Why antis should go to Iceland

The International Monetary Fund has just published its latest statistics for the relative wealth per head of different countries. And, for Iceland, Ireland, Norway and the UK, they paint a fascinating picture.

The figures are based on 'purchasing power parity' which allows us to make a fair comparison between the different countries, and they show that Norway, Ireland and Iceland are all wealthier per head than the UK. Indeed, at no point in the financial crisis did any of the countries dip below the UK in this IMF wealth league table.

If we take a look at 2010, when the full impact of the crisis was being felt, the wealth per head for each country, in current international dollars, was:

Norway               52,164.773
Ireland                 39,491.564
Iceland                36,535.164
UK                     35,343.700

The UK was 1,191.5 behind the 'poorest' of the three, Iceland at this point.

Fast-forward to this year, 2012, and the IMF estimates:

Norway               54.479.058

Ireland                 40.443.263

Iceland                39,082.925

UK                     36,605.022

This year, the UK is now forecast to be 2,477.9 "current international dollars" behind 'insolvent' Iceland.

And putting the IMF's crystal ball to full use, lets take a look at referendum year, 2014. What will be the relative strength of the 4 countries by then? Won't being a powerhouse big country have propelled the United Kingdom above lowly Iceland at least?

Norway               57,217.364

Ireland                 44,283.334

Iceland                41,647.386

UK                     38,935.325

It seems not. In 2014, the UK won't even reach the level of GDP per capita that Iceland enjoyed in 2012. The wealth gap between the two countries will have increased, once again, to 2,712.1 per person.

Similarly, for Ireland, the wealth gap in 2010 saw the Irish still 4,148 "current international dollars" ahead of the UK in wealth per head and, according to the IMF, that Irish advantage will increase to 5348 in 2014.

Norway's 16,821 advantage per person in 2010 becomes 18,727 - pretty much 50% wealthier than the UK.

Not quite what you'd expect from listening to some of the rhetoric, even still, of the anti-parties. Perhaps they should go to Iceland, or Ireland or Norway - small, independent countries which, it seems, now form an Arc of . . . faster recovery.

Outside the bubble

This week, and the furore in Holyrood over Murdoch, has provided some interesting insights into the way the public engages with the political debate. I should emphasise at the start that this blog is not meant to be a judgment on the various arguments presented, as I think you all can guess which side I would be on.

In the SNP, we have a programme of ongoing engagement with voters through a variety of research techniques, from the old-favourite focus groups to more direct one-to-one conversations, where we test the political pulse of the nation. In recent days, as the debate in Holyrood has reached fever-pitch, we've been out and about, as usual, and the results have thrown up two fascinating points, which are of general interest to those of us with an interest in politics.

The first is where voters get their information. In the past the SNP has been frustrated by our lack of coverage on the network, i.e. UK wide news. We have argued (and indeed bemoaned the fact) that many, indeed most, Scots look to UK outlets as the primary source of news. That focus on UK programmes (and therefore a UK agenda) has been confirmed this week. The fact that the Scottish aspects of the Murdoch story have hardly featured on the 'main' news means that awareness levels are lower than might be expected by those who live and breathe the Holyrood bubble. The Scottish angle is therefore seen as second order, and not the real story. When probing people's attitudes to this week's stories, their responses have been more focused on Mr Hunt than on Mr Salmond. 

The second is how voters process the information they do receive. I remember being told that about 10% of communication is about what you say, 40% on how you say it and 50% on how you look (as much about your demeanour as anything else). The insight from our research in recent days is that the lines that have gone down so well in the eyes of the opposition and with many of the Holyrood journalists, are also the ones that have gone down least well with the public. The point when Johann Lamont lost it, it appears, was with her description of the First Minister as 'wee Eck'. It shouldn't come as a surprise when we think about it, because for real people the point when they think someone is losing an argument is when they get personal and start to throw insults. In the real world that is a sign of weakness in an argument, not, as it appears to be in the eyes of Holyrood, a strength. And in terms of tone, the opposition have, in the main, come across as shouty and angry. That may have fired up the troops on the backbenches but if anything it has resonated poorly with voters.

Along side the 'science' there are also the anecdotal points. One of my colleagues put up a Facebook status reporting the comments of a constituent who had been in their office when FMQs was on. The woman's comment on the exchanges was 'who is that rude and angry woman'. An hour or so later, a day-tripper to Edinburgh who had popped in to Parliament to see FMQs - not an SNP member - was so outraged by the tone and nature of Johann Lamont's questioning that he came in to party HQ saying he wanted to donate £50. The donation was gratefully received.

