Conspiracy theories, stitch-ups and legal threats: Scots Tories must stop feuding

First Minister John Swinney was only present in the form of Matt Forde’s dodgy impersonation, a work in progress which mirrors Mr Swinney’s attempts to pass himself off as a man with a grip on his party and the Scottish Government’s budget when all around him is in crisis. With the possible exception of July’s election night and the day the rozzers turned up at Nicola Sturgeon’s house with a search warrant, last week was as difficult for the SNP as any they have experienced after years in which their growing dominance of Scottish public life seemed unstoppable.

SNP spending sprees

The reason is straightforward. Only the diehards still swallow the line that everything bad for which the Scottish Government is responsible is Westminster’s fault, and everything good is despite it. Last week showed how spent that argument has become when Finance Secretary Shona Robison presented the details of £500m worth of cutbacks with the same old excuses of Westminster austerity, Brexit and Ukraine while independent analysts like the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Institute of Fiscal Studies pointed out the SNP’s difficulties were largely the result of their own spending incontinence.

They might not have described it as such, but the inference was clear that the SNP had continued to spend money on voter-pleasing polices, like free bus travel for under-22s and the contradictory council tax freeze, which it should have known would run out. Like a bad gambler chasing losses, they hoped splurging money would somehow turn up a big winner and open a new line of credit. Even their own voters have stopped listening to their tips.

Last week should signal the end of government on the never-never, but of course it won’t as long as both Labour and SNP view taxpayers as cows from which cash flows, an inexhaustible source of revenue where those with the ”broadest shoulders” just lump it and trouser up the moolah. Some 49 per cent of Scottish adults, 1.5 million people earning over £28,850, pay more income tax than the rest of the UK.

Exodus of millionaires from UK

The SNP has long scoffed at the notion of vanishing high taxpayers, but the reason the feared exodus from Scotland with the introduction of the 46p top rate of income tax on those earning over £125,00 hasn’t materialised is there aren’t many of them, just one per cent of the earning public, and most will be bound by family or business ties to remain. That 154,000 Scottish taxpayers, the top five per cent of earners, stomached tax bills of up to £1,881 higher doesn’t make it right if the money is squandered on unnecessary giveaways and bureaucratic profligacy.

The truly wealthy, of which there is only a tiny number in Scotland, can, like JK Rowling, choose to stay or go like the 9,500 millionaires The Times reported on Friday were set to leave the UK this year to beat a raft of tax raises expected in the Labour budget next month. One agency, which helps the wealthy move abroad, estimated a net loss of 4,200 millionaires in the first five months of the year, mostly flitting to Dubai.

Good riddance, some might say, but it undermines efforts to sell Britain as a good place to do business, which should be a key component of the focus on economic growth which both the SNP and Labour governments claim to be prioritising. And if the crackdown on non-doms ̶ those whose address for tax purposes is overseas ̶ produces a £900m loss to the Exchequer, as predicted by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy, then that’s bad news for everyone else still stuck here.

Big chance for low-tax party

Contrary to popular belief, the British public is at the end of its tolerance for higher taxes, and a poll in March for the independent Tax Policy Associates think tank found 56 per cent of people in the UK opposed more tax to fund the NHS. But what about the genetically-socialist Scotland, the myth pedalled by the SNP for decades? Sure, more Scots than their apparently heartless English cousins are willing to pay more, but opposition is still 51 per cent. And of those willing to cough up, the vast majority limit their generosity to £2 a week.

Putting that attitude together with the 1.5 million people paying more than the rest of the UK should be a huge opportunity for an aggressively low-tax party to inject badly needed realism into Scottish politics, and the Scottish Conservatives’ challenge is to fill that gap. It’s perhaps inevitable that, in a parliament primarily established to oversee the spending of a fixed budget, much of the debate at Holyrood centres on service failure and the solutions involve more money, like the Right to Rehab bill.

Time to act like adults

Tomorrow the Scottish Conservatives will force a vote on the SNP’s decision to abandon plans to extend free school meals to all primary 6 and 7 pupils, which is good politics, but risks making the Tories look like another supporter of taxpayer-funded, universal free benefits.

That is, of course, if there is a Scottish Conservative party left after this leadership contest, and the damage done by talk of splits, imaginary conspiracies, allegations of stitch-ups, and threats of defamation actions will take a long time to heal.

So, here’s a plea from a member; there’s not long to go so can you all please start acting like adults and remember the children can hear your bickering. Talk about how to get Scotland’s public finances in order and the economy motoring, not who’s stabbing who with a stage knife.