Politics UK – Page 30 – thinking liberal

Tim Farron comes of age as Lib Dem leader

The honeymoon is over. For the last few months Liberal Democrats have been able to project their hopeful expectations onto Tim Farron, their new leader. And he skilfully avoided disappointing them. But his decision to back the government in last night’s vote to involve British forces in attacks on Islamic State in Syria has changed all that. Now, alongside the traumas of the Labour Party, we are asking what political parties are for, and how politics should work.

I was surprised at Tim’s decision. As my last posting shows, I was personally inching towards that view – but I consider myself to be something of an outlier in Lib Dem circles. The party at large is clearly against intervention, as a recent online poll showed. My Facebook timeline showed strong opinions against. And he had given himself plenty of cover. He had set five tests against which to judge any proposal to intervene. This is usually a political tactic to oppose something. And, to put it kindly, it is stretch to say that all five tests have been met – though it is also true that there has been movement in the right direction.

My doubts over intervention were not helped by David Cameron, the Prime Minister in today’s parliamentary debate. First he suggested that the attacks were needed to prevent IS activity in Britain. They will make very little difference; that is just not how these things work. Then he tried to suggest that there were about 70,000 “moderate” fighters who might act as the ground spearhead to defeat IS, without invoking the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad. Even if the numbers are right, they do not form a coherent fighting force with the military skill to take on the highly effective IS army. And thirdly, it came out that he had smeared some of his opponents as terrorist sympathisers. That was the previous night in a “private” meeting with his party’s MPs – and it alludes to some of the new Labour leadership’s apparent sympathy for “freedom struggles” in the past. He might have graciously apologised, but he did not. As Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader, said, it diminishes the office of Prime Minister. But it is a foretaste of Conservative tactics against the new model Labour party.

Mr Corbyn, on the other hand, was a model of dignity. There was no high-flown rhetoric, but at least what he said was clearly true. And if it was also beside the point, the same can be said of Mr Cameron. The reason why there is a momentum in favour of intervention, at least in parliament, is that there is s strong public mood to “do something” after the Paris attacks, that a gesture of solidarity with France will have diplomatic benefits, and that with Syria creating a massive refugee crisis, it is not a political topic we can turn our back on. Inaction seems to pose just as big problems as action. If it is good enough for the Germans, whose government is planning to commit forces to the same campaign, almost without precedent, that surely it is good enough for the UK? The fact that the proposed British contribution is small scale is actually in its favour – a lot of diplomatic bang for quite a small buck. Iraq this is not.

This is what politics is about. Weighty issues for which there are no obvious solutions, and where messy compromises are needed. It is about politicians from across the country and different political persuasions, working out what the country as a whole should do. The trouble is that there seems to be a new politics about, where political representatives are seen as figureheads for wider movements of like-minded people, for whom compromise is betraying your principles. The Labour Party is being overwhelmed by this conception of politics. Labour activists oppose intervention in Syria, and have turned it into a totem issue. They have been harassing any MPs and their staffs who take a different view. Some talk of rooting them out as “scum”.

Such are the death throws of a party that once aspired to govern. After being hammered for entering coalition, the Lib Dems can safely put such aspirations to one side. The behaviour of their MPs is more of a puzzle – though Tim’s leadership opponent Norman Lamb, and one other of the eight MPs voted against. Many of the party’s members have similar views to those Labour activists, though standards of behaviour and language are infinitely better. There has been much talk of rebuilding a core vote – which seems to be code for ignoring messy compromises and attracting the support of more motivated, middle class liberals. But Tim Farron and his fellow MPs seem to have an older view of what MPs are for. They seem to have considered the vote on its merits, rather on any wider political impact. (I will say the same for Norman, incidentally. The differences between the two men are a complete reversal of what was said about them in the leadership contest, when Tim was portrayed as being to Norman’s left).

That wider political impact is hard to judge. Coming out in favour of intervention is the sort of thing that will play well with floating voters. But it will be hard for the party to get any credit for it. They famously opposed the Iraq war, so people will expect them to oppose all military interventions. They will just get confused when they do something different. And the party’s members and activists will not be happy. Some could leave, others just drift away.

It may too much to hope that the party will take this as a lesson on what successful politics must look like. Political representatives are responsible to their voters first, and party membership second. It is not “democratic” for a bunch of self selected activists to agree something using voting procedures, and then impose this on people elected in proper, public elections. Getting things done means compromise and lending support to policies that are second best or worse. This is why we use a system of representative democracy. Political movements not prepared to engage fully with the real business politics ultimately get nowhere. – or if they do get somewhere, end up by forcing their views on others and suffocating political debate.

Unlike what the Labour Party is becoming (and, it has to be said, a lot of what it was of old, for different reasons), the SNP or the Greens I hope the Liberal Democrats will understand this and give their leader some slack. But this will prove a painful coming of age for him.

High morals v low pragmatism: what on earth to do about Syria?

Do we let British forces join their US and French allies and intervene in Syria against the forces of Islamic State (IS)?This is now the biggest issue in British politics. it is not an easy question.

So often we are urged to take such important decisions based on high moral principle. In this case, do we attack those who have, in effect, declared war on us on principle? This seems to be the French view. Or do we rule out the use of violence, outside strict self-defence, on principle? If such moral principles are your guide, then deciding about foreign interventions becomes much easier. Take your moral stand, and if it doesn’t go well, then it is somebody else’s fault. And if the place of the intervention is remote it is somebody else’s problem too. Such reasoning is commonplace amongst the politically engaged – but it is a cop out. Actions (and non actions for that matter) have consequences, and we can’t escape responsibility for them as far as they are foreseeable.

And, of course, the closer we get to the place of intervention, the muddier it all seems. For us the big issue in Syria is the progress of IS. And yet, with the exception of the government of Iraq, this is not top of anybody else’s agenda. This can be seen from last week’s episode with the shooting down by Turkish forces of a Russian bomber aircraft. The story presented by neither side is convincing. The Russian bomber looks as if it was attacking a Turkomen force that is nothing to do with IS, but which is resisting the official Syrian government of President Assad. The Turkomens seem to have the covert support of the Turkish government. Russian actions have been high-handed and directed at supporting the Assad regime, under the cover of fighting “terrorism”. The Turks seem to be telling them to keep away from their protégés in the only language the current Russian regime seems to respond to.

