The SNP’s opposition 'must score', but they are playing the wrong game - Brian Monteith

For people of my generation – almost but not quite of pensionable age – there is a famous footballing moment involving a Scotsman playing at Wembley that reminds me of the opposition parties taking on the SNP.

In 1983 Gordon Smith played for Brighton & Hove Albion in the FA Cup Final against Manchester United. He scored Brighton’s opener, but at 2-2 the match went to extra time, when – with just a minute to go – he had a clear chance to win the Cup for Brighton from ten yards out.

With only the goalie to beat, commentator Peter Jones famously said “and Smith must score” – but his shot was saved and Brighton went on to lose the replay 4-0.

Now if a proverbial Martian, momentarily escaping from Nasa’s exploration of its planet, were to land in Scotland and look at our government, it would surely have to expect the opposition “must score” a winning goal against the SNP and take the title?

Pupils wearing face coverings today at Holyrood Secondary School. Picture: John Devlin

Consider, after all, this brief summary of the SNP in government after 14 years.

Education standards in Scottish schools, supposedly the top priority of the First Minister upon which she insisted her government must be judged, have fallen from world class to open ridicule. That fall coincides with the SNP’s time in power.

The First Minister’s favourite yardstick of measuring Scottish outcomes against those in England is conspicuously absent because English schools started to improve under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, continued improving under David Cameron and Nick Clegg and subsequent Tory PMs – overtaking Scotland’s performance many years back.

The power to organise, direct and invest in Scottish education has always resided in Scotland – there is no one else that can be blamed other than the SNP Government – so avoiding discussion of what went wrong and who is to blame must be avoided at all costs.

The OECD has prepared an independent review of Scottish education and it is now nestling in the allegedly safe hands of education secretary John Swinney. Is he or his predecessor ministers responsible?

We can’t say because he refuses to release the report until after the Holyrood election in May. The Scottish Parliament has demanded it be published, but so disrespectful is the SNP of the sovereign will of Parliament, so opposed to making devolution work, that it shall ignore this demand.

Usually vocal nationalist cheerleaders have on this subject – like so many others – lost their tongues and misplaced their internet passwords, so the Martian might conclude, correctly, that the SNP’s education record is indefensible.

Much the same sad story can be said about the economy where Scotland repeatedly lags behind measurements of England’s performance, which, as a result, has to send a share of its tax revenues north to ensure Scots receive their pensions and other welfare payments – or enjoy benefits not available in England such as “free” tuition fees, “free” prescriptions, “free” national bus travel. And “free” baby boxes.

But surely with all this financial support helping an SNP Government, the alien visitor might expect at least poverty would be reduced in Scotland? Sadly our Martian would find the opposite.

The SNP government’s own figures confirm all the major measures of poverty in Scotland – persistent poverty, relative poverty, child poverty, in-work poverty and pensioner poverty – have worsened since the SNP’s hands were on the levers of power over the economy and welfare. By comparison, the outcomes in England are better, even when worse than before.

There are many other areas for the Martian to consider – in healthcare, housing, justice, freedom of speech and family rights – but there’s only so many samples a visitor can take on board.

Our Martian needs to know it’s not that Scots cannot make things work, cannot turn a profit, cannot raise tax revenues – we used to excel at all of these things. It’s that in the SNP’s Scotland, government is far, far bigger than it was before introducing that extra tier of government called devolution – and even allowing for that, still far bigger than when the SNP inherited power from Jack McConnell and Nicol Stephen in 2007.

The SNP has centralised state organisations one after another – such as the police and other emergency services – and cut to the marrow local government funding, way beyond the proportions of any budget cuts St Andrew’s House has faced.

It has added additional tax liabilities and layers of regulation that have both sapped enterprise, making it smarter to run a similar business in England than Scotland.

Our Martian might be forgiven for thinking the SNP despises its own country.

So, with such a gaping goal presented, surely the opposition strikers in a blue or red jersey “must score”?

No, the strikers of every team that plays the SNP in every round of every competition elects to play rugby and tries to convert the chance by kicking over the bar rather than under it.

Instead of talking about education being a national embarrassment, our economy being a regular disappointment, our healthcare being unable to meet demand, our poorest getting poorer – and so on – the opposition want to talk about fighting independence. They are playing to their opponent's strengths.

When a “Martian” like Oliver Lewis, the now-resigned head of the Downing Street Union Unit, looks at the coming Holyrood election, he might say “fight the SNP on its appalling record and you must score”. But if others ignore him, insisting what people want to hear is “only we can stop an independence referendum”, is it any wonder after two weeks he gets back in his spacecraft and goes off to his favourite canal?

- Brian Monteith is editor of ThinkScotland.org and served in the Scottish and European Parliaments for the Conservative and Brexit Parties respectively.