The two main parties have simply forgotten what politics is for - Stewart McDonald

Politics can make for strange bedfellows. I have found myself in these pages before agreeing with Winston Churchill, who was, as a Conservative backbencher, a vociferous opponent of landlordism and rent-seeking economic behaviour.

It was then with only a little surprise that I found myself agreeing with a Conservative manifesto this week - the one penned by that same Mr Churchill in 1945. In the midst of an economic crisis with a national trauma behind him and a mountain of recovery to climb before him, Churchill presented his ‘Declaration to Policy to the Electors’ - a document that should send a crimson tinge rushing into the cheeks of his political descendants.

All one needs to do is contrast Churchill’s offering on education with those put forward today by the Labour and Conservative Parties to see how far the aspirations of Westminster politicians have shrunk. “No system of education can be complete unless it heightens what is splendid and glorious in life and art”, Churchill’s government argued. “Art, science and learning are the means by which the life of the whole people can be beautified and enriched … Our object is to provide education which will not produce a standardised or utility child, useful only as a cog in a nationalised and bureaucratic machine, but will enable the child to develop his or her responsible place, first in the world of school, and then as a citizen.”

What does today’s Conservative Party have to offer? Between the lines of a manifesto that promises two hours of PE and a ban on mobile phones, the country knows exactly what the Conservative Party’s education policy is: university tuition fees, crumbling school buildings and endless attacks on international students drawn to study at one of the United Kingdom’s dwindling few world-class assets. The only reference they make to education’s underlying purpose is a single sentence: “Education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet”. A silver bullet for what? It is never revealed.

And what of Sir Keir’s Labour Party? I would say that the Labour Party’s education policy can be summed up in a few short sentences - but I would need some more source material to work with. When it comes to higher education, the Labour Party has almost nothing to say: “Labour will act to create a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the UK. We will work with universities to deliver for students and our economy.” Inspiring stuff. See you at the next march!

The two main parties have simply forgotten what politics is for. They have abrogated their political responsibility to conjure up their own unique vision of this country, its institutions, and their purpose and to convince voters of their merits instead, the Westminster parties have retreated into sleepy managerialism, with Labour offering much of the Conservatives’ offering - only with the promise that they will do it properly.

Just look at the Labour Party’s proposals on voter ID - a policy Labour Mayors Sadiq Khan in London, Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester called a “brazen assault on our democracy … inspired by the voter suppression tactics of the US Republican party”. Keir Starmer’s response? “Labour will improve voter registration and address the inconsistencies in voter ID rules that prevent legitimate voters from voting. For example, in the case of HM Armed Forces Veteran Cards.”

Manifestos should be for far more than “addressing inconsistencies” in the policies of your political opponents. The country is in desperate need of a structural shift in how economic and political power is distributed. It cannot wait.

Yet when it comes to shifting power out of Whitehall, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is also found lacking. The £150m pledged by Starmer to tackle poverty in Scotland could and should be given directly to the SNP Scottish Government rather than being funnelled through Whitehall. We know that the Scottish Government are experts in tackling poverty: the University of Oxford’s Danny Dorling told the Scottish Parliament’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee last year that the Scottish Child Payment is the single policy intervention that has created the largest fall in child poverty anywhere in Europe for at least 40 years. Choosing to bypass them can only be described as a cynical partisan choice.

In stark contrast to the SNP, which published regional manifestos as part of the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections recognising the distinct interests of each part of the country and explaining what an SNP Scottish Government could do for them, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is wedded to a centralised and unitary vision of the British state. When it comes to parts of the UK outside the M25, Starmer opted to lump them all into the “Council of the Nations and Regions”, a forum which would pile the First Minister of Scotland into a room with the Mayor of Liverpool and all the other city and government leaders to commune with the boss. Scotland deserves more than a biannual audience with Sir Keir.

But from this new forum to the absence of a higher education policy, Starmer’s whole pitch to voters across the UK seems to be that he is a safe pair of hands who is not offering anything radically different. After so many years of Conservative misrule, Lord knows we need one. But Scotland needs politicians in the vein of the post-war leaders: politicians not content with plastering over the cracks, but with vision and aspiration to build a better country that serves its citizens. Scotland needs politicians who can name Brexit - Nigel Farage’s pet project - as one of the biggest drags on our economy.

It needs politicians who will make a positive case for immigration. It needs politicians who will be politicians, not caretakers of a sclerotic and ossified economy and society. Scotland needs more than Labour is willing to deliver.

Stewart McDonald is SNP candidate for Glasgow South