Adopted Domain

"Naw they couldnae" as Holyrood Chronicles succinctly put it.

The SNP lost three out of 1, 2, 3 elections to Labour this week. Even though Labour themselves thought they were losing right up to the call. Needless to say Labour are delighted, nay overjoyed , at the fact that there seems to be some substance to the Brown bounce.

Are there lessons to learn from all this? In Glenrothes and Fife, Labour made astute candidate choices. They rejected the old guard, and chose new, but well kent, local faces with no previous public political convictions. This contrasts to the SNP whose candidates political exploits and ambitions were well known. The similarities don't stop there though.

In both Glenrothes and the Forth Ward, Labour could easily campaign on local social justice issues against the SNP who are in power in both local authorities. In Glenrothes, the issue was means tested care for the elderly. In Forth ward, the issue was the huge cuts made to a range of services in the area as a result of a reallocation of 'regeneration money,' to better off areas. Certainly there are people in Forth ward who almost take this personally and see it as Cllr Cardownies (the leader of the Edinburgh SNP group] personal crusade to settle old scores against his old Labour colleagues. Despite the fact that he defected to the SNP from Labour because he didn't like the New Labour drift to the right.

So local elections, won on local issues. But is that the whole story? It's notable that over in Baillieston Labour won, even when they control the local council, and in an area that had swung so far towards the SNP a few months before. Were those previous SNP victories down to local people punishing corrupt local Labour politicians and nothing to do with a general swing to the SNP afterall?

All the papers are claiming that the way Alex Salmond has handled the banking crisis has lost the SNP critical momentum, whilst Brown has benefited. There is perhaps some truth in this, but also I wonder whether there has been an "Obama effect" that has infused left leaning voters with a new confidence. I know - everyone is claiming an Obama effect on everything, but bear with me. Where people had become very cynical of the New Labour narrative, could it be that Obama has articulated a new vision of a vaguely progressive left politics that might rub off on voters wavering between the SNP and Labour?

Afterall, Obama has had more media covereage here than any of the local Scottish elections. And concious that this perhaps sounds trite, the US election has perhaps inspired people to believe in the power of democracy to change things and shown everyone that politics can be about a little bit more than just the narrow constitutional issues that animate the SNP. Whether it comes to pass or not, the hype around the Obama victory has given people hope that they can come together, despite their differences, around a progressive project. This message is anathema to the divisive politics of the SNP.

This, combined with the ongoing economic turmoil, says to me that parties that can successfully lay claim to some form of track record on social justice and dealing with crises are going to benefit. If this is the end of the SNP honeymoon, then it is because the gloss is coming off their populist polices for the people who aren't represented by a lobby group with a loud voice - the SNP losers. The fact is that the origninal lobby group for the poorest people in Scotland, who seem to be the main SNP losers - is the Labour party. Even if they haven't been very good at coming up with any solutions.

However, we can take the Obama link too far. His rhetorical skills may have encouraged people to lean leftwards, but his central theme was "change." And, the fact that Labour won all three elections means nothing will change locally. Labour are still in power in Glasgow and Westminster, and the balance of power in Edinburgh remains the same. It means the Gordon Brown will probably lead Labour into the next general election even if Labour in Westminster are still faced with the same problems. If Labour learn anything from this success, I'd hope it is that they must find a way to connect, and show they can move beyond the New Labour project. If Labour see this as an endorsement of the status quo and fail to change, then their traditional voters might yet be tempted to vote for another party instead come the next general election.

How did the other parties fair? The SNP did make gains on Labour in all the elections, but usually at the expense of the other parties and the LibDems in particular. The LibDems lost their deposit in Glenrothes,as they did in Glasgow East, coming in fourth behind the Tories. Tavish Scott must surely be starting to worry. It seems that far from challenging Labour, could it be that in some parts of Scotland the SNP are really becoming the credible protest vote for the more conservative, middle way, (with a small 'c') middle classes that the LibDems used to be?

The Greens stood in both council elections. Kate Joester, the Green candidate in Edinburgh did well to roughly hold onto the Green share of the vote, despite the SNP squeeze, so the Greens remain in fifth place in the ward. The talk in the Edinburgh branch is of how much extra work it would take to get Greens into fourth place. Afterall, it is a ward that elects 4 councillors. That is probably a decision that will need to be taken at the next local government elections. Sadly, the Green candidate in Glasgow got just 32 votes, beaten even by the BNP.

The Scottish local tax discussions lurch on one step further with the recent admission from John Swinney that the SNP are considering some of the LibDems proposals for a Local Income Tax (LIT) that is set by local authorities.

Although regular AD readers will know that I'm a fan of a Land Value Tax (LVT) not LIT, it must be said that Labours description of the proposals as having 32 different rates, for each local authority, is disingenuous to say the least, and doesn't do them much credit really.

