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Archive: calman commission

Patrick Hannan — A Useful Fiction

28 July 2009 00:39

Categories: Books, Current affairs, Politics, Reviews, Scotland

A Useful Fiction coverHave you noticed that there is a lot of introspection about devolution just now? I suppose it underlines the fact that devolution is a process rather than a settlement that everyone is still looking at how to tweak it. Maybe it is just the newness of it. The Scottish Parliament is very young as these things go, just ten years old. As such, there is inevitably a sense that we haven’t quite got it right yet.

Mind you, you can never get it “right”, in the sense that everyone will be happy. Westminster is as well-established as they come, and yet people are constantly suggesting reforms from every angle imaginable. That has, of course, gained even more momentum in the past year or so, particularly with expenses scandals and the like.

So it is only natural that people should be wagging their jaws about devolution all the time. But the chat has seemed particularly intense of late. The SNP are having a National Conversation, while the other major parties have thrown their lot in with the recently published Calman report.

I guess you can put a lot of this down to the fact that the SNP are in government. That was an epoch; completely new territory that demanded introspection. What are the reasons for the SNP being in power? Unless it is an anti-Labour vote (which, to be fair, is highly likely), it may be because people are unhappy with the constitutional situation as it stands. An SNP government is perceived to be a major step towards independence, even if a number of major hurdles remain.

The tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament is also a good excuse to look back on how devolution has panned out so far and to work out how to refine the system for the future. All of this has been a useful hook on which to hang Patrick Hannan’s latest book, A Useful Fiction, of which I recently received a copy to review.

But that is largely a marketing device. The tenth anniversary of devolution is barely, if at all, mentioned. Meanwhile, thoughts on the Calman Commission feel as though they have been slightly shoehorned in, rushing to mention it lest the book feel out of date by the time people get round to reading it.

But the book could not have been written six months ago. Indeed, the sheer amount of important events that actually happened in the past year or so (chief among them the credit crunch and the collapse of RBS and HBOS) become quite clear as you read the book. For that reason, it probably will feel out of date by the time many people get round to reading it. But that is the peril of writing a book about current events, especially a process as unpredictable as devolution.

Mind you, not all of the book is about current political events. That is simultaneously the book’s main strength and its main weakness. On the one hand, it ensures that the book isn’t completely preoccupied with political points that are very salient in 2009 but will be fish wrapper come 2010. On the other hand, any politics geeks who read the blurb and expect to be able to immerse themselves in interesting constitutional arguments will be disappointed.

While the second half of the book focuses very much on the politics of devolution, it takes a while for the book to reach that point. Much of the front end of the book is preoccupied with more general points about national identity. I spent a lot of my time thinking, “well there’s plenty about cricket, rugby, the meaning of flags and other cultural issues; but not much of the politics I was looking for”.

That is not to say the early part of the book is useless; far from it. These reflections on Britishness and the nature of national identity are fundamental to the subject, not to say interesting to read about. But I did feel as though the book was taking its time to deal with the questions I was seeking answers for.

But when the book does move on to ask these questions, answers are few and far between. In his review of the book, Will Patterson said that A Useful Fiction is a book for moderates, which is a good way of putting it.

It is not exactly to say that Patrick Hannan constantly flits cowardly around the middle ground. I did raise my eyebrows from time to time in the course of reading this book. But after making an interesting suggestion, he often fails to commit it. The reader feels almost like the victim of a practical joker who looks like he is passing you something only to snatch it away as you reach out for it.

This left me finishing the book feeling as though I had read an interesting book, but one that lacked any central themes or arguments. It makes me wonder what Patrick Hannan sat down to write the book for, other than to set out an interesting collection of thoughts on Britain’s constitutional situation.

Nonetheless, I would say it is well worth reading A Useful Fiction because it is an interesting collection of thoughts. It certainly provided me with some fresh perspectives and Mr Hannan is an engaging enough writer.

But if you think you’ll want to read it, I would hurry up before it gets overtaken by events.

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Finding the common ground

8 October 2008 20:18

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Politics, Scotland, Technology

Common ground on Scotland's future

A series of posts

  1. Finding the common ground
  2. My view on Scotland’s constitutional future

In the wake of Kezia Dugdale’s retirement from blogging, and having noted the often poisonous atmosphere that pervades some of the darkest corners of the Scottish blogosphere, I think now is a good time for me to come out with an idea that has been floating around in my head for the past few months.

This is an attempt to find the common ground in the constitutional viewpoints of SNP supporters and those of other persuasions. It recently struck me that we all have much more in common than we perhaps imagine.