To my mind it is the conflicting agendas of the local middle-ranking powers that is the most frustrating aspect of the Syrian situation: Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular. To them IS seems to be of rather tangential importance, whose main use is as a hook to draw in Western powers on their side, taking the pressure off them to resolve the conflict. The West still suffers from a post imperialist idea that it is the world’s policeman, and that the local powers should be treated as unruly children rather than accept responsibility for the maintenance of peace and order in their neighbourhood.

It doesn’t get much better when you look at IS itself. For some reason this organisation likes to project an image of undiluted evil. It seems to help it draw in foreign recruits to its cause – who see moral clarity where we see evil. But its support base is clearly much wider than that. The local Sunni populations, in both Syria and Iraq, have lost faith in their official governments, and with good reason. Rule by IS seems preferable, and nobody is offering a credible alternative. Remember that the standard Western answer that you set up a democratic government has been tried in Iraq – only for it to be abused by unscrupulous power brokers intent on their own enrichment. Why should it work better next time?

All this fog points against the high moral case for Western intervention, and so against further British involvement. How can it be effective? And arguments of this type are seized on by opponents of intervention. But they too strike a high moral tone. They organise protest rallies; Jeremy Corbyn justifies his stance on the basis of the opinion of political activists, and urges these activists to lobby their MPs. Such tactics can only be driven by high moral purpose, not by a pragmatic weighing of the options.

This high moral purpose seems to be driven by a loathing of two things. The loathing of the use of military force in pretty much any capacity. And the loathing of Western capitalist governments, and especially that of the US, and all their foreign interventions. How these two loathings balance varies widely between individuals. But such moral arguments are clearly suspect. In Syria we have had years of non-intervention, or limited intervention, by Western powers. That has left the country in an appalling stalemate, which has now created a refugee crisis that is placing huge strains on European civic society. Surely this threatens Western interests sufficiently for some kind of intervention? Are we being too dismissive of intervention, and using the clear practical difficulties as cover irresponsible inaction?

Building a pragmatic case for intervention runs something like this. The US and France are already heavily engaged. By joining them as a full member of that alliance (Britain already provides support in Iraq) may not make a huge difference to that joint effort immediately, but a three country alliance would have considerably more diplomatic weight than the current incomplete one. Britain’s current half-hearted contribution is almost useless on that basis. This alliance of Western nations, which joins up with local Kurdish forces, would then be able to bring pressure on other actors to work towards a new settlement of the Greater Syria region (i.e. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan) than can form the basis of future peaceful development.

But any such settlement must face up to the central challenge of what can replace the current IS regime? Neither the Assad regime, nor the Iraqi one looks up to the job, though changes in leadership might help. Trying to create new government institutions from nothing is what went wrong in Iraq. Everybody says that it would be impossible or immoral to negotiate with the IS regime, and looks a fair judgement based on its current leadership. But might a successor emerge from within, amongst its clearly highly competent military leadership, with whom negotiation might be possible?

So there you. The pragmatic arguments against intervention have real weight. There is no clear game plan to bring matters to resolution. But the Syrian war is causing damage at continental level. Can we really just walk away and hope for the best?

The Autumn Statement shows the conflict of short and long term Tory priorities

George Osborne, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his Autumn Statement yesterday. This is a very British piece of political theatre, delivered by somebody with a very theatrically British job title, that adds up to “Finance Minister”. In the statement Mr Osborne announced financial plans for the next five years of the Conservative government. It is a set-piece event designed to score political points and attract good publicity. The dust has not had time to settle, but some important issues are clear.

The main headlines were these: the government dropped the central part of its plans to reduce tax credits to top up the incomes of people working on low pay. It also withdrew plans to cut police budgets. Various other goodies were doled out; schools had their budget protected in real rather than nominal terms; there was more money for the NHS, and various investment projects. This was all part of a familiar game of managing expectations, which Mr Osborne now handles with competence. The reversal on police cuts was particularly well managed. The short-term politics has worked very well for the government, helped by the Labour opposition spokesman John McDonnell’s misjudged stunt using Chairman Mao’s Red Book.

But let’s step back a bit. The first point to make is that this exercise is one of completely false precision. The justification for a greatly reduced level of cuts to departmental spending (according to the FT’s Martin Wolf, from £41.9bn in pre-election March, to £15.6bn in post-election July to £7bn now) was a £27bn reduction in 2020’s projected borrowing. This £27bn figure is widely reported in the media, but it is nearly meaningless. It is based on economic forecasts which have almost no chance of being fulfilled – though at least they are produced independently by the Office for Budget Responsibility. That £27bn can appear out of nowhere in four months simply reflects this imprecision; it can disappear just as quickly. Personally I feel that the projection of a steady 2% plus of GDP growth, which underlies this forecast, is most unlikely to be fulfilled; it is an artefact of a deeply flawed process of economic modelling that still has a grip on conventional economics, because nobody has found a substitute.

So this needs to be taken in a broader strategic context. The government has two stated economic aims for the medium term. The first is that the state should run a surplus in the middle of the business cycle; the second is that overall government spending should be cut to about 37% of national income- low by postwar standards. Both are entirely arbitrary. There is a good case for a government deficit to fund investment, especially if the private sector is reluctant to invest its profits, which has been the story of the 21st Century so far. There is no convincing evidence that I know of to suggest that a lower level of government expenditure is more economically efficient.

But all this makes more sense if you think about the politics rather than the economics. And here the Statement was balancing long and short term aims. The long term aim is to crush an ecosystem of political bureaucrats in central and local government, and a range of agencies, consultancies and NGOs that hover around them. This is the principal power base of the Labour Party, and flourished mightily under the patronage of Mr Osborne’s predecessor but one, Gordon Brown. What is set to replace it is series of soulless, hollowed out agencies that are as easy to deal with as modern big businesses like phone companies (BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, etc) that are unable to manage complexity, so try to deny that it exists. The government’s new Universal Credit system is shaping up to be just such a nightmare. I see both sides of the argument here. I hate the old Labour bureaucracy and its hangers on with a passion, and I am not sorry to see it being dismantled (though a lot of excellent professional services are going too). But its hollowed out replacement lacks credibility, and at will be a partial solution at best.

The difficulties with this Conservative dystopia are apparent in the short-term politics. Welfare, security, health, education and social care are proving politically highly resistant, and hence the retreats evident in Mr Osborne’s statement. The Conservative fight to crush the opposition Labour and Lib Dems is going very well. But this is in large part due to Labour’s ineptitude. What if it woke up and led a serious fightback?.