The SNP propose to cap the maximum tax at 3p in the pound, so there will in theory be 4 different rates between 0p and 3p. However, I doubt very much that any local authority is going to choose to go below the 3p cap, particularly as the SNP have effectively given the green light to the 3p rate as this was the level the SNP themselves proposed.

Realistically then, employers will be unfortunate if they have to cope with more than 2 different rates of LIT. But even if they do, they're already set up to make these deductions. Employers already deduct trade union dues, bike to work fees, pensions, national insurance, charity donations, student loan repayments and goodness know what else from peoples salaries. In fact, I think the proposals would cut some council costs and bureaucracy, as they wouldn't need to employ hundreds of people across the country to chase people for council tax.

To me, that aspect of the SNP/LIT plan is perfectly workable so all those parties who deride it as unworkable probably need to come up with a different way to fight it.

However, the SNP may decide to tax income from shares too. Now, this is a good thing, in principle, as one of my main concerns about the LIT is that it really will affect the middle classes and the poorest workers disproportionately. If you subsist from 'unearned income' from owning shares, than you won't have to pay much in the way of LIT, unless income from shares is included. However, policing this really is going to be tricky, and it will require a bureaucracy of some sort to make it happen. Even then, I think the LIT proposals if implemented will still spawn a whole rash of offshore, or maybe just English based, share based tax avoidance schemes.

If I was self-employed, or had a nice employer, what's to stop me paying myself the minimum wage in Scotland, and paying the rest of my salary as dividends to an English based family member, or trust or whatever it is that people do to avoid income tax as it is? One of the reasons I prefer a LVT is because you can't hide land in an offshore trust, or move it south of the border. Perhaps the opposition parties should therefore be critiquing the LIT supporters not for producing unworkable proposals, but for favouring unfair ones?

News that there's to be another Scottish By-election that Labour will have to defend can only up the pressure on Brown, and the Scottish Labour party. With the Lib-dems and Labour still without a leader in Scotland, it looks as though this one could be carried by the SNP's seemingly unstoppable momentum. Recent polls, that have been sliced , diced and seasoned well by other scottish bloggers, seem to indicate that after the Glasgow East earthquake, the SNP should easily be due another win. 

This said, I think there'll be some serious local factors here. Not least, local sympathy for John MacDougall MP who seems to have had more local support after a long battle with serious illness. And whilst I don't know enough about the local politics in Fife to comment, I'm convinced of the point that Ideas of Civilisation makes about the influence of local politics on voting habits.

In Glasgow East, the local Labour party was mired in allegations of sleaze, so they got what they deserved. However, in Fife the SNP/Libdems are in charge of the council. If they've been making cuts that seem to target Labour heartland areas, like the SNP/Libdem coalition in Edinbrugh seems to be doing then I wonder whether that may help to support the Labour vote in this byelection?

Sure, just like everywhere else there is likely to be a massive protest vote in Fife, and the 10,000 lead John MacDougall had over the SNP is going to shrink. Unlike in Glasgow East, the 'protest vote' against Labour is more likely to be split between the LibDems and the SNP, even if the the LibDems don't have a leader. The constituency is more diverse, and Fife has a stronger LibDem vote. If Labour can stand the pressue, put on another slick campaign without imploding completely (which lets face it - is a big if) then I wonder whether they could have more luck here than in Glasgow East? 

A cynic might argue that actually Fife politics is all about which party can build the most toll free bridges into the Kingdom, given that half the people who live there seem to work elsewhere - in Dundee, Edinburgh or even Glasgow. The SNPs track record on tolls and their determination to build a second Forth crossing, even if it's not actually needed might be a vote winner for them, and given the Greens opposition to both of those proposals, they could lose votes on the bridge issue.

Whatever happens it would seem that there'll be a silver lining for folk like me. A Labour hold would wipe the smug smile of David Millibands face. And Alex Salmonds for that matter. Both worth seeing.

On the other hand, another Labour lose to the SNP, would hasten Gordon Browns departure, and it might even strenghten the hand of the the McCabe/Aitken school of thought who think Scottish Labour needs more decentralisation to fight the SNP.  Most people can see that this would mean that Labour might actually function as an opposition, even if the current labour leadership candidates won't come right out and admit it.

Assuming the Scottish Greens stand in this election, I'm hoping that they'll at least keep their deposit this time around.

Anyway, enough idle speculation from me, I suspect this is Doctor Vee's constituency, so it'll be interesting to hear what he has to say.

I'm loving the irony. SNP and LibDems leap to the attack when Labour in Westminster proposes to introduce a retrospective tax on the owners of cars with high CO2 emissions.

