Peter Jones: Scare stories are essential for debate

MINORITY arguments cannot be dismissed as scaremongering as they may in fact be inconvenient truths, writes Peter Jones

Scare stories are important. Sir Tom Hunter, who thinks that politicians who are opposed to independence should stop scaremongering about it, ought to know that above all people. But he is also right that the debate about how Scotland should move forward at the current constitutional crossroads should be anchored in ambition. Having ambitions, however, does not mean that what may prevent such dreams from being realised should never be addressed.

In an article in a Sunday newspaper, which has stirred a lot of comment, Sir Tom set out some of his ambitions. Essentially they are that Scotland should aim to be a much more entrepreneurial society where many more people aim to start and grow businesses.

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It is, after all, exactly what Sir Tom did, starting out with next to no money selling trainers from the back of a van and expanding that into a huge sportswear retailing business, which he eventually sold for a fortune. Good for him, and even better for him that he now applies much of his money and energy to encouraging the development of an entrepreneurial culture.

His achievements are all the more admirable as Sir Tom has suffered some knocks on the way. His wealth suffered a severe setback from the recession, which hit property values, especially in commercial property in which he had a lot of his money invested.

Now, there were some who warned long before it happened that it was coming. Indeed, I recall attending a public lecture at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Gogarburn headquarters given by the John Calverley, chief economist of American Express in 2006. He warned that property values would slump by between 25 and 50 per cent. The only thing he couldn’t predict, he said, was when it would happen. We all now know that it happened within three years and indeed the commercial property values in the UK are down about 50 per cent.

Mr Calverley wasn’t a lone voice. And I bet Sir Tom wishes he had listened to that particular scare story. And I bet also that Fred Goodwin, who was at that lecture, also wishes he had listened to those who were warning that much of the complex derivatives market in which RBS had invested was a ticking timebomb. Or that the takeover of ABN Amro would be a disaster.

Of course, these warnings were scaremongering by nefarious people with their own self-interest in mind. They were just nasty scare stories, weren’t they? No they most definitely were not, and Sir Tom paid a price, as we all have done, for not listening to them.

Some analytical lessons can be drawn from these examples. In the pre-crisis debates about property prices, complex derivatives, and bank takeovers, there was a majority consensus and a dissenting minority. Because the consensus is a majority, it was easy to dismiss the minority as scaremongering.

And because most people do not like being in a minority, accusing them of peddling scare stories is a good way to get the dissenters to shut up and to get anyone who might be inclined to listen to them to close their ears. The use of the scare word can therefore be a political tactic to close down democratic debate.

That may be legitimate when the minority argument is indeed a baseless scare not backed by any theory or evidence. But when the minority argument is an inconvenient truth which the majority wishes to suppress, using the scare word is profoundly undemocratic.

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Nationalist readers may be tearing their hair out at this point, screaming that they are the minority whose truth is being suppressed. Actually, reading the SNP’s interpretation of recent election results, it seems to me that the Scottish government’s goal is to show that the SNP are, if not the majority, but at least the largest minority. And in government and the Scottish parliament, the SNP are the majority. Neither do I see any sign in the opinion columns of this newspaper that nationalist viewpoints are being excluded.

Since the SNP are the governing majority and intent on winning the Scottish people’s assent to the biggest constitutional change since the 1707 Act of Union, it is extremely important that dissenting opinion is fully aired and examined. Otherwise voters will have no means of knowing whether arguments are false scares or real warnings.

Some unionist arguments do look to be baseless. The claim, for example, that border controls and passport checks would be needed at Berwick and Gretna Green looks to be pretty implausible. I would caution, however, that keeping the Anglo-Scottish frontier unimpeded does imply that Scotland could not have an immigration policy wildly different from that of England.

On the other hand, the nationalist claim that Scotland’s burgeoning renewable energy industry, which Sir Tom found much remarked upon in China, would prosper even more with independence is unsubstantiated. No explanation has been made as to how it would flourish without access to the considerable subsidies financed by energy consumers in what would become a foreign country.

Thus I agree with Sir Tom that setting the decision timetable for autumn 2014 is one which allows for getting to the bottom of such claims. If evidence starts to show that the prospect of the referendum is causing such uncertainty that it is reducing investment and causing job losses then there might be a case to re-think that. But it doesn’t seem to be the case just now.

And Sir Tom is right that for the debate to be a full one, unionists have to do more than just attack independence. Unionists need to show how sticking with the union would offer a better prospect for Scots than opting for political separation.

Indeed, the argument on both sides has to go further than a dispute about which tax powers the Scottish parliament should be wielding. It should be about how alcohol, drug and obesity problems can be reduced, or education, health and entrepreneurship can be improved, and that tackling these things need or don’t need various powers.

And there will be scare stories as well, among them the claim that bankrupt Britain is headed for the rocks and it is time to take to the independent lifeboat. Such stories are an integral part of political debate, the essence of which is to test all the stories politicians tell.

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