The Conservatives’ drive to cut government budgets leaves them politically exposed. They stand a real chance of shutting Labour out of power for generations, but only if they secure the votes the working class and and the less secure middle classes. The changes to tax credits would have made these voters very angry. Mr Osborne’s U-turn is unsurprising – but leaves the question of how he managed to get into the mess in the first place. Meanwhile added demands of an ageing population on health and social care services is a challenge that will not go away. The extra funds found for these are unlikely to be equal to the challenge. And the problem of an economy polarising between low and high wages, while housing costs are escalating, is placing huge stress on welfare.

The hollowing out of the state at both national and local levels will continue apace. But a weaker than expected economy, and mounting pressure on health and social care services are likely to break Mr Osborne’s plans eventually. Whether the political opposition, outside Scotland, will be in any shape to exploit this situation remains open to doubt, however.

Jeremy Corbyn has been holed below the waterline

The metaphor of a ship holed below the waterline is an engaging one. Above the surface nothing much seems wrong – perhaps a minor list. But down below the water is pouring in; barring extreme good fortune the ship is doomed. I remember using it in 2007, when the world’s interbank markets froze over; the ensuing collapse of the banking system did not happen until over a year later, when Lehman Brothers failed, though a surprising number of people did not see it coming. I think the metaphor is just as appropriate for Labour’s new leader: Jeremy Corbyn.

Many wrote Mr Corbyn off from the start, as a far-leftist, backed by trade unions promoting fantasy economics. These were my instincts, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. He sparked real enthusiasm amongst hundreds of thousands of activists. He came over as an engaging, anti-politician – a nice chap. With the public so tired of the usual type of politician, might he not spark enthusiasm amongst the wider public? Hearing him occasionally on the radio, he seemed to be talking a lot of sense. He had real momentum. You could put a positive spin on most of what he said.

Of course there were doubts. His Shadow Chancellor John McDonell’s inept handling of the government’s fiscal plans did not bode well. There is something chaotic about the party under his leadership, with no coherence across the Shadow Cabinet. But that sort of thing happened to Mrs Thatcher in her early days too – and look what happened to her. And I did not take much notice of those putting it about that next year’s elections, in Scotland, Wales, London and local councils, would be a critical test. Mr Corbyn was enjoying his new job, and his backers were determined to consolidate their hold on the party. I thought he could weather one set of bad results at least. Politicians are expert at finding somebody else to blame; no doubt the left would simply blame die-hards from the old order.

And then came the Paris attacks. The public regards these things as a critical test of political leadership. There is a lot of fear out there. Could something like that happen here? Can we not holiday in safety in European capital cities? We want leaders who can express our outrage, provide reassurance, and take charge of stopping the bad guys. The FT’s Janan Ganesh suggests that the public’s insecurity might make them seek older, more experienced politicians, especially ex-soldiers – in place of the callow think-tankers, PR types or charity workers that currently dominate the political ranks.

What they do not want are the intellectual prevarications we have had from Mr Corbyn in the last few days. He suggested that the killing of British terrorist Jihadi John by drone attack was not as good as bringing him to justice in a court. He failed to dissociate himself from Stop the War Coalition, which he used to chair, when it suggested the the French were reaping what they had sowed. He professed his nervousness about a police shoot-to-kill policy, when the public carried mental pictures of gunmen in suicide vests firing indescriminately. He seemed to rule out attacks on Islamic State in Syria (or Iraq come to that) by the British military.

The point isn’t that these views are without validity. Extra-judicial killing makes many feel queasy – and making martyrs, with all the risk of killing innocents alongside them, is no substitute for the grinding humiliation inflicted by judicial process and punishment. Our politicians have often suggested that the country’s interventions in the Middle East are designed to make our streets safer; that is open to challenge, to put it mildly. Trigger-happy police kill innocent civilians – as Londoners well know from 2005. It isn’t clear how bombing IS target in Syria will help.

But now was the wrong time to raise these concerns. They smack not just of qualified outrage, but of indecisive leadership that will be no match for the hard men (and women) that want to kill us. Unless Britain becomes an unexpectedly more secure and optimistic place, the vast majority of the British public will take fright at the idea that Mr Corbyn could be Prime Minister. The best that could be said of him is that he is too nice for the job. It was bad enough in May when Ed Miliband didn’t look Prime Ministerial enough; this is infinitely worse. In the full heat of a General Election campaign, Labour would be lucky to hold onto seats it had previously considered safe. What happened in Scotland could be repeated across England and Wales. The Conservatives, Ukip, or even the Liberal Democrats could clean up.

And yet SS Labour sails serenely on. Labour MPs know they are in trouble, but apart from an outburst at an MPs’ meeting on Monday they don’t feel they can do much about it- Mr Corbyn’s support amongst grassroots activists is too strong. Those activists are in denial, dismissing these difficulties as a bit of a wobble. They can’t possibly admit they have been so wrong only a month or two ago.

But the party is in serious trouble. I think there will be three key arenas in which this drama will play out: Scotland, London and the old industrial heartlands of England.

Labour must win back Scotland from the SNP in order to regain power in Westminster. Mr Corbyn’s supporters claimed that he was the right man to do this, interpreting the SNP’s rise as a backlash against austerity, rather than against rampant incompetence. But the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon’s handling of the Paris outrages has been assured, even promising an open mind on bombing Syria, in spite of her party’s conference resolution against it. Labour do not look like a serious government in waiting in Scotland, and they are sure to be routed in next May’s elections to the Scottish parliament. That will a a hard failure for the left to gloss over.

London holds its Mayoral and Assembly elections next May too. The interest here is that London is the biggest stronghold of Mr Corbyn’s activists. If there is to be a pro-Corbyn surge, it will start here. But Zack Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate for Mayor is well-funded, and has hired top-rate campaign advisers, fresh from the Tory General Election victory. He wants to win and will pull no punches – even if other Tories would happily give Labour a run here to keep Mr Corbyn in place. If Labour do badly it will be devastating for their future prospects – though Mr Goldsmith has weaknesses of his own, and it wouldn’t do write off Labour’s Sadiq Khan just yet. He certainly gets my second preference over Mr Goldsmith.