The point here is that what works in Holyrood doesn't always work in Scotland. People look to their politicians for solutions to the problems they face in life (especially at this time of economic uncertainty) and they are turned off by the endless, it seems, politicking. Angry attacks in the chamber may cheer the backbenches and the researchers in the parliamentary offices - and, indeed, they reflect the attitude of these backbenchers and researchers to the SNP. But, the people of Scotland, as a whole, don't hate the SNP and by allowing their own hatred to colour their attacks, Labour are effectively shooting political blanks. The more visceral and over the top they become, the less they resonate with the mainstream of public opinion.

I remember back to the days when the SNP lost election after election, and one of the reasons was we spoke to ourselves and we spent too much time looking inwards to the parliamentary debates. WInning a debating point in parliament seemed like a success. But a key lesson we learnt is that in politics you have to speak to the people, and in a way people can engage with. Think about the people you have as friends - they probably aren't Mr or Mrs Angry, or people who just moan and complain all the time. You spend time with people who are on the same wavelength and engage with you in a decent way. And those friends who you have grown to like can make mistakes without it threatening the relationship. That is what adult relationships are about and it is this sort of relationship with voters that politicians should aspire to. As adults we no longer seek the same sort of friendships we had in the playground and so politicians who behave as though they are in the political playground are on a hiding to nothing, in my view.

At this point in the local elections, thousands of door step contacts are pouring in to SNP HQ each day and the sophisticated voter analysis tools we have built up over the years give us a very clear understanding of the level of SNP support in the country. The numbers we had last year told us way before the polls that we were in the lead and the final figure in our own numbers was very close to our final vote. And this week, we have, of course been paying close attention to the numbers. The good news for the SNP is that our vote share is steadily increasing and has done so each and every day this week. In part that is because we have worked hard to build the sort of adult relationship with voters that is bigger than the flurries of opposition name-calling - after all voters are interested in substance, in what a politician will do for them: not who they had breakfast with 5 years ago.

Mr Cameron's speech

Once again, it's been a while since my last post!

However, I couldn't resist a quick comment on Mr Cameron's speech in Edinburgh yesterday.

It had some wonderfully crafted sections, with real poetry and some nice imagery. But, like candy floss, it was all fluff, with no real substance. And, after the initial sugar rush of sentiment, the hunger for change remains.

There was one section of his speech that was of particular interest to me - the Prime Minister's suggestion that the case for independence is weakened because many Scots live south of the border, and many English people north of the border. I lived in England for over 10 years and worried about the state of the English NHS and voted in local elections and cared about the quality of the school my (English) partner's son went to. But none of this made me think that Scotland should not be independent.

Indeed, I think the fact that so many Scots live in England and have built a life and a family in England should lead us to the opposite conclusion.

First, Scots living in England is clearly not an argument against independence. When I last looked at the figures there were, proportionately, as many people from the Republic of Ireland living in England as Scots - and clearly Ireland is not ruled from Westminster.

Second, it is also not an argument for closer union. The fastest growing and largest group of people now living in England is EU citizens. A UK government parliamentary answer in 2009 suggested that almost 900,000 people from the EU 15 states (i.e. not the new accession countries like Poland or the Czech Republic) live in the UK and Channel 4's fact check quotes an ONS figure of almost 1.8 million for 2008-09.  So, if the Prime Minister's argument is correct, he should be telling us about the need for even greater European integration - which clearly he is not.

Finally, the reason why the PM has unwittingly undermined his own anti-independence case is that the number of Scots living in England (and vice-versa) is confirmation of the strength of our social union, which will continue with independence. What will end is the residency in London of the 59 Scottish MPs sent to the House of Commons (at a cost of £50 million). We will no longer have a political union which sees a Tory PM we didn't vote for, running far too many of our affairs.

The connections that bind us together as part of a family of nations will remain. How do I know this? Well, it was in the 1980s that Westminster lost its final legal power to legislate for Canada and Australia (what we seek for Scotland) and yet, this doesn't stop tens of thousands of Canadians or Australians setting up home in the UK. Add to them the New Zealanders or South Africans, the Indians and Pakistanis (and more) who live in and contribute to England. The same parliamentary answer I referred to earlier, shows 150,000 Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders living in the UK.

These Commonwealth citizens reside happily in England and they are proof that yes, independence means the end of Westminster rule, but it does not mean the end of the close bonds of history, family or residency that link us together. The fact that so many Scots live in England is proof, if it was ever needed, that the social union will flourish with independence.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a day that will go down in Scottish history.

In 20 years time, as we look back on how Scotland became independent, 25th January 2012 will be seen as the starting point. The interviews to the media, the photographs from the referendum consultation launch, will feature in the retrospectives and in the history books. Those images and soundbites will become part of our nation's story, a well-remembered back drop: the sights and sounds at the very beginning of a process that will change Scotland for good.

This is the most exciting project that any nation can undertake. We have the opportunity to choose a better way forward, to choose the right path for this 21st century.