The eureka moment came after I had a discussion in the pub with a card-carrying SNP member and full-on nationalist. We both sought to gain a good understanding of each other’s views and as the conversation went on we found that we had a lot more in common than we felt at first glance.

I set out my federalist position, using the opportunity to point out that the SNP, too, shares my view that having different powers at different levels of government can be a desirable thing. For instance, it is well-known that the SNP would wish for an independent Scotland to be a member of the European Union.

Furthermore, under current SNP policy, a very important policy instrument would never be controlled by Scotland. The SNP recognises that Scotland is not an optimal currency area, thanks to the large amount of trade Scotland does with the rest of the UK and the rest of the EU. Most likely, an SNP-designed independent Scotland would continue to use sterling in the short-to-medium term while adopting the euro in the longer term future. This means that monetary policy would be set either in London or in Frankfurt, not Edinburgh.

Already we see that the independence issue is not so black-and-white as some of the debates might lead you to believe. The SNP do not support full independence. I am sure that there are some people on the fringes who do, but they are thin on the ground and are certainly not represented in mainstream politics.

That means that there is not actually a great deal that separates the SNP from the ‘unionist’ parties. All of the major parties believe a similar thing. Admittedly they do so to varying degrees. At one end we have the Labour and Conservative position of maybe considering a greater degree of fiscal federalism. At the other, we have the likes of the Greens who want more powers for local government in addition to the Scottish Parliament. And the Lib Dems have long supported federalist solutions.

From my perspective, this is actually pretty damn close to being a consensus in Scottish politics. The introduction of a Scottish Parliament was almost seen as a given in 1997, but even then the Conservatives had a good bash at running a ‘no’ campaign. Were there to be a referendum on having increased fiscal powers for the Scottish Parliament a few years down the line, surely any ‘no’ campaign would be a pathetic laughing stock. Certainly, anyone calling for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament would be totally ignored.

It seems to me that most people now have very similar viewpoints on Scotland’s near-future constitutional direction. The differences are almost a matter of semantics, or at least of niggly details.

That was the conclusion I came to in the pub during this discussion. My nationalist sparring partner, if I understood him correctly, was more or less saying that once Scotland had fiscal powers it was more-or-less independent enough anyway. He was telling me, as a Lib Dem sympathiser, that given this huge amount of common ground the Lib Dems ought to be working with the SNP to try and advance these ideas.

In May 2007 I understood and supported the Lib Dems’ decision not to go into coalition with the SNP. There was a damaging perception that the Lib Dems would just get into bed with anyone so it was a good idea to try and put the lid on that. The flip-side, though, is that the Lib Dems are beginning to like an appendage of the Labour Party — and this isn’t the time to be that.

Worse still, particularly given the large amounts of common ground between the SNP and the Lib Dems on a variety of different issues, the Lib Dems are beginning to look like the sulky party. I am starting to think it would be much more constructive for the Lib Dems to start working with the SNP. Of course, given the relative success of the SNP minority administration so far, it wouldn’t be surprising if the SNP just thumbed their nose at any Lib Dem approach.

All-round, it is beginning to look like a huge missed opportunity. That underlines why I think we need to start focusing on the common ground rather than the minor differences and the petty squabbles.

Scotland sorely needs a proper national conversation right now. Unfortunately, the way things have worked out, we are having two conversations in tandem and the risk is that everyone is just preaching to the converted without actually taking in what ‘the others’ are saying. It’s not very constructive.

I think if everyone ditched the political posturing and the party rhetoric, the politicians and the people would probably find a lot to agree with. Am I right, or do you think I’m being a bit wide-eyed and naive? I want to try and find out.

Here is what I propose. As a starting point, I am going to ask if everyone believes that different powers should be held at different levels. This could be Scotland as part of the EU, Scotland as part of the UK and the EU, or whatever other permutations you care to come up with. I have already noted that I think almost everyone agrees with the principle of this. Am I wrong?

Once we get past the first hurdle, I want to understand why people believe that certain powers should be held by certain institutions. What powers should the Scottish Parliament have? In which areas would it be acceptable for Westminster to retain control? What would be the ideal role of the EU? If you think Westminster should be taken out of the equation completely, what is the reasoning behind that? I don’t necessarily want this to be a game of ‘fantasy constitution’. I’m only interested in realistic ideas.

I’ll post what I think the answers to these questions are within the next day. I hope some other bloggers join in so that we can see where we all agree and get a proper handle on where the disagreements come from.

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