SNP's universal benefits are all about securing Scottish independence which would render them unaffordable
Everyone growing up in Scotland is a direct beneficiary of a politically driven dependency culture which promotes an expectation that the state can just provide free stuff without consequence
Downtrodden Russian peasants called the tsar their “Little Father” and later Stalin was promoted by his propagandists as the “Father of Nations”. The message was clear: no matter how bad things get, the god-like national figurehead always has your back. Even if, in the case of the Soviet dictator, your back was covered by an NKVD officer with a Korovin semi-automatic pistol.
Of course comparisons between Scotland and the Soviet Union, or any dictatorship for that matter, with three weeks to go before a demonstrably free and fair election, wouldn’t stand up to much scrutiny. But with the winner a foregone conclusion, just as it has been since 2011, an air of permanence surrounds the SNP when the Scottish Parliament elections come round – a reaction to whatever scandal or failure last gripped the political classes at Westminster, in which its own shortcomings count for nothing.
Like elections in dictatorships, it’s becoming like a renewal process which has to be gone through, and shoring it all up is the SNP’s ever-giving hand, starting in their first few weeks as a government in 2007– remember, it was only the Scottish Executive before Alex Salmond took over – when bridge tolls and then university tuition fees and prescription charges were scrapped. There were even free golf lessons for school children for a time.
And having seen how predictably well giveaways go down with voters, they have expanded ever since. The underlying narrative is ‘if you dump us, the wheel of fortune will stop spinning at zero’.
Gifts from Scotland’s ‘Chief Mammy’
No surprise then that the SNP manifesto published this week starts with a summary of everything else the SNP has given you; free eye tests, free dental check-ups, free bus travel for under-22s – apparently even if they kill the driver – and, of course the Baby Box, the gift from the self-styled “Chief Mammy” Nicola Sturgeon. Did I say the comparison with Russian rulers didn’t stack up?
The manifesto details what else you can expect in the next five years, and it’s quite the list, reminding me of a video my daughter loved at pre-school age, The Time of the Great Giving, in which some talking dinosaurs shared their food, from the Land Before Time series. She’s now a tax accountant and can barely remember a land before the SNP.
Most controversially is the promise of a price ceiling on up to 50 essential food items like bread, milk and eggs, in which the big supermarkets will be required to have at least one item on sale at the capped price. It’s an astonishing interference with private business unknown since the days of rationing, but which looks very like a stunt in which the claimed benefit will be in inverse proportion to the propaganda value – no question the next manifesto will include “cheaper food” as an achievement − but even its failure can be used to portray the SNP as the good guys in the white hats against the black hats of corporate “greed” or the UK Government.
There are bus fares capped at £2 which will put private operators out of business without government compensation, effectively a subsidy funded by taxpayers who don’t use buses, but the most intractable benefits are those for children, particularly free lunches for all primary school pupils. A straight lift from the Baby Box play book is the free school bag for every primary one starter at their local school.
It’s unlikely to include private schools, even though the closest primary to our house, and so what I’d call local, is George Watson’s, but it cements the SNP into another key life stage, handing parents a selection of stationery, books – who’d bet against it containing education secretary Jenny Gilruth’s politically loaded Modern Studies textbook – a water bottle and advice on literacy and numeracy, which will be news to Edinburgh Southern SNP candidate Deirdre Brock, who reportedly said they didn’t matter so much in these days of iPads, another promised SNP handout which it so far hasn’t managed to deliver.
Even Tories won’t touch free tuition
The beauty of these symbols of nationalist largesse is they are virtually impossible to remove without enormous political damage. Even the Conservatives won’t touch free university tuition, despite its increasing unaffordability, and it would be a very brave party indeed which proposed removing free primary school lunches. And as long as they are there, the SNP can legitimately lay claim to ownership.
Right into adulthood, everyone growing up in Scotland is a direct beneficiary of a politically driven dependency culture, a psychological lock from nappies through to academic gowns which promotes an expectation that the state can just carry on providing free stuff without consequence. And that’s even without considering the impact of a generous welfare system and a high tax regime which combine to disincentivise hard work and ambition.
The lines being pushed this week are that First Minister John Swinney is keen to move on from the Sturgeon era and put economic growth at the top of the agenda, and perhaps we should be grateful that at long last there is an acceptance that more wealth is needed to pay for all these presents. But strip away the rhetoric and the story remains the same, using the comfort blanket of the devolution settlement to stamp every aspect of life with the SNP brand until the state and party become inextricably linked, while the ultimate goal of independence is chased.
Even the prospect of a £5 billion black hole has not dimmed the enthusiasm for irreversible public spending commitments and the irony is that the one thing which would see the gravy train crashing into the buffers is independence. But then the freebies will have done their job.
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