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?

Nats seem to get all annoyed when people accuse them of being in bed with the Tories.  But if Alex Salmond  can't come up with any  new chat of his own, and borrows George Osbornes Tory conference lines about 'the age of irresponsibility' for the SNP conference, you can't blame people for putting 2 + 2 together and getting tartan Tories can you?

In a similar vain I was amused to hear the LibDems environment spokesman in Westminster, Steve Webb, comments on the exclusion of air travel and shipping emissions from the proposed UK Climate Change bill. Steve said:'It's like telling everyone you're going on a calorie controlled diet, but not counting cream cakes.'

Sounds familiar to me.

Is there a reality TV show in this? Er, probably not.

It's interesting to see prominent cybernats like SNP Tactical Voting and Scots and Independent both trying to rebutt the points made in this Scotsman article highlighting the problems with the SNP's LIT proposals. It is fair to say that some of the 25 points in the article aren't worth taking seriously. However, there are some very valid criticisms.

Firstly, the SNP proposals to levy a 3% tax on income uniformly throughout the country can hardly be described as local. The SNP say it is a tax to fund local services, but let's face it, it won't raise enough money to fund local services in itself, it won't be collected locally, and so people won't perceive any difference between this extra 3% taken out of their pay packets, and the proportion of income tax, VAT or NI that supports local services.

 If we must have a Local Income Tax, I'd much rather it was set locally. This is primarily because it will strengthen local democracy and accountability at local authority level. The SNP can hardly complain that they would like more tax raising/varying powers for Holyrood on one day to Westminster on the basis that they cannot serve their electorate and respond flexibly to the 'unique situation in Scotland' without these powers, and then on the next day deny that our locally elected officials would not benefit from similar powers locally. If it is 'fair' to set taxes at Holyrood, why not locally or indeed at Westminster?

In principle, Greens argue for devolution of powers and responsibilities to the most local level possible. This strengthens local democracy, and gives responsibility to local authorities and elected officials. Greens would obviously prefer a Land Value Tax set locally, rather than a Local Income Tax. 

The other big problem I have with a Local Income Tax, is that it does nothing to support 'hard working families' that most political parties claim to want to support. It may be true that 85% of people will be better off under the SNP proposals because they plan to subsidise the tax centrally. Whilst this makes me wonder what the SNP would need to cut, if they were going to implement their 3% LIT, a quick chat down the pub last night really bought it home to me who 15% who will be worse off are. 

Basically, the worse off are going to be households like mine and my pals. We all have (proportionally to our income) massive mortgages and probably negative equity, tiny flats or houses, both grown ups work in reasonable jobs, one or more children (with correspondingly high child care costs), student loans to pay back, and we are being squeezed by commodity prices rises. We don't have much flexibility to pay more tax, but we will because our households have higher than average earned incomes, even though we have high, pretty unavoidable, outgoings too. 

Now, this contrasts with an older acquaintance of mine. They have two massive homes. One in the city, one in the country. One of them works. In short they're minted. They probably have lots of unearned income. They are lovely. They would benefit massively from LIT, because they hardly have any earned income, relative to their total wealth. As they said to me the other day, 'Tax avoidance is fine and we'd be stupid not to do it. Tax evasion, now that's illegal.' LIT will be an easy tax for the rich to avoid. 

So, my assessemnt of the consequences of the SNP LIT proposals: Great for workless households, great for posh people. Terrible for the lower middle classes. 

The council tax does need to go. It is also unfair. LIT may be more equitable. However, one of the main reasons why a Land Value Tax, as proposed by the Greens, seems fairer to me, is because it would squeeze the right people. The rich would not be able to avoid LVT, because you can't hide land, or offset it, or stick it offshore somewhere.  

If I was a politician, I'd be thinking seriously about which part of the population is most inclined to vote in elections, and what proportion of them would be worse off by my tax proposals. It might make some core SNP voters think again.  

I reckon the SNP have created a special department in Victoria Quay for emails from Westminster Manadarins that mention the Scotland Act. Immediately they're vetted, and filed according to issue, and then whenever there's a quiet news day, a byelection coming up, or leadership election in another party, Scotlands biggest personality cult 'leaks' another batch to the Scottish press with a careful quote from an 'SNP insider,' pointing out Westminster foot dragging.

Well, I say zero tolerance to domestic [political] violence. Alex is going to have to learn to take responsibility for his own actions instead of going back to Westminster for another beating when he's feeling low. Crying to the kids for sympathy won't help. They don't know who to believe. And maybe in years to come they'll turn against him when they realise that he lied to them about his real problems.

Anyway, I've probably taken that too far. In this particular case, I don't care about who's slapping who down or who does the work - I just want to know whether building an interconnector to Norway is actually a feasible idea. Can we afford it? Will it help us to make the most of our renewable energy resources? Will it promote competition in our deregulated energy markets? Is anyone in Westminster or Edinburgh working on answering those questions?

I wonder how long it will be before Scots get tired of this style of grievance politics? However the SNP try to spin these leaks, these underhand tactics from Victoria Quay surely do nothing to build constructive working relationships between the officials of our different levels of government. Are they really acting in the interests of Scots? Or just in the interests of the SNP? 

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.

Parenting lessons from the SNP. Presumably 'Kalashnikov' Councillor Hanif was training his kids up for the Commonwealth games?

83% of people think he should quit according to the Evening Times Poll. That's a remarkable 17% of people who think handing a kid under 10 a machine gun to play with is 'just a bit of fun.' Govanhill must be getting worse than I thought.

The SNP Oil horse has bolted. Wouldn't it be nice to have an oil fund we could live from forever? Sadly it seems this won't be possible. The pantry is almost empty. The golden goose won't be laying for much longer. Peak oil in the North Sea was ages ago. Production is going down. Move on. We need to build Scotland into the fabled 'renewable energy power house' and export that energy to England. 

Even if the SNP do ever get around to holding a referendum and then manage to persuade us of independance and we get it, and we do manage to stick some penies in our new national oil fund piggy bank - If the SNP manage all that (without getting distracted by some pressure group or another), then all we'll have is enough for everyone to get a wee 10p mixture each year at Christmas. And I want the latest cool new gadget every year forever. If the SNP can guarantee me the oil fund will buy me the latest cool new gadget every year for christmas for the rest of my life then I might be convinced. Till then I reckon you SNP folk need to get over it. Westminster wasted the cash. It's gone.

We should also be cutting our reliance on oil use and at least the SNP is U-turning in the right direction on the transport front. Delighted to see supportive comments about expanding the Edinburgh Tram line into an actual network.

Maybe once they get a taste for U-turning they'll adopt the Greens plans for a Land Value Tax too? If they can admit they were wrong on trams, will they admit they're wrong on the local tax issue too? According to SNP tactical voting who's worked out the numbers, there seems to be a majority in the parliament for some sort of new property based tax, and Two Doctors reckons there's already support in the SNP for LVT. Come on SNP - It's TIME! 

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?