But perhaps the most interesting battleground will be in England’s northern and central heartlands: Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and so on. Many of these cities are virtually Labour one-party states. But interestingly a number of local leaders are taking a pragmatic and enterprising line to power. They support local devolution and are prepared to work with the government on that basis. And yet Labour’s working class voters will be amongst the most distrustful of Mr Corbyn’s metropolitan ways – and outraged at his recent prevarications on security. An early test of their feelings will come in a by election in Oldham in December. Ukip, anxious to overcome their disappointments in May, scent blood. Even the Lib Dems, with their Lancastrian leader, Tim Farron, are putting in an effort. This will be an interesting election to watch. If Labour fare badly in these heartlands, an anti-Corbyn coup is surely only a matter of time.

And what will happen when the good ship Corbyn finally keels over and sinks? That’s another matter, but Labour’s problems would hardly end then.

The Lib Dems in London: two straws in the wind from @RuthDombey and @MzLashmore

In the shadow of events in Paris, the Liberal Democrats held their London conference last Saturday. For a party that most people think has ceased to exist, party members are in a surprising upbeat mood. Held a university building in Brentford, well out of the centre, the conference was nevertheless well-attended, cheerful and lively. Even as I delivered the Treasurer’s report just after lunch, the dullest piece of business in the whole day, there were dozens in the audience. I survived unscathed, and live on to be Treasurer of the regional party for another year.

And yet detached outsiders would not give much for the party’s prospects. The Mayoral and Assembly elections are in May 2016, and they are a critical test for the party. As things stand even winning the deposit in the Mayoral race (lost last time, in 2012) and any representation in the Assembly (only narrowly achieved in 2012), both of which need 5% of the votes, will be a challenge. The party has sunk into irrelevance in most people’s minds. But the party polls about 8% nationally, the same level that it achieved in the General Election. A result on this level is surely realistic, but would amount to no more than what City traders used to call “dead cat bounce” – bumping along the bottom, in a less colourful metaphor.

But things could be much better. With the Conservatives riven by differences over Europe, the effect of Labour’s lurch to the left uncertain, and with the other minor parties, the Greens and Ukip, seemingly having peaked, a whole range of possibilities opens up. The party is aiming for more than 8%, and so it should. There was a buzz of ideas for promoting the Party’s lead candidate, Caroline Pidgeon, the experienced and capable group leader on the Assembly, who is standing for both Mayor and leads the Assembly list – elected by proportional representation. Policy positions are being developed on housing, policing and taxis.

But these depend on attracting the attentions s of a flighty electorate. Building a more solid base for the future will take a lot longer. On what basis can that be done? One idea doing the rounds is to make a conspicuous stand on touchstone liberal issues, like supporting immigration and human rights. It is estimated that about 30% of Londoners have liberal views on these subjects. The Conservative and Labour parties are still circumspect because they draw so much other support from the other 70%. The talk was of targeting that 30%, who tend to be young and professional.

That’s all very well, but I worry. Some activists were concerned about a strategy based on just talking to people like us, rather than trying to reach out more widely. And though getting a large chunk of that 30% would transform the party’s standing, where would that lead? In order to get anything actually done the party has to engage with the other 70%, either directly seeking their votes, or working in coalition with parties that do. The party’s experience over last five years, in coalition with the Conservatives, have shown how difficult that can be. The party gets accused of breaching its principles, and then appearing irrelevant. Surely the party must try to develop a broader appeal from the start, alongside the core liberal one.

Two speakers at the Brentford conference gave a hint of what that might be. One was Ruth Dombey, leader of Sutton council, the party’s last council stronghold in London. She described how the party has maintained its remarkable record of success there. It is through a process of genuine dialogue with residents, going as far as possible to make them feel included (which, to be clear, means actually including them…). This is completely opposite to the normal model of elected dictatorship that most British politicians confuse with democracy. It is not easy, but Sutton has managed it over many years.

Ruth is a professional and experienced politician, and it wasn’t surprising that her presentation was slick and forthright. A second speaker was edgier. Teena Lashmore, though very much a professional, is new to politics. She led a policy consultation on dealing with knife crime and reaching out to communities. She made two important points: the first, like Ruth, was that politicians must do things with communities and not for them. This is the beating heart of community politics. But it is something that metropolitan elites usually don’t understand, not just politicians. Speaking to her during the tea break, Teena gave me an example of a memorial for victims of knife crime in her area; nobody thought to ask local people what they wanted, with the result a proposal was made that they found insulting.

The second point was that we must find ways of making local economies grow and become more inclusive. Free enterprise is the key to inclusion because it is empowering. Entitlements and handouts are not. She gave the example of a troubled estate where the management contract was awarded to a local enterprise, and not to one of the usual stripped down outsource providers; this contractor then started employing the local young people as apprentices; money stayed in the local economy; antisocial behaviour fell. Now regular readers of this blog will know that I am supporter of developing local economies, following campaigner David Boyle. But it had not struck me until Teena’s presentation just how powerful this idea is for developing inclusion in London.

These are critical ideas. Britain’s main political parties are still in the culture of doing things for the people they represent, rather than with them. Our whole centralised Westminster-bubble culture promotes that. The working ethos of the Labour Party is built on developing client communities that they dish out goodies to. Some Conservatives have toyed with something more inclusive, like David Cameron’s Big Society, but their thinking is more often driven by big business and trendy but narrow think tanks. Indeed, though the Lib Dems achieved much of their early successes in the 1980s and 1990s through community politics, success in Westminster seemed to be slowly corrupting them. And few Lib Dems really got the importance of developing local enterprise, and what this means for wider public policy, for example in commissioning and procurement.

Well now the Lib Dems have been largely ejected from the Westminster bubble. They must go back to the long, hard business of developing conversations with local communities. And it needs to start developing robust ideas for developing local, inclusive economies. That includes in London, and it is a promising basis for reaching out to communities of all ethnic dimensions, not excluding the more stressed white British ones.

It’s a long hard road, but the party has the culture and record to make it work. I hope it rises to the challenge.

Are we worried about the right issues on data privacy?

There are many reasons why I should not be a front line Lib Dem spokesperson. Among them is my rather pragmatic stance on civil liberties. I fear that my attitude to the government’s proposed law on surveillance is a case in point. Of course I think that individuals deserve proper legal protection, but I worry that the party, and the civil rights lobby generally, is expending too much energy on narrow legalisms, while missing what is happening in concrete reality.