70 journalists from nations around the globe will be in Edinburgh tomorrow to witness events. They know something is happening in Scotland - they can see a nation on the move. I was speaking to one of them today. A man who has witnessed the emergence of many new, independent nations, and indeed, whose own country became independent in living memory. And he used a phrase that has stuck with me:

"Every independence movement has its heroes, men and women who perform herculean tasks for their country."

Across Scotland tonight are the men and women who will become Scotland's heroes. The people who will build our new, independent nation. Some will be at the coal face of government, working hard to ensure that on day one as an independent country, Scotland has everything in place, with the firm foundations we need to prosper and grow. Knowing many of these people, I have no doubt that they will be successful in this task.

However, the majority of our independence heroes will not work for the government or for the SNP. But, over these next two and a half years, they will be the people who deliver independence. They will be advocates and ambassadors for independence, making the case in their work places and on the doors.

And, they will have a powerful and winning message: independence will put the people who care most about Scotland, that is the people who live and work in Scotland, in charge of Scotland's future and Scotland's success.

No one is better placed to govern Scotland than the people of Scotland themselves. No one will do as good a job, because we have the greatest stake in making our country the best it can possibly be. It really is that simple.

Another one bites the dust . . .

Another independence scare-story bites the dust, or in this case, more precisely, has been explictly denied.

The Independent on Sunday, quoting UK government sources, suggested that Spain would seek to veto Scottish membership of the EU. The parallel given was Spain's refusal to recognise Kosovo and the claim was based on alleged Spanish fear that Scottish independence in the EU would "encourage separatist ambition" in Catalonia and the Basque Country.

The IoS story has now resulted in what seems to be a stern rebuke from the Spanish Foreign Minister (translation provided via Google translate).

The actual position of the Spanish government is that the referendum on independence is an internal matter for the UK and that Scottish independence and the situation in Catalonia and the Basque Country are "completely different processes in which no parallels can be drawn (translation)". The story in IoS was "strictly false".

It shows how far British ministers are willing to go to try and misinform and, basically, scare people in Scotland. As the First Minister pointed out yesterday, this story was based, not on what Spain was saying, but on a UK government briefing. However, it's a big deal for the UK to have one of its allies forced to deny a story emanating from "senior Foreign Office sources" using quotes from "a senior UK minister".

This is the latest in a string of empty scare-stories from the anti-independence campaign. In future, perhaps they should all come with a special government health warning - "please take with a very large pinch of salt".

Our own voice and our own priorities

The anti-independence campaign has shifted focus. In their sights, Scottish defence policy. Last week we had Tory Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, describing SNP defence plans as "laughable". This, of course, from a Defence Secretary with an aircraft carrier but no planes to fly from it . . .

Mr Hammond also wishes to spend billions on new nuclear weapons, replacing Trident, a cold-war relic designed with the sole purpose of obliterating the USSR, with 'son of Trident', a nuclear missile system designed, well, to obliterate the USSR. But the USSR no longer exists - you get my point. So what is the purpose of spending £100 billion on new nuclear weapons? It seems, solely to keep the UK's seat on the UN security council - £100 billion to be spent so the British Prime Minister can keep up the pretence of global influence and power. Laughable? Perhaps, if it wasn't so serious.

And then we had Labour's Lord George Robertson of Port Ellen, former NATO General Secretary, describing SNP plans as perilous, despite those plans being for a defence posture similar to NATO members and partners such as Denmark, Norway, Austria or Sweden. I presume that when he was NATO General Secretary, Lord Robertson didn't believe those nations' defence profiles were perilous to them or their allies. Indeed, as we saw recently, Denmark, a nation the same size as Scotland, flew, together with Norway, as many sorties over Libya as the UK. To put it at its simplest, what the SNP proposes for Scotland is what suffices for the UK's allies.

I saw a quote recently, which some attribute to Ghandi: "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win". It seems very appropriate as we watch the anti-independence campaign unfold.

The UK government clearly doesn't have a clue about Scotland or where Scotland stands today. It seems a big part of their strategy, if they have one, is to try to talk us down, to tell us that we shouldn't rise above our station and do the things the big boys do. Have an army? Not Scotland, no. Although it's ok for Norway and Denmark, for Sweden and Austria. Have our own foreign policy, our own national interests and our own priorities? No, leave that to those who know best.

The problem for the Westminster government is that we've seen how they've managed our defence policy and how they have spoken and acted for Scotland on the international stage. UK government figures confirm decades of defence under-investment in Scotland, while we bear the risk of housing Britain's weapons of mass destruction. Decades of cuts, base closures and amalgamations. Soldiers sent into the frontline with inadequate equipment, maritime reconnaissance cover removed from Scottish waters, no major conventional surface vessels operating from Scotland. A smaller military footprint in Scotland than in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria or New Zealand. And I haven't even mentioned Iraq, yet.

