29/03/2012 Newsnight Scotland

Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: What with pasties, petrol queues

and tea parties at Bute House, has anyone noticed that there is an

election on? And we will have the latest on the

gas leak on the Elgin platform. Good evening. For all our cynicism

about politics, we have become a country with an election every year.

In May, it is the turn of councillors to motivate our jaded

palate for another bite at the democratic pie. But is anybody

hungry? There is a suspicion that turnout has been artificially

boosted in recent years by having parliamentary elections at the same

time. Derek Bateman tries to whet your appetite.

The council elections. You only have to say it to hear a collective

groan around the country. Why? It is the level of government closest

to us, from the pavements we walk on to the lamps that light them,

from the potholes we fall into to the Home helps that get us up. This

is the first election since Preedy evolution 1995 which has not

piggyback on another boat. The crucial Glasgow count takes place

here at the SECC. We used to think that PR would enlighten interest,

or has the single transferable vote and multi-member wards had the

opposite effect? The turnout 17 years ago was 45%. Some analysts

think it will be even lower at this time. Political scientists would

say that proportional representation does increase voter

turnout, but it does not give too much credit to the electoral system.

The big issue is whether people care about the election. People

tend to link their vote directly to what they pay. Do you think the

years of council tax freeze will have dulled interest? Exactly. It

makes you wonder what local government is for nowadays when you

have got the council tax freeze. The current SNP government wants to

consolidate and centralise a lot of public services in Scotland. So if

people feel that the council is not doing anything, they are less

likely to vote, regardless of the system. We have changed the voting

system, but is it also time now to look again at the structure and

powers of local councils? We have 32 of them. Do we need them? We

only have 14 health authorities, and we are moving towards a single

police force and a single fire service. Time to been some? This

Government, re-elected last May, has publicly committed to not

making changes in council boundaries. That is partly to do

with their recognition that it would be immensely disruptive.

Another factor worth bearing in mind is that just as I can find any

number of people who would save 32 councils are too many and we should

have fewer, when I ask people to give me a number as to exactly how

few that should be and to name the council's which would necessarily

be combined together to reduce the number, they either go silent or

they begin to argue about whether there should be one Ayrshire or one

lecture or whether East Dunbartonshire should going to

Glasgow and so on. It is easy to say fewer councils, very difficult

to arrive at an agreed number. the other end of the scale, can we

really say our four main cities exude the sense of power and vigour

that London has, or many other European centres, where elected

leaders are politicians who rival national ministers? There has been

an argument for a while about whether we have directly-elected

provosts, as is the popular term here. The jury is still out on May

oral elections, with the exception of London, where clearly, there are

big, larger-than-life characters competing. Elsewhere, it has been a

mixed bag. I think it would make sense to give local authorities and

possibly local mayors more power. Direct election would give them a

stronger local mandate. In my opinion, that would be good. Yet in

rural areas, many voters positively reject party politicians altogether

in favour of independence, believing that people's wishes, not

party policy, should drive decision-making. Tell that to

Glasgow, which will provide a reflection of the national mood.

His Alex Salmond still on course, or will Lamond get a lift?

I am joined now by our elections guru, Professor John Curtice of

Strathclyde University, and Scottish political correspondent of

the Times, Lorraine Davidson. John, I was going to ask you about

polls in the elections, but I am not sure there are any. They have

not been any pause of how people intend to vote in these local

elections. That leaves us with an area of uncertainty. It is true

that when recent local elections have been held on the same day as

Holyrood elections, for the most part the overall result in the

local elections have been close to the result in the Holyrood

elections. That might suggest that our best guide to how people would

vote in the local elections is how people would vote in a Scottish

parliament election. But how people say they would vote in a Scottish

parliament election is different from how they would vote in a

Westminster election. Some other large opinion poll leads we have,

we are not sure how far they would translate. Glasgow presumably is

one to watch? It will be the Big story, the one there has been the

build-up around. You could say that the SNP have set themselves up with

unrealistic expectations to take the biggest city, which has been in

Labour's control forever. That is the big hurdle they have to get

across in terms of the local elections, firstly establishing

that it can be done. They have put that in people's minds now. It will

be a big story not just in terms of the Scottish results, but in terms

of the UK results. If Joanne Lamont loses Glasgow, that will be

disastrous so early in her leadership. It will also be very

bad for Ed Miliband, particularly if he fails to win London. Do you

think the SNP have a realistic chance in Glasgow? The SNP would

have to do extraordinarily well to gain control of Glasgow. There are

a couple of different things. It is probably likely that the Labour

Party will lose control of Glasgow. The kind of swing the SNP require

to do that, I think we would be surprised if they did not manage 5%

or so. But for the SNP themselves to get the 40 seats they need for

overall control is a very tall order and right at the top end of

expectations. The most likely outcome in Glasgow is that neither

Labour nor the SNP have a majority and that the Greens will probably

hold the balance of power. It will be fascinating to see afterwards

hoover greens are willing to back, on what terms and whether it is a

minority administration orate coalition. What about the other

parties, like the Liberal Democrats? They frankly look as

though they are on a hiding to nothing. They did badly in last

year's Holyrood elections. If you look at the Scottish local by-

elections, their vote is down by nine points on average compared

with 2007. And in Edinburgh, they are the party that is most closely

tarred with the brush of the fiasco. So in places with substantial