The Scotsman today reports on a so-called "u-turn" on police funding by the SNP caused by the Tories in budget negotiations. I'm not entirely sure how it can be called a u-turn if it is a re-examination of something that is already an aim, a desire and indeed being progressively implemented anyway.
Similarly, I haven't been impressed by the acceleration of the Small Business Bonus scheme demand that the Tories are making. They have so much political capital right now from being the only party willing to engage constructively with the Government on the essential passage of its budget, and they seem to be squandering it on trying to make two things that are already happening happen faster.
If I was in the Conservatives' position I'd be trying to get funding for entirely new projects or policy proposals, and ones the Government wasn't naturally inclined to support anyway. There were a few things I remember from the cursory glance I made at their manifesto (I don't really read the platforms of fringe parties like the Tories) like a trial City Academy or, well, no, that's actually the only thing that stands out in my memory, as I was impressed by the sheer level of madness involved in proposing it as an idea.
Indeed, since I and most of the rest of the Scottish electorate find that and most of the rest of Conservative Party's policy programme politically repulsive, I'm quite glad that they are selling their position short. They would have to explain where they were going to make cuts to fund their pet projects, but they're going to have to do it with bringing in the SBB faster and increasing the recruitment of police anyway.
The Tories might be the best opposition party right now at dealing with a Parliament of minorities, but that's very relative, and I really don't think it's saying much.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
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4 comments:
Well it's become quit obvious that the SNP need a lot of help to actually keep their pledges. It's hardly incompetence at all, what a ridiculous suggestion. Surely the thing about reaching compromise is finding common ground and surely the common ground is on business rate cuts, no? I think you’ll also find that the SNP have effectively dropped the pledge to put a 1000 additional police officers – we want such a pledge to be met – so in fact it is a u-turn as all the SNP have done is fudge what they meant by additional officers on the beat.
Surely you should be writing about the ridiculous stance made by the Fib Dems or the fact that Labour proposed a number of amendments to the budget but did nothing in order to garner support for the amendments.
I tend to blog what I feel like. Labour and the Lib Dems are both being transparently useless.
I agree that we have common ground on the business rate cuts, I just don't see the point of using negotiations like this to get a change of policy on something that is already common ground. I think you guys could be getting a lot more out of this informal deal than you are right now, and like I said, I'm just glad you're not.
Dear oh dear.
I don't think we're in the position to quite hold the SNP to ransom over the budget nor do I believe that there are other areas that we can compromise over.
Perhaps you could share your wisdom and inform us where else common ground can be found aside from the two mentioned and over saving rural schools.
The point isn't finding common ground, it's about finding things that can be dragged kicking and screaming from the SNP over the negotiating table. It's about suggesting things that get certain Ministers (and I'm sure you know which ones I mean) lobbying about how reasonable you Tories are and how it really wouldn't be much of a concession - because in their heart of hearts they want policies far to the right of the SNP manifesto. It's about creating suspicion and division within the government. And ending it all with something big and shiny for your members and maybe better yet the wider world - to use Lib Dem examples, PR for local government being the first and the abolition of up-front tuition fees for the second. OK, this isn't a negotiation to form a coalition (and there are plenty nationalists who have said how they would like to), but since a budget has to pass, it's just as important.
That's why I think you guys are maybe letting yourselves down.
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