Meanwhile SNP and LibDem coalition administration proposes parking permit taxes based on, er, owners of cars with high CO2 emissions, that will apply to all car owners, so this too is, ahem, a retrospective tax on motorists. Nice timing. Surely they could have at least waited with this one until after the byelection is over? You would have thought they would - but in fact they were so keen to get this out, that it seems they even forgot to circulate the report to the opposition.

Although Adopted Domain is of course broadly in favour of Carbon taxes I do agree that the retrospective application of these taxes is slightly unfair - and in the case of Labours road tax, probably beyond what people would consider as reasonable.

Another problem with retrospective taxes is that they encourage people to buy new cars, and that isn't good. In most cases I suspect the most environmentally friendly form of car ownership is to keep a small engined old car on the road for as long as possible - even if it's emissions are slightly higher than a brand new car of equivalent engine size. That's my excuse for my half share in a total jalopy at any rate. Retrospective taxes based on emissions might encourage people like me to think about getting a new car though, despite all the extra energy and resources used to make it.

Provided they're implemented fairly then, I'm all in favour of big tax sticks and big tax carrots to encourage people into lower emissions cars, or in Edinburgh's case - the City Car Club. Afterall a ton of CO2 saved now is much more efffective and cheaper than having to save several tons later on.

The hysterical pro-motoring lobby are pulling out all the stops as usual, though, with an impressive call to 'think about disabled people' - who apparently need vehicles with large engines because they need to fit their wheel chairs in.

Surely the most ridiculous claim the petrol heads have made yet?

Only a pure numpty would try to predict the outcome of any by-election, especially the Glasgow East one, especially two weeks before. That's what everyone on TV says just before they give their prediction of what the result will be, so I'm going to copy them, and get my oar stuck in early.

The papers insist that anything could happen but my gut feeling says I'm going to feel like I did when John Major was elected in 1992. Basically, just thoroughly flabbergasted that so many people could vote for the status quo.

Glasgow East is a place where voter apathy is the biggest issue. I meet folk in Glasgow all the time who say without any shred of embarrassment 'Politics? Nah I'm not into that stuff.' But, just like one of the guys in this video who's lived there his whole life, you can't blame people, when nothing does ever change. Labour have run Glasgow for decades and politics is done differently there. To  me it seems like everyone votes Labour, and then the real deals are done by 'big personalities' behind closed doors, in the mysterious web of trade unions, regeneration agencies, religious organisations, and council offices that run Glasgow. Or, if you believe one of my work colleagues, it's actually the other way around, and the voting is just a formality that happens after the decisions have been taken.

The last Scottish elections shook Glasgow up, and for the first time, there is some real local opposition and scrutiny in Glasgow, but it's going to take a long time for that reality to make a difference to the culture in Glasgow. People connected to Labour can still pull strings that other people can't. Sadly, I suspect that getting people in Glasgow East to vote for someone else apart from Labour is just as hard as challenging the culture of smoking, drinking, drug taking and fighting that blights the area. Which is a shame, as there are other parties, like the Greens, who in theory at least, have policies that should appeal to left leaning souls.

The SNP might be predicting an earthquake, but I reckon they'll not be sending anyone new to Westminster. Labour have carefully worked it out so that the voting is timed to coincide with the Glasgow fair holiday. That'll mean it'll only be the apathetic knife wielding Ballieston tongs (who won't vote) and the dyed in the wool red or dead auld folk left in the neighbourhood (who will.)

If you look at the stats then it's pretty clear that the SNP would need all of the Tory, Lib Dem and SSP votes just to come within spitting distance of Labour, and that kind of squeeze is hard to imagine. Of course, weird things happen in byelections, and the turn out will be much smaller, so even if things stand still the SNP will be able to claim they've reduced Labours majority. But I doubt they'll win.

Assuming Labours Margaret Curran does win, I suppose it'll mean political silver linings all around in some senses. Alex Salmond might be happy to see another Scottish Labour heavy weight (ahem) out of the race for the Holyrood Labour Leadership, and so will the other Labour leadership contenders. Not only would she leave the field slightly clearer for them, she'd make the local selection process easier when the Scottish MSP constituency boundaries are redrawn. And let's not forget Gordon Brown will be pretty relieved too - even if she's not his first choice.

That's assuming she quit her MSP post of course. At the moment she seems to be keeping her options open, although she did concede that that having an office in Westminster and Holyrood would be 'unsustainable in the long run.'

It does make you wonder whether Ms Curran reckons Alex Salmond has set a precedent. Could this be the start of worrying trend in Scottish politics - party leaders feeling the need to have a seat in both parliaments? Would Scottish folk stand for it? I hope not. 

To sum up. Labour win, but with a much reduced majority. SNP 2nd (swing from Lib Dems and Tories). Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems Squeezed) and Tories (squeezed, but less so) 3rd and 4th. Greens next. SSP and Solidarity split the socialist vote, consigning themselves to utter pointlessness (again).