An ever-growing number of people are realising that taxpayers in Scotland contribute more than £3 billion to the UK Ministry of Defence and that nearly one-third of that huge total is not spent here. We pay our fair share, and more, which means, with independence we are in a strong position to safeguard our bases, regiments and the appropriate capabilities needed for the 21st century.

They want us to believe that Scotland is too stupid to run our own foreign policy. That somehow we are uniquely incapable - a claim brought to you by the very same people who delivered the biggest foreign policy disaster in perhaps 50 years, yes, in Iraq. But don't worry there's another one beckoning as Mr Cameron puts Britain on the fast-track to isolation in Europe and, if his backbenchers have their way, withdrawal from our biggest trading partner, the EU.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating, because the anti-independence camp don't yet realise. Scotland isn't the same country it once was. Our eyes were opened long ago. We won't be frightened out of this choice. The more they laugh at us, the more they fight us with their belittling scare-stories, the more certain I am that we will win. Roll on 2014.

Nostalgia meets the cold light of day

I was fascinated by Douglas Alexander's approach on Question Time last week. Not so much his demeanour and behaviour (as someone born just down the road, I always thought Bishopton boys were brought up to behave much better than that), but more the substance of his comments.

Mr Alexander's first line of argument revolved around the question: do we really want to break up the nation that defeated fascism together? He was referring, of course, to the Second World War. We owe the most enormous debt to those men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect this country. In many ways we owe them everything. Like Douglas Alexander, I was not around to experience the horror, the fear, the heartbreak, the courage or the indomitable spirit of those who lived through the war, I simply heard the stories second hand. But what I do know, intuitively, is that the Second World War should never be used as the basis for political point scoring.

Men and women who believed in the Union and in independence fought and died together.

Nations around the world united to stand up to the fascist threat, including some newly independent of Britain and some not. Even when Britain 'stood alone', the reality is that we stood shoulder to shoulder with, and fought alongside, people from New Zealand, Australia, the West Indies, South Africa, Canada, Newfoundland and India to name just a few.

And, have no doubt, an independent Scotland and an independent England would unite to fight fascism, or a similar threat, today, just as Scots, Welsh, English, Irish (including many from the south), Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans and more did 70 years ago. You didn't have to be one country to fight fascism 70 years ago and you don't have to be one country to fight for what is right today. 

The political point I will make is not about the past, it is about the future. In years to come, being independent will give Scotland the choice to fight with others, once again, in a just war, like WW II,  and allow us to keep our young men and women out of an illegal war, like Iraq.

Mr Alexander's second argument followed on closely from his first: do we really want to break up the nation that, after the war, built up the NHS and the welfare state? 60 years ago the London government was building these things up, with the full support and participation of Scotland. Now, they are knocking them down.

And this is not a sudden or new direction of travel. For 30 years the choice of Westminster politicians has been to move further and further away from the social democratic founding ethos of our welfare state. This may make uncomfortable reading for Scottish Labour supporters, but they know in their hearts it is true: not even 13 years of a (New) Labour government reversed the trend, it didn't even halt it.

The country being fashioned by London governments is not the one we "built together" after the war. Devolution has allowed us to save our NHS from Tory plans to dismantle the service down south. Independence (or indeed devo-max) will allow us to save the rest of our social democratic society. And it is a society and a consensus, here in Scotland, that is under grave threat. If you doubt this, just read the Spartacus report to see what is being done, in our name, yes, in our name too, to some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

The "what we built together" argument harks back to a Britain that no longer exists. Nostalgia, as an anti-independence weapon, will back-fire spectacularly. Because, once the warm glow dissipates, the cold reality of today and the future comes crashing in. 

Yes, we fought a just war together and would do the same again, but we don't want any part of Westminster's illegal foreign adventures and horrific weapons of mass destruction.

Yes, together we built the NHS, the state pension, the welfare state, but today, the NHS is on the way out in England as Tories build on Tony Blair's 'reforms'. And does anyone seriously believe the state pension or the welfare net are safe in David Cameron's hands?

Douglas Alexander is one of Labour's top thinkers, but by asking Scots to look to the past he serves only to highlight the many ways Britain is no longer the same country. The post-war Union 'deal' has changed - against the will of the Scottish people expressed in election after election. The pace has stepped up, once again, under the Tories, but have no doubt the terms of the partnership have been altered by successive Westminster governments. 

If we want to protect and preserve the things we hold dear, the things that reflect our values and our priorities, then independence is the answer.

If we see the contract we thought we had signed together, changing beyond recognition, is it not time to look for a new deal? To replace the old Union we have today with a more modern relationship that works for both nations as we move forward together in this 21st century?

Let London, if they choose, spend precious billions on new nuclear bombs rather than those same billions on better childcare or decent pensions. But not in our name. Instead, let the people of Scotland, the people who care most about Scotland, choose a better way. Let us learn from the past, and build for the future with independence.