Christine Jardine: Labour’s alternative prescription for success

IF THERE were votes in being brave, Johann Lamont would just have secured a generation of electoral success for the Scottish Labour Party.

There can be few people who weren’t surprised when the leader of the “left” in Scotland stood up and announced the previously unthinkable.

She called for a review of policies including free personal care, university tuition and prescriptions and the council tax freeze.

If that wasn’t enough to get our attention, she then launched an attack on the Deputy First Minister for, what seemed to some, being well paid and having a successful husband.

Ms Lamont’s reward has been to have criticism heaped on her by politicians and commentators alike keen to accuse her of betraying her socialist principles and behaving like, whisper it, a Tory.

They have claimed she is repudiating 15 years of Labour thinking that led to the very benefits – free university tuition and personal care– she is now questioning.

They have also questioned the acceptability of bringing Nicola Sturgeon’s personal circumstances into the debate.

I don’t often agree with Ms Lamont but just this once I think she might have a point. What’s more I think she is being much more astute and strategically aware than some of those commentators are giving her credit for.

The Scottish Labour leader appears to be playing to a phenomenon in British politics which has entranced the UK media over the summer. It has also proved to be a winning formula with the electorate: honesty.

First, Boris Johnson’s bumbling but beautifully handled bluntness made him an attractive alternative for Tories dismayed by the pallor of suspicion which Leveson has cast over their leadership.

Then Nick Clegg’s apology for making a promise on tuition fees that was impossible to fulfil raised the prospect that the public may be prepared to offer a second hearing to those who put their hands up to their mistakes.

Now Ms Lamont has put her head above the parapet and said it’s time to be honest with ourselves about those universal benefits. She wants to know exactly what the consequences are and to have what her colleague Margaret Curran described as an “upfront, honest debate” at a time of “increased demands and scarcer resources”.

The fact that it’s an admission which is more likely to resonate with the coalition at Westminster than many of her left-wing colleagues in Scotland should not discourage Ms Lamont.

Since coming to power in 2007 the SNP has enjoyed crowing to opponents of independence about the benefits available to all in Scotland that our families elsewhere in the UK have been denied.

Ironically many of those policies were introduced by the two Labour/ Lib Dem administrations which preceded the SNP.

No university tuition fees has been a particularly useful stick with which to beat the coalition.

But in the current climate of spending restraint, some of those benefits are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain or, indeed, justify.

Which is where the “war of the women” at last week’s First Minister’s Questions comes in.

The fact that Ms Sturgeon is a woman was not the pertinent fact. Her salary did not matter. Neither did the fact, seized upon by feminists, that she was being depicted as part of a partnership with her husband, rather than an individual.

No. It was her household income which mattered because that is how the welfare state views it.

By using that income figure of £200,000 Ms Lamont pointed up the problem with the SNP’s position over what we can all get for “free”.

When Ms Sturgeon said she was proud that working-class Scots were provided with free tuition at university, I agreed with her, although I see nothing wrong with a graduate tax to make sure those who can make a contribution to the next generation.

But when it comes to free prescriptions for all, no. Our household income makes a mockery of a system where I could go to the doctor and get a free prescription for paracetamol, rather than going to the chemists and paying less than £2. I’m sure I am not alone in thinking that the £57 million invested in free prescriptions every year could be much better spent elsewhere in the NHS.

And letting the better off in Scotland avoid paying up front for services they can well afford goes against the trend.

At Westminster, the Liberal Democrat half of the coalition is fighting for a fairer tax system so the wealthy make a bigger contribution in tough times. The Tories are under fire for not increasing taxes for the wealthy while cutting services.

Meanwhile in Scotland the SNP seems to have a never ending list of funding it’s being denied by Westminster while handing out those “freebies” to the well off.

Over the next four years the continued effects of the recession, the lack of funds in the higher education sector and pressure on local services as a result of the council tax freeze could make it increasingly difficult for the SNP to maintain those universal benefits. By the time Scotland goes to the polls in 2016, the SNP may either have been forced to change tack or make cuts elsewhere.

Ms Lamont by being brave enough to say the previously unthinkable may just have ensured that if the public does go looking for someone to blame they will not go knocking at the door of the Labour party.

• Christine Jardine is a former Liberal Democrat special adviser to the UK government