Civil liberties are a touchstone issue for Lib Dems. While most of the public are indifferent, the party’s activists are passionate. Nick Clegg, the leader during the party’s coalition with the Conservatives, expended enormous amounts of political capital on the matter – and yet his compromises attracted opprobrium from activists, and not a few resignations. Now, as the party tries to stake out ground for a “core vote”, it has picked on this group of issues as an area to distinguish itself from the other parties. To do so the party will oppose the government’s new law, no matter what its final content. It is out and out oppositionalism, involving no fresh thinking and only token attempts to consider the problems that the government faces. No doubt many of the criticisms will be valid, but the party will give ordinary citizens no reason to trust its overall judgement. Alas, that is politics.

At issue here is personal privacy, and how much information state agencies may collect on us without our direct consent, and in particular data on our online activities. The state faces a major problem: dealing with bad people: those who want to undermine public safety or steal our money, either through a malign political agenda (Islamic extremists is the favourite example), personal greed (an army of fraudsters) or simply personal gratification (such as paedophiles). These bad people are making full use of the opportunities provided by the internet, and the authorities are struggling to keep up. There is a more general difficulty alongside this: as the cost of skilled labour rises inexorably, the ability of law enforcement agencies to gather evidence by more traditional means diminishes. This means that much petty crime is not investigated; the police scarcely consider online scams to be a crime at all – they are left out of headline crime statistics. This allows a criminal fringe to exist on the edges of our society without serious molestation. Or so it seems to me (this is an unevidenced assertion!). Access to online data, including metadata (data applying to large groups of people), offers alternative ways to narrow down the search for leads, and may provide important evidence in its own right, allowing the authorities to pursue major threats and petty ones alike.

Now there is a real problem here: the problem of the false positive. Modern analysis techniques work on correlations and probabilities (much like human prejudices, in fact). This may be very helpful, in many fields, but it offers proof of nothing. Increasingly we tire of going that extra mile to get proof, and base decisions on these correlations. Mostly this is quite harmless. I get some rather odd online adverts on my Facebook feed; Amazon has yet to make any kind of sense out of my purchase history when it makes its suggestions. But it can be more sinister. Could some ill-advised browsing by your child on your computer mark you down as a terrorist suspect or, worse, as somebody who likes child porn? If such fears lie behind opposition to extending the rights of the state to examine online data, then it is not without foundation.

But isn’t stopping the state from gathering and analysing data tackling the problem in the wrong place? Shouldn’t we be looking harder at how they use the results of their analysis? My impression is that they don’t blink at trashing innocent people’s lives. The idea of innocence until proven guilty is being steadily eroded. In many fields all it takes is an allegation to wreck your career, even if it is false, or malicious. Credit ratings can be blotted by clerical errors, to say nothing of frauds. The more decisions are taken by computer algorithm, the more I worry about injustice. And yet these techniques surely have their place, if law is to be enforced by more than personal conscience.

I think this means that we need more accountability for the law enforcement authorities (from the intelligence services to the police to council officials), and better coding of what they are and are not allowed to do. The government’s new law looks like an important step forward here. No doubt it isn’t nearly as good as it is cracked up to be, but progress of any sort can be built on. The present legal vacuum allows injustice to be routine. We also need to be clearer on the types of inference that are acceptable in the legal process – mere correlation is insufficient.

So I think that liberals, instead of campaigning for stronger privacy, should be campaigning to prevent the abuse of data – and in particular establishing that enforcement actions taken should be proportionate to the level of proof. That will take a change of culture, and maybe it is swimming against the tide. But too heavy an emphasis on privacy simply aids those who are undermining our liberal society. And the public knows it.

The real meaning of the controversy over the House of Lords

This week Britain’s House of Lords voted to delay the reduction of tax credits for Britain’s poorest working families. Parliamentarians from the ruling Conservative Party are apoplectic at what they say is constitutional outrage – an unelected chamber challenging an elected one. There is an important constitutional issue here, but as usual the Conservatives are pointing to the trees so that we miss the wood. The key issue is not whether the upper chamber is elected; it is how the executive power of the British government should be held accountable, and prevented from excess.

Britain does not have a written constitution. There is no charter of sacred principles which sets out the rights and responsibilities of each part of government and of its citizens. What we have is the result of a very messy process of evolution. It is the result of a struggle between those who want unlimited executive power, and those who want to limit it. We can date this struggle back to King John in 1215 at least. Some may push this back to the time of King Alfred the Great in the late 800s.

Initially the kings claimed their authority from the Divine. They competed for power with their nobles and with the Church. Things have moved on. The power of the Church was crushed by Henry VIII, and the hold of the Divine withered. The House of Lords retains, nominally, the last vestiges of the rights of the nobles. Instead both the divine and the nobility have been replaced by an idea of the Will of the People. But that is just as slippery an idea as that of the Divine.

To most politicians in both Britain’s main ruling parties, the Conservatives and Labour, the Will of the People is represented by a majority in the House of Commons, elected every five years using single member constituencies under the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system. In their eyes theses elections confer rights on the House of Commons akin to the old doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, or the Chinese one of the Mandate of Heaven. This doctrine is often referred to as the Sovereignty of Parliament. The usual practice is that the Commons is controlled my a majority of members from one party, who approve an executive and are expected to support it all of the time. Checks on the executive are regarded as both inefficient and undemocratic. Checks by the judiciary are tolerated (less so if they are at the European level), since most accept that the rule of law is essential to an orderly democratic state. But even that has its limits; the executive chafes at laws that confer rights on ordinary citizens, especially human rights and rights to information. Other checks on power are not accepted. The House of Lords is more there for decoration than anything: a useful political tool to reward politicians for good behaviour, or political donors. There may also be value in the minor revisions to legislation that it proposes from time to time. Hence the anger at this week’s challenge.

And yet many observers feel that this leaves an inadequate check on the executive. There is an argument that unlimited executive power is dangerous rather than efficient, and should be subject to checks and balances. The most famous example of this, of course, is the constitution of the United States of America. The political system there often seems stuck in gridlock, and yet we can hardly call that country a failure, or less democratic than ours. There are three classic ways in which executive power might be limited. A written constitution allowing government actions to be challenged in the courts; a federal constitution that distributes powers between federal and state levels; or an “upper” chamber of the legislature to form a check on the main, popularly elected one. Britain has elements of all three, but they are all weak. The Conservatives want to keep it that way, and weaken the second chamber further.

Is this a bad thing? Conservatives would argue that a strong executive offers decisive government, that is able to develop the economy and protect its citizens better. In particular it is better placed to push through hard but necessary reforms. These reforms may not have been explicit at the time of the government was elected (one of the key arguments against the tax credit proposals), but there is also a sense that the next election casts a verdict on the past government, as well as electing the new one – so there is accountability in the end. Labour politicians are sympathetic to that line of argument, since they want the minimum limits on power when it is their turn.

