Michael Kelly: Electing to place principles before personalities

Labour must lead the way to ensure that economic policy determines the outcome of this election

ALL week Scotsman columnists have been giving their assessment of the factors that will determine the outcome of the Holyrood elections in May. Sadly for democracy, their analysis is much more mature and thoughtful than that of the millions of voters, many of whom won't even bother to turn out. Reader Alexander McKay best summed up for me in his letter in Tuesday's paper when he argued that the election offered voters the opportunity to voice their opinions on fundamental matters like the integrity of the United Kingdom, defence and energy policies.

Voters will ignore his plea. This is not going to be an election fought on high principles. Few are. In 1945 when the class system had been thrown into high relief by the rigid hierarchy of army life, voters chose an equal and fairer society. In 1963, when voters discovered that the Tories could still stick up aristocrat Alec Douglas-Home, in 1979 with Thatcher and in 1997 with Blair people voted for what they thought to be fundamental change. The rest of the time people voted with their pockets.

The SNP has already abandoned a principled stand by deciding to run their party under the ticket of "Alex Salmond for First Minister". The policy issue which they will use is not of their own making but has been kindly provided by the Tories. Chancellor George Osborne's 10 billion oil-tax grab which as already seen one company halting development in the North Sea gives the SNP all the ammunition it needs to give covering fire for its own lack of heavy ordinance.

Given the support Scottish Tories have offered the SNP by putting the present Scottish government in power and maintaining it there, many Labour activists suspect that this part of the budget was a deliberate attempt to undermine Labour's chances up here. But that is just another false conspiracy theory.

Nearer the truth is that Osborne and David Cameron are indifferent to the effect on Scottish jobs when compared to the effect in their heartland of the South East of England. If Liberal Democrat treasury chief secretary Danny Alexander had really had his party's interest at heart he would have been advising of the dire consequences for the Scottish economy. Instead he is going around claiming that it was all his idea. Stupid boy.

What the budget indicated to me was that the Tories have returned to their tried and tested ploy of using fiscal adjustments to manipulate the electorate rather than the economy. We are going back to stop-go policies to coincide with the electoral cycle. The Tories did this during the Fifties and Sixties and reverted to it during the alleged dogmatic Thatcher era. It was a great election winner for them and they persisted with it despite its destabilising long term growth.Gordon Brown's claim to have abolished boom and bust was rubbished by every sane economist, including ones like me who trained in the 1960s.

From hog cycles to sunspot rhythms there will always be factors producing uncontrollable variations in supply and demand. But his assertion acquires more credibility if viewed in political rather than economic terms. As events proved, he couldn't control the international causes of world recession. But what he didn't do was to manipulate taxes and expenditure to win elections.

The Tories have no such compunction. Grass-roots supporters up here have been trying to sell Osborne's tax changes as a budget for growth and enterprise. What it was, in reality, was a sop to voters - cutting an insignificant one penny off fuel by risking 7 billion of investment by oil companies. The SNP will have great fun with that. Osborne is even sounding like them. "It's our oil," he says. "Not the oil companies". Yeah, as long as it is lying under the sea. As soon as you want to get it out someone has to be paid for the job. It's the same dishonest sloganising that we had to endure years ago. What's he going to do, nationalise oil companies?

The one positive aspect of the campaigning so far is that it proves that devolution has delivered its major objective for Labour. Yes, devolution has led to an over-governed country. Yes, the poor quality of most of our MSPs has shown how shallow our talent pool is. And yes, the handouts which continue, irrespective of means, demonstrate how out-of-date its political philosophy is. But it has given Scots the opportunity to satisfy their paranoid need for a protest vote - to thumb its nose at the party it really loves by voting nationalist at the unimportant Holyrood elections while coming back home to Labour when the break up of the United Kingdom is on the cards and when we are deciding who really runs things run here.

This has forced the SNP to redefine itself as a provincial party seeking to maintain power in a "wee pretendy parliament" rather than continue to champion the noble if misguided cause of independence.

Being landed with Alex Salmond, with the support of other allegedly unionist parties, lording it over us for the next four years without actually doing much is a high price to pay for keeping the Kingdom united. But it is worth it.

Clearly, the SNP can still gather the support of personalities. The latest one, Iain M Banks, writes wonderful science fiction. The SNP should use his skills to prepare their election literature because it is only in an alternative universe that their economic policies make sense.

They are acutely aware of it. They even run a mile from any discussion of how the inevitable cuts imposed by the Tory-led government at Westminster are going to be reflected in Scotland's next budget.If we are to have any sort of adult discussion about how to pay for policies for a fairer Scotland in a time of austerity it is Labour's Iain Gray who must put this topic and his answers to it on the agenda for the Scotsman leaders' debate. Otherwise this will be another X-factor election with the crosses going against the names of the best TV performers.