Pat Kane

Pat Kane is director of Scottish Futures (www.scottishfutures.net), an ideas and policy blog for progressive Scotland. He is also author of The Play Ethic, and one half of Hue and Cry.

The weirdness of seeing Alex Salmond stand in the First Minister's spot of the Scottish Parliament – with Bashir Ahmed, Scotland first Asian MSP, beaming at his party leader from behind – isn't really dissipating, a few days after I initially watched it in the EasyJet departure lounge at Glasgow. (No, it's alright, I'm not fleeing the country in response – my partner in love and consultancy lives in London, my children in Glasgow, so this place is as familiar to me as Hillhead tube station. And just as violently orange).

Me and Alex go back about twenty years, when as a fresh-faced young funkateer, I threw myself and my minor celebrity status into the Govan-era (Sillars '88-'92) of Scottish Nationalist politics. I recall quite a few mutually perplexed meetings with Salmond, who always seemed to have wheels within wheels whirring away behind his bonhomie and avuncularity.

I also recall not quite understanding the venom that existed between him and the Sillarsites – weren't they all left-wing nationalists, differing slightly on the route to independence (Salmond more gradualist and constitutional-conventional, Sillars looking for a majority of Westminster MP's to lever Scotland out of the British state)? This may have been the reason why I didn't push myself towards any kind of seat, or more official alignment: SNP party politics seemed like (and I misapply the Orwell quote about nationalism here, but it works very well at this level) the 'narcissism of minor differences'.

So to see Salmond, plumper at the middle and thinning on top (though much better tailored), trying desperately to contain his glee at leading any kind of administration in the Scottish Parliament, is to put a certain angst about the direction of Scottish politics to rest. If there's anyone in the world who will enjoy setting the tone and bringing to life a Scottish parliamentary culture, it's Salmond. He's got the first part of his life's wish.

But will he get the second – statehood for Scotland? I'm not so starry-eyed about the possibilities of minority government as many other commentators are. Yes, it's true that the essentially social-democratic nature of Scottish politics means that there's already a list of converged policies – "scrapping the council tax, cutting business rates, abolishing prescription charges, cutting class sizes, extending drug rehabilitation, promoting affordable housing, developing renewable energy, opposing Trident, rejecting nuclear power", as Iain Macwhirter lists it – that the SNP could happily proceed with building consensuses for.

Though "opposing" Trident, in some unspecific way, isn't the same as disengaging from the neo-imperial delusions of the British state, in a way that would signal the end of its great-power status, and send shockwaves throughout the world. And the "Scottish ambition" that Alex vowed to pursue, particularly in the realm of economic performance, really has to be grasped with all the powers the SNP can get a hold of. On Scottish Futures, the blog I've set up to provide an open space for progressive Scottish policy (www.scottishfutures.net), we've been looking at a paper from the political scientist Micheal Keating on Scottish Independence (available here )

Keating notes, with some fatigue, that debates about the economics of independence are either an expression of Nationalist optimism – low taxes, meaning vigorous businesses, enabling high spending on public services, hello Nirvana – or Unionist dystopia (the locusts and plagues of Labour rhetoric in the election). In between, there is the possibility of what he calls a 'networks and concertation' model of the Scottish economy and society.

'Networks' meaning the strong and open links between firms, governments and universities that can happen in a small nation, meaning that good ideas and best practice get quickly circulated: and 'concertation' meaning the kind of agreement about overall development goals between unions, business, civil society, etc, that you see in places like Ireland, Finland and Catalonia.

Keating's final point is the most relevant: "It is the political economy of independence, rather than the constitution, that remains the greatest challenge". As the SNP minority administration face what has sounded in recent days like a surly and bruised set of opposition parties, the idea that there's space in their heads to think about "the political economy of independence" is maybe ridiculous. But their opposition should be right to suspect that the SNP has an ultimate agenda, heading towards grappling with those kinds of challenges. Keating's analysis of independence is sophisticated - as much about the renegotiation and reconnection of Scotland to these islands, and to the wider world, as it is about "separation".

The question, as ever, is whether that analysis can begin to convince those in other parties that their own "Scottish ambitions" are best realisable through a movement towards independence. And beyond the 'tick-list' of shared policies, it's impossible to predict whether Salmond's practice of a "more reflective model of democracy" (as he put it in his acceptance speech) will cause those changes of heart and mind. In any case, as a stage in the long haul, it's going to be at least an excitingly bumpy ride over the next few years.

Read more of Pat Kane at www.scottishfutures.net   - join in! ( but remember to come back here too!)

Comments

[ratzo]

Its a nice article by Keating but takes an age just to get around to saying what Andrew Hughes Hallett said far more succinctly on the letters page of the Herald.