Allan Massie: Political pretence preserved in administrative state

Whatever else devolution has done, it has brought rule by consensus, because Scotland’s parties disagree about little

DEVOLUTION promised us a “new politics”. There would be cross-party co-operation, facilitated by the parliament’s committee system. The chosen electoral system, which was devised to make single-party governments unlikely, would contribute to this. The semi-circular shape of the chamber would ensure that there was none of Westminster’s fiercely confrontational politics with government and opposition directly facing each other.

Some of the promised “new politics” hasn’t materialised, notably the idea that Holyrood would attract distinguished or successful people from beyond the political/public service class. Perhaps this was always fanciful; politics is after all a profession, or rather a trade; those who come late to it, without serving an apprenticeship in an established party machine, local government or a trade union, rarely flourish.

However, in one respect we have indeed had the “new politics” to observe and enjoy: opposition in Holyrood has been consistently feeble, especially when compared to what goes on in the House of Commons. This was as true of the SNP before 2007 as it has been of Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats since then. Governments at Holyrood have enjoyed an easy ride. At first this may have been because the parliament was out to prove itself, but the real explanation goes deeper.

One way to understand this is to look at the occasions when opposition parties have indeed been on the attack. They have sometimes been trivial – the mini-scandal over the sub-letting of a constituency office which led to Henry McLeish’s resignation as First Minister. Then in the last parliament there was the little rumpus about Nicola Sturgeon’s ill-judged letter of support for a constituent on trial. There have been flurries about failure to keep election promises – like the attack on the SNP over its inability to cut class sizes in primary schools. All minor matters.

The real reason for the inadequacy of opposition parties, and especially of Labour since 2007, goes deeper. It results first from the Scotland Act itself and the powers devolved from Westminster to Holyrood. These don’t, as we all know, include taxation powers, apart from local authority taxation, business rates, and lastly the income tax-varying power which both the Labour/Lib Dem coalition and the SNP administration have been too feart to use. The Scottish Parliament has a fixed budget, and the question is how to distribute the loaves and fishes handed to it from the UK Treasury. So one of the main causes for conflict between a government and an opposition – revenue-raising and, consequently, the desirable balance between taxation and expenditure simply doesn’t exist. The Scottish Parliament is a mechanism for spending money and all opposition parties can do is suggest that the balance might be usefully shifted a wee bit. It would be pointless for them to criticise government extravagance: the money has been provided and must be distributed.

Second, when you look at the areas of government that were devolved – notably education and health – you see that there is essentially no division of opinion between the SNP and Labour. Both hold to the view that the way we already do things in Scotland is the best possible way to do them. The Scottish NHS must not be tainted by the involvement of the private sector, and all state schools must remain within local authority control, the local authorities themselves following the dictates issued by the Scottish Government. A few Tory MSPs might timidly suggest that different ways of doing things might be desirable, but the Tory leadership, in any case fairly insignificant, has generally been happy to seek respectability by not disturbing the consensus.

That consensus rules, and so between the SNP and Labour there is nothing to argue about, except occasionally on the fringes, concerning purely administrative questions. Even when the Labour/Lib Dem coalition did introduce an important measure – its Land Reform Bill – this provoked little opposition at Holyrood because the SNP was in favour of it.

The truth of the matter is that consensus does indeed rule. Except on the admittedly important matter of Scotland’s constitutional future, there is no real division between our two biggest parties, Labour and the SNP. Both are thirled to centralist statism and a social-democratic ideology. There is no point complaining about this, especially since the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Tories, or at least their representatives at Holyrood, scarcely differ at all. So it would appear that our politicians reflect the opinion and attitudes of the greater part of the public. It is quite possible that things would be no different if the SNP achieved its aim of independence. After all, that would have removed the only thing, apart from personal and inherited animosities, which distinguishes the SNP from Labour. One may even doubt whether, in an independent Scotland, there would be any fierce debate about what was the desirable balance to be achieved between taxation and government spending.

The truth would seem to be that, except as regards the constitutional question, there are no major political questions in Scotland. Argument exists only on the fringes. This is why there is no effective opposition at Holyrood.

We live in an administrative state, not a political one. In one sense this is quite satisfactory. Politics divide, may indeed divide bitterly. The administrative state smoothes over such small divisions that may exist. It stills debate and argument. Of course the pretence of politics is maintained. Politicians snap at each other, and condemn in opposition what they themselves would do in government. The illusion of politics is maintained by focus being directed on the personalities of party leaders.

What for many was the defining moment of last May’s election? Wasn’t it Iain Gray’s retreat into a sandwich shop to avoid a confrontation with an angry protester? Alternatively there was the triviality and sterility of the party leaders’ so-called debates – encounters in which nothing was truly debated. But how could it have been otherwise, since so little of importance divided them that on most issues there was truly nothing to debate?