Economist's Lament for Scotland
Concentrate - here comes a serious bit...I have finally had a chance to read the Economist's Special Report on Scotland. It is, as you would expect of the Economist, a very well written piece. The main points are:
- That Devolution has not fuelled further calls for Independence.
- That to have real power the Scottish Parliament needs to have tax raising powers.
- This lack of real power has not helped the Economy - the article sees Scottish MSPs as teenagers living off an allowance and therefore not motivated to create the conditions for growth.
- That the economy is fat on public sector funding and that the Executive is "slow to tax, quick to spend, and even quicker to ban"
- That only economic growth can help relieve the poverty that some areas of Scotland suffer from.
There's been a somewhat predictable response from politicians and the media:
"Who gives a toss what a London hack thinks of us?," asks the Sunday Herald - ironically proving the assertion that Anglophobia is on the rise!
"rambling thoughts of someone on a day trip from London," says Jack McConnell
"a lack of informed comment on the true political position here." says the SNP
and my personal favourite:
"The author of this article should be sent homewards to think again," says Lorainne "can you see my growler?" Kelly.
This week's Economist came through my letterbox at the same time as Scottish Field which contains a pretty pathetic article titled - Has Scotland recovered it's pride?. I get the feeling McConnell and Co. will be happier with the argument that a few commonwealth medals have made everything rosy in Scotland - it doesn't challenge them with any unpalatable home truths!
posted by Digbeth D'Marriotti at 1:32 PM
5 Comments:
Jack McConnell was the President of the Students Association when I was at University. I ended up being on the Council. He was a very slick and sly operator even then. Thick skinned and a well developed political persona, honed on local politics and now the top of the tree in Scotland. Hard to see how his vision is going to move Scotland forward, since he doesn't have much.
Whether ill reserached or not (see Herald) the article addresses the critical issue of a bloated inefficient public sector which inevitiably crowds out private sector investment and hence wealth creation. The lack of vision from Scotland's politicians is lamentable and the pursuit of wholly unaffordable but voter friendly policies (in the short term) such as free care for the elderly show an absence of long term thinking. However, so long as the politicians are drawn predominantly from ex public sector workers, union officials, lawyers and professional politicians little is likely to change so long as the SE England continues to bankroll the spending.
The ticket clerk at the my local station proved to be an expert at the Barnett Formula.
I recently pitched up with only a Scottish 20 quid note. When I asked him if this was OK he replied that it was no problem.
"We gave it to you in the first place"
Colin,
Nice stats on old Wacko Jacko! It's depressing to see these career politicians coming through with no experience of life outside of committees and quangos!
D
I thought that the article was fairly well balanced and it only goes to show how exposed some of our glorious heuchter teuchter leaders could get so out of shape over some polite observations. I suspect that there was a good deal of editing. Don't want to have too many of our Scottish friends cancelling their subscriptions. My brothers Godfather is Robin Harper. I'd be interested to hear what he thinks.
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