Scotland’s voice, Part 2
“Opposition don’t win elections, government loses them.” But
what happens when the Government wins them?
Yesterday, as some would be aware, saw the elections of the
Scottish Government. A day when the democratic system allowed the Scottish people
to go out and make their voice heard, to elect the men and women whom we want
to fight for our issues and Scotland’s
corner. And though not all the results are in as of the time of
writing this, it has now become clear who has won the election. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has been returned to power. They had headed into this election as the previous ruling party of a minority
government, the largest party by only a few seats, and it being there first and
only term in any office of the land. But now, they return triumphant. They have
been returned to power with the first ever majority in the Scottish Governments
history (it has only been going since 1999), in an election that uses a system
where gaining an out and out, over all majority is pretty damn hard, if not
near impossible. So why has this happened?
Some will say it’s all because of the collapse of the
Liberal Democrats vote, with the Scottish Lib Dem’s are being punished for
mistakes made by the coalition at Westminster.
And while I agree that is could be the case, saying so would seem to let the
Lib Dem’s in Scotland
off the hook. The fact is, they choice to go into the coalition, they choice
who’s bed to lie in. So no, they can’t turn around a just blame them down south
of the border. They have to wake up and take reasonability for their own
failings.
What of Labour? The red army of Labour has long held Scotlandhas its
heart land and back yard, so why have they fallen and failed so hard? A lot of Labours misfortunes could because be said for a
loss of touch. For too long had they held power, and holding that power they
lost sight of things. This could be UK Labour leader Ed Miliband’s thoughts as
he tries a slow rebrand of his party form the ground up. In Scotland they certainly
had a sense of ‘it was never going to end’. Labour in 2007 was shocked when
they didn’t become the largest party by something of a margin on like 3 seats. And
For a while walked the corridors of power like an accident victim in shock, not
quite knowing where to look, there was even talk that they might try a ‘dirty collation’
with the Libs to secure power, but luckily for all parties involved that didn’t
happen, and the then labour leader had the dignity and respect for Scotland,
the Scottish voters, the SNP and importantly himself to let the SNP try and
form and run a government. Since then, Labour in Scotland has been on the whian. And
some of that has been down to them selfs. They’ve lacked a strong leader, a
strong voice, someone who could stand up and fight their side. And that has
only helped their decline. They’ve looked feeble and easy pray. Then their was their election messages, the “can’t do’s” and “won’t have”
messages, the “we fail” message they think Scotland is, trying to bring down
the government rather than say why they’d be better. The sort of election campaign
Scotland and the UK on a whole
has been use to getting for over decade now.
I’d mention the Torys, but really, I don’t care all that
much for them, and what can be said really. They’ve lost 5 seats, but stayed
mostly stabile, but they were never a true force in Scotland, so they probably won’t be
cheering or leaping for joy, but they’ll probably be happy that they’re still around,
and didn’t noise dive like the Liberals.
So why did the SNP not just win but trounce all, and return
to power stronger than ever?
Well a good strong positive message to the voters of what we,
as a nation, can achieve could have been a good start. No back braking sleaze
fest or name calling, no negative campaigning. And maybe finally that might have
paid off. For a long time, many have called the SNP politically naïve, that
because they don’t stoop to negative campaigning of the opponents that they never
really stood a chance of final victory. A nicely nicely approach only got you stabbed
in the back. But now maybe Scotland
has grown sick of the sleaze and the lies, and the positive message has won
out. In all honestly I liked the approach, I’d rather MSPs and MPs telling me
what they can do rather than what their opponents can’t.
But the message was not the be all and end all.
As I had said, the SNP had been the pervious government, and a minority one at
that. This meant that it was to be a struggle for the SNP since 2007 to govern,
but not only did they do so, they made it look easy. I’m not going to be silly
and blindly say there weren’t problems. There were hiccups to be sure. Things
that the SNP wanted to do but couldn’t, but there were many successes. Health
care, education, Old people and Law and Order these are things that the SNP had
to be judged on in this election, and much to the shame of many of my friends
who I know support other parties they’ve had to say that the SNP have seemed to
do a good job. They (SNP) had to be judged on their term in office, and it was
a good term. Many of the fears propagated by other parties (mainly the negative
campaigns of Labour) where proven unfounded, and the SNP dream of showing Scotland
could be big and be better though strong and good government seemed to pay off.
Was it a case of the Alec factor? There is no doubt, whether
you love him or hate him, Alex Salomd is a force in politics. He has a way with
words, and knows how to fight an issue. I was once able to see the man debate
live back in 2005 in St Andrews and it was a
sight to see. I wasn’t in awe of the man, but I was pleased to see how he
easily he could demolish opponents. He can be loud, but he is also strong and
fair. And in a time when many fear (what some would call an unfair) unelected
Con/Dem coalition government down south, he seems a strong man to argue and
fight Scotland’s
case. Someone who can and will stand up to the Westminster
government, and whether they believe in independence or no, many if not most of
Scotland’s
voters would say that’s a good thing.
So where does Scotlandgo from here? The SNP have
called this a watershed moment in their parties history, a time when they’ve
lived up to the accolade of being “the national party of Scotland”, already
there is talk of the ‘referendum’ but the news and other parties, the SNP and
Alex have said that it could happen in the second half of this term. So that’ll
be in 2 or 3 years time. But one thing is for sure about that issue, no longer
is it a hypothetical notion, now it’s a cold hard political fact. The battle
lines for what will be the dirtiest and bloodiest political fight in Scottish politics
since the act of union it’s self are all ready being drawn up on both sides. It’s
going to be one hell of a fight.
As for everything else, we’ll have to wait and see.
