The Wardman Wire

With Holyrood in recess for a fortnight, it seemed sensible to make this more of a ‘bite-sized’ effort, summing up what’s been going on.

Scottish Labour met in Aviemore - hence the Aviemore Angle, as this is where the bulk of the stories come from - last weekend, for the first time since the party’s defeat in the Scottish and Local Elections last May. While this is the first (and only) chance for a post mortem, that wasn’t what conference-goers appeared to get. Instead it was used to attack the SNP Government - a recurring theme at Scottish Labour Conferences, and one which led this one to be described as the “Not the SNP Conference” - and re-energise the party’s left wing by proposing to offer Socialism as an answer to the SNP’s Nationalism. Des Browne MP also took the opportunity to remind people that Labour still do run Scotland through Westminster. Time and the next election will tell whether or not they really ought to be talking up that fact.

It’s also been reported that Wendy Alexander has re-shuffled her front bench, with Shadow Parliamentary Business Minister Jackie Baillie becoming Alexander’s Chief of Staff. It’s hard to say what direction this move is in, though it suits Baillie: the MSP for Dumbarton seemed in the latter days of the McConnell Administration to act as a parliamentary ‘fixer’, smoothing relations between Ministers and Backbench MSPs. This move may also consolidate her position as a ‘Shadow Minister for Newsnight Scotland’ - the all-purpose spokesperson, ready to pop up on the twenty-minute BBC2 opt-out that few people actually watch. Anyway, Chief Whip Michael McMahon takes over Baillie’s role, and Higher Education Spokesman Richard Baker will become the new Chief Whip. Or, at least, that’s according to The Herald. Three days after the move appeared in the press, Scottish Labour’s website still hasn’t been updated, and there has been no announcement at Holyrood of Baillie surrendering her seat on the Parliamentary Bureau - effectively the Parliament’s organisational commitee whose members are the Presiding Officer, his deputies, and the Business Managers of the four main parties - to McMahon. Further, no replacement for Baker as Higher Education Spokesman appears to have been announced.

Elsewhere, Finance Secretary John Swinney has got into a row with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper over finance policy. The SNP have kept pointing out that the last Comprehensive Spending Review saw Scottish Government get its smallest ever budget increase, and in effect, a real-terms cut. Labour usually respond by saying that Donald Dewar’s administration - and the then Finance Minister Jack McConnell - would have given their eye teeth for the money now available to the Government. In this case, Cooper is the latest Labour politician to attack the SNP’s support for a Local Income Tax, while Swinney has been arguing that Scotland is not getting money it’s entitled to from Barnett Formula consequentials as a result of increased money for prisons south of the Border (remember that as a result of Barnett, every increase in public spending in England has to be met with an increase for the Scottish budget).

That said, the Scottish Government will find one source of revenue dropping: prescription charges in Scotland have now fallen from £6.85 to £5, as part of a planned phased reduction to zero. I now await the inevitable discussion of what the Scots and English get from the state.

Finally, while MSPs may be on their two-week break anyway, one Member will be using the time for convalesence: Geroge Foulkes (or, if you prefer, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock), Labour’s Regional MSP in Lothian, was taken ill last week and diagnosed with High Blood Pressure, though he hopes to be back on his feet when Parliament returns. Here’s hoping.

Tags: scotland, holyrood herald, parliamenary report