Liberals oppose this on the basis that it is undemocratic, too beholden to vested interests, and centralises too much power at the national level. These are familiar arguments that I will not try to develop today.

Liberals do have a problem when it comes to the House of Lords though. It is manifestly undemocratic, but simply replacing it with an elected upper chamber with similar powers looks a bit of a nonsense. How would the new upper chamber’s mandate differ from that of the Commons? it could set itself up an an alternative “Will of the People” and simply create deadlock. Wouldn’t it be better to have a single chamber and make that work more effectively? Many liberals might accept that argument in theory, but fear in practice that abolition would not be linked to reforms of the Commons, for example to be elected on a proportional voting system. That fear is well-founded, but it leaves them arguing for something that looks inadequate.

A better way out is surely to come at the problem form a new angle: that of federalism. The new upper chamber might represent the interests of elected governments below the top level. There are many ways that this can be approached, and it would serve a wider purpose. The would help secure a better distribution of power within the country by strengthening local and regional levels of government (I dislike calling this idea “devolution” because it suggests a top-down process). It may also present a more robust solution for Scots’ demands for more self-rule than the unbalanced solutions now on offer. And it is the urgency of the Scotland problem that might give the idea political traction, alongside the widespread recognition that government in England is over-centralised.

That will require some form of constitutional convention to resolve. That is what liberals should be calling for -a not an elected upper chamber by itself.

The tax credit row: ignorance and obfuscation are rampant

Britain’s tax credit row reached a milestone last night with a government defeat in the House of Lords. As I said last week, it doesn’t show British politics in a flattering light. Then I complained about the failure of the government’s critics to tackle the financial implications. But ignorance seems to be wilful on both sides. What is the row really about?

First, we need to understand what tax credits are. There are two systems: Working Tax Credits (WTC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC). WTC amounts to £1,890 to £4,525 per annum, plus more for those with disabilities. It starts to be withdrawn when income is above £6,420 and the rate of withdrawal is 41%. In other words, for every £1 you earn above £6,420 your benefit is cut by 42p. CTC is for parents responsible for children. This amounts to a basic £545pa plus £2,750 per child (plus extra if the child has disabilities). For those in work these amounts are added to WTC and withdrawn at the same rate. For those not claiming WTC, withdrawal starts at £16,105 (I’m not sure how that works, and why you would be in work and not claiming WTC, but I’ll leave that for now).

So what were the proposed changes? There are two sets. The first is due to be implemented in April 2016. The withdrawal threshold for WTC is to be cut to £3,850; for those only on CTC the rate is cut to £12,125. The withdrawal rate is increased to 48%. The second set of changes will be made in 2017 to CTC. The £545 family element will be withdrawn, and the benefit per child will be limited to two children. These elements will apply to new families, not those who are currently claiming.

So what do the changes mean? First: the basic amounts of the benefits are not being changed, until the changes in 2017, and the latter do not cover existing claimants. This allows the government to say that it the Prime Minister David Cameron was not lying when he said that “he did not want to cut” CTC, during the election campaign. But, of course, the changed withdrawal rules mean that the benefit is being cut for everybody earning more than £3,850. The impact will be concentrated on lower earners, who will face a high marginal rate of tax, starting at 48%, and rising to 60% as National Insurance kicks in, and then 80% as Income Tax joins the party. This creates something of a poverty trap effect, reducing the incentives to work. But then again, the tax credits are not being abolished, and workers do keep some of their extra earnings.

The government’s chief advertised mitigation measure is raising the national minimum wage. This should put more money in the pockets of the poorest workers, provided employers don’t cut their hours. But much of the benefit of this will go to workers not claiming tax credits, and it will do little to alleviate the hardships of those worst affected. There seem to be two strategic aims. The first is to transfer some of the economic burden of lower wages to employers. There is a suggestion, for example, that employers are paying lower wages because they know that tax credits will make up some of the difference. The evidence that this effect is important is weak, however. A second strategic aim, not doubt, is to reduce the poverty trap element of the changes – so that workers are pushed through the levels of pay at higher marginal tax rates faster. The problem with these strategic aims that the new levels set for the minimum wage are arbitrary. Much of the cost will have to be borne by small and marginal businesses that can ill afford the cost – they may well choose to cut hours paid, and so undermine the policy.

The worst of the interventions in the debate, however, come from some of the suggestions made as to how to mitigate the effects of the changes. These have centred on raising the thresholds at which Income and National Insurance are paid. This is obvious nonsense. It may be clever to mitigate the withdrawal of a universal benefit by using targeted ones. The mitigation will cost less than the original change would save. To suggest the opposite, which is what these ideas amount to, is plain stupid. Worse, the poorest earners are not even paying these taxes, so exempting them will not help. And yet the BBC interviewer on the Today programme this morning sounded surprised when his interviewee pointed this out to him. This is wanton ignorance. The ulterior motive for these “mitigations” is to provide tax cuts to the better off, not to help the poor and struggling.

Moving on. Here are the points that should be being made in this debate, and either aren’t being made, or are being made by too few people:

The government’s changes are tackling the symptoms of the disease of low pay and poverty, and not its causes. Raising the minimum wage may help, but not by much, and could backfire. The real problems arise from the economic pressures that cause lower wages, and from increasing housing costs that make that poverty harder to bear. The risk is that the savings made from cutting tax credits will ultimately be overwhelmed by the less direct effects of poverty on the state. Instead of making it easier climb out of poverty these changes make it harder.
The cost of tax credits will fall if lower incomes rise. The whole design of tax credits is that their costs fall as the need diminishes.
The 2017 proposed changes, are more harmful and ill-considered than the 2016 ones. Clearly the thought is that the level of benefits is encouraging poor families to be larger. I don’t think any strong evidence is being put forward to justify this. It looks positively vindictive.
The government’s policies are not a vindictive attack on the poor, but an attempt to rebalance the system to something that is more sustainable in the long term. But they are a gamble. They are making several changes at once, without a base of evidence to support them. It is these risks that should be the focus of the debate.

