an objective comparative review it is not. Essentially, he praises the Tory manifesto for being safe and dull, dumping right-wing rhetoric and returning to the traditional centre ground, emphasising issues such as law and order. Funny that - I thought law and order was right-wing rhetoric.

Midwinter's financial reviews are replete with political assumptions that defend the tax-and-spend orthodoxy of Scottish political life by, for instance, taking public spending as a good in itself and ignoring the many academic studies that provide evidence of a relationship between low taxes and high economic growth.

They are also full of personal political prejudices. The Tory manifesto and its wider campaign is designed to maximise Annabel Goldie's strengths on subjects such as crime and drugs, and avoid leaving her exposed on matters where she knows only platitudes, such as schools and local government.

It is not a shift to the centre ground; it is a shift to Goldie's ground. And with a new leader likely within six months, the party will no doubt shift again.

• Brian Monteith is a former independent MSP.