Personally I feel that the basic, original, design of tax credits is reasonably sound. The fact that they are costing much more than originally planned is a problem in itself, of course. But it is also an alarm bell – it points to even deeper problems in our society. If we take away the short term cost to the taxpayer, it does not mean that this problem has been solved. I would tackle the funding problem through taxes on the better off (loosely defined, not just chasing the slippery very rich). But the real energy needs to go into alleviating the causes of tax credits. Nobody is talking about that at all.

Saving tax credits means raising taxes. I’m OK about that.

The current political storm over the British government’s proposed scaling back of tax credits is not showing politics at its best. On one side a cynical Conservative government is pushing through changes will make the poor poorer and reduce social mobility. On the other we have opposition grandstanding that has no interest in suggesting alternatives. I despair.

First of all, what is the fuss about? Tax credits were introduced by the Labour government in 2003. They are a way of providing means tested benefits to those already in work, but on low incomes, and especially those with children. They are designed to taper off as income grows, so that claimants will always benefit from any increase in earned income. They are copied from a US idea, but they have been Britannicised so that they can operate within the country’s system of taxation at source, PAYE. In America claims are made at the end of the tax year when tax returns are filed; the UK use a monthly system.

Originally the problem with tax credits was the operation of the monthly calculations. Inevitably the information they used was often out of date, and so many claimants were faced with clawback claims, for which they were not prepared. We hear much less of this these days. Nowadays the problem is the cost. Claims about this vary, but it was always expensive, and, with low paid jobs multiplying, it has grown sharply. And yet they are well targeted to those most in need, especially families. They do not penalise work, so many means-tested benefits do, while costing much less than universal benefits.

During the coalition years of 2010 to 2015 the government trimmed back tax credits, in particular they tapered off the withdrawal more sharply. Previously incomes up to around £40,000 (from memory – this figure may well be incorrect) could claim something, but this has been reduced. Now the government proposes to reduce tax credits even more harshly, and especially for larger families. It estimates that the savings will be between £4bn and £5bn. That will cause real hardship for many families that include working people. In fact, the very “hard-working families” that we got so sick of hearing about from politicians at this May’s election. The cuts will also be a setback for attempts to give children from poor families a better start, and so reduce inequality.

For all that there is a certain honesty about the plan from the Conservative Chancellor George Osborne. The government’s financial deficit is running at about 5%, far higher than it should at this stage in the economic cycle. During the election the Conservatives made it very clear that they wanted to balance the budget. They also made it clear that they would do so by making cuts to benefits. They were very coy about where these cuts would fall, and even suggested that child tax credits might not be affected – but there really is no other way to make their plans work. This is what politicians do in a democracy: vaguely promise “tough” measures before an election; implement them soon after, and hope the fuss has blown over by the time the next election comes around. A lot of publicity has been attracted by a Conservative voter saying that she felt very let down – but I’m afraid that’s political naivety. If the issue was that important to her, she should have voted for somebody else.

The government are honest, by the standards we have to apply to politicians (no truly honest politician would get elected), but misguided. But a lot of the opposition is a nonsense. It amounts to no more than a collective yelp of pain, and wishes for the government to “reconsider” without offering any kind of escape route. This is particularly annoying from Conservative MPs. They offer no alternative. The various mitigations proposed, such as raising the minimum wage, or tax thresholds, are badly targeted and won’t help much. Tax credits are the most efficient way of doing what they do. Any change is going to make things worse. There is no clever wheeze that will make the problem go away.

The opposition parties: Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems are at least a little more honest than the Tory moaners. Labour initially got itself into a tangle, but soon put that right. I personally dislike the way these parties (and especially Labour) treat the status quo as a sacred thing to be “defended”, and any change that makes people worse off as tantamount to robbery. It’s still somebody else’s money. If systems of benefits, or public services, aren’t doing what they are supposed to, they should be changed, even it makes some people worse off. Still, that’s what politicians do. And in this case I think they are right. There is so much evidence that poverty in early life ruins chances later, which is why benefits focusing on families are a good idea. The system could be improved, no doubt, but not in a way that makes it any less expensive.

But these parties still should be clearer on what they think the government should do instead. All three of those parties have said they want the fiscal deficit reduced. They make an exception for capital spending – but tax credits is patently not that. Neither are they advocating cuts anywhere else (with exception of nuclear weapons systems, in some cases, but they usually want to increase spending on conventional forces instead).

Neither is it realistic to appeal to economic growth. This is not something that can be turned on and off like a tap by politicians. If it was the Conservatives would have that tap in the “on ” position already. Keynesian stimulus, which may have been relevant in 2010-2012, does not apply at this point in the economic cycle.

The only way to convincingly square the circle is to raise taxes. Of course the far left think they have the answer here: to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion, and to reform corporate taxes. Closer examination reveals these ideas to be chimerical. That still leaves the idea of taxing the rich harder. But the rich are slippery. There are still some things that can be done: taxing land, in particular, and tightening inheritance tax, rather than loosening it, as the Conservatives are doing. I wouldn’t bet on these ideas yielding much new money quickly though.

To have real credibility in “defending” tax credits, the NHS, local government spending, the police, or any other aspect of expenditure, politicians will not carry conviction unless they are prepared to raise one or more of the big three taxes: Income Tax, National Insurance, or VAT. Alas on this all parties are silent.

But such is the importance of tax credits to me, that I would indeed support the raising of one of the big three to keep them in being at current levels. I just wish the governments’ critics would say so too, and so start some real debate about the country’s fiscal priorities.

The SNP’s strategic problem is that independence equals austerity

For much of 2010 a barrel of Brent crude oil sold for under $80.

Then it started to take off, so that in early 2011, it reached $125. Around this time, perhaps not coincidentally, the Scottish National Party (SNP) achieved a stunning victory in the Scottish parliamentary election, allowing them to govern on their own, in spite of the proportional voting system. In the following three years the oil price held at around $110, and it seemed quite reasonable for the SNP to assume that prices would stay there for its financial projections for Scottish independence for the referendum in September 2014. But by the time that referendum was held the price was in free fall. And, again perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the SNP lost the referendum. Now Brent crude trades at under $50. It may be stuck there for some time. Hold that thought in your mind; it is the most important thing to understand about Scottish politics. Scottish nationalism has always been closely linked to oil.

After reviewing the fortunes of each of Britain’s major parties after their Autumn conferences (and one minor one: my own Liberal Democrats) it is the turn of the SNP. Notwithstanding the loss of the referendum, the SNP’s dominance north of the border looks complete. The only way from here seems to be down, but when, on earth, is that going to be?

Commentators on Scottish politics from London, of which I’m one, are notoriously bad at understanding Scottish politics. As, indeed, are English politicians. But surely the same laws of physics apply on both sides of the border? We must try to understand what is happening, and where things might go.

First we need to understand how the SNP achieved its dominance. Nothing could be sillier that the narrative I have heard put about by English leftists that the SNP achieved its success through tapping a popular, anti-establishment mood, and in particular anger at “austerity” to become “a broadly based social democratic party” as one article put it. This is silly not because it is entirely untrue, but because it is so incomplete that it might as well be. The SNP has achieved its success because it has convinced Scottish voters that it is the best party to look after their interests. This is not based on any particular policy stance, but through an appeal to national identity.

First they destroyed the Conservatives, who used to be a major force in Scottish politics. They were aided in this by the complete ineptitude of successive British Prime Ministers, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. They managed to make the English look like an occupying power. The SNP were nicknamed the “Tartan Tories” by Labour, because of their appeal to right of centre voters. Their leader of the time, Alex Salmond, sounded distinctly neoliberal, with his wish to turn the country into a corporate tax haven, like Ireland.

But Labour fared better. In New Labour days, that party’s domination of Scots politics started well. The party delivered devolution and won the first two Scottish parliamentary elections, governing in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who also performed respectably. It no doubt helped that one of New Labour’s architects, and its second Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was very much a Scottish MP. But doubts were raised about the party’s commitment to Scotland. Its best politicians seemed much more interested in pursuing a career in Westminster than in Holyrood. The party struggled to find a convincing leader after Donald Dewar, Scotland’s first devolved First Minister, died in 2000. Labour’s Westminster “strategists” (as politicos like to call their tacticians) took Scotland for granted. The party’s seats in Scotland were mostly quite safe; there was little understanding of how to handle political competition.

The first cracks showed when Labour lost the Scottish elections in 2007 (by a single seat), allowing the SNP to form a minority government. But the party would not, or could not, understand the implications of giving the SNP such a lift in credibility. After all, Labour did well enough in the 2010 British general election in Scotland. But they should have understood the strategic implications when the party fared badly in Scottish elections of 2011, allowing the SNP to achieve that majority, and a mandate to hold an independence referendum. Labour continued to flounder. To be fair, the party was facing such deep strategic problems after losing power in Westminster in 2010 that it was difficult for them to do other than paper over the cracks and hope for the best. The party’s lack of political skill in Scotland, however, became evident to all in its incompetent leadership of the referendum campaign. The party really seemed to be only about providing careers for talented politicians in Westminster, local jobs for the others, and no use to Scots voters at all.

The SNP, of course, managed to use the referendum to generate a surge of interest in an optimistic brand of politics based on Scottish identity. Its leaders then made a brilliant switch. Mr Salmond stepped down as leader, and handed over to his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, who had the reputation of being more left-wing. Ms Sturgeon duly turned the focus onto Labour voters. She used the mantra “austerity” in her messaging, to demoralise Labour activists, fed up by their leadership’s more careful line on economic policy. Labour collapsed to just one seat in Scotland (the same as the Lib Dems and the Conservatives) in May’s British general election.

The Labour left hoped that Jeremy Corbyn’s ascent to the Labour leadership, amid a tide of new members, and his supposedly refreshing brand of “straight-talking, honest politics”, would change the party’s fortunes. Alas no. Scots voters deserted Labour because the party was useless to them. The party has merely turned itself from one form of uselessness to another. A chaotic debating society more interested in policy than power is not an improvement. The next Holyrood election is in 2016. Everyone expects the SNP to increase their majority, mainly at Labour’s expense (the Lib Dems were already crushed in 2011; the Tories have quite a robust core vote).

A further departure from the London lefties’ idealisation of the SNP is that the SNP conference was as far cry from the “new politics” they espouse. The Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley said that it reminded him more than anything of a Conservative conference under Mrs Thatcher. The SNP are ruthless politicians, managing their message with discipline, and extending their hegemony to as many parts of Scottish life as they can. There is no open debate of party policy. This is not good for the quality of government there, but the party can and do blame any problems on the Westminster government. The SNP’s record is not all bad, though: the Scottish economy is more buoyant than any other part of the UK outside London and the English South East. Whether that arises from the SNP’s neoliberal tendency, or from its social democratic one, probably depends on who you talk to.

The SNP’s successful discipline arises from a clear, unifying purpose: their quest for Scottish independence. And therein lies their biggest strategic problem. That $50 oil price. That leaves little left to tax. It causes collateral damage to the oil industry based in Scotland. It makes much of remaining oil beneath the North Sea unviable. This knocks a huge hole in the SNP’s economic plans for independence, which handed out goodies to all interested parties.

The low oil price is a product of America’s shale revolution, and increased energy efficiency. Meanwhile Iran will re-enter that oil market, and demand from China is tailing off. That $50 price could be around for quite a while. The “peak oil” theory is dead and buried. There is no sign that the SNP have any idea how to plug the gap in their plans for independence between $50 and $110.

And here’s the thing. In spite of this price collapse in oil, the Scottish economy is performing well. It is diversified, and the non-oil bits are doing taking up the slack. The tax revenue damage is being taken by the UK as a whole, which unlike Scotland would be on its own, is big enough to absorb it. You could not have a better illustration of why the Union makes such good sense for Scotland. It acts as a wonderful economic shock absorber. And, as Greece and others have shown, joining a currency union does not solve this problem. Before long, Norway will be providing a clear illustration of the challenge an independent Scotland would be facing. Independence means austerity.

Ms Sturgeon used the conference to manage down her party’s expectations of a second referendum soon. But with a low oil price and deteriorating demographics 2014 may have been their best shot. Unless Britain is mad enough to vote to leave the EU, the case for independence will be more difficult to make in future. It will take some time before the penny drops. But surely the SNP’s days of hegemony are numbered?

But for their different reasons, Scotland’s other parties are unable to exploit the SNP’s strategic weakness. Paradoxically, though they may have won the argument on independence, it may not help to make too much of their unionist views. Just as England’s middle ground voters are not averse to austerity, Scotland’s middle ground clearly prizes its national identity, and isn’t scared of independence talk. Perhaps the tactic should be to concede the idea of a future referendum, especially in the absence of a proper federal settlement. That might clear the field to examine the SNP’s actual record. But that might take a higher calibre of leadership amongst Scotland’s opposition parties. For now the SNP does not face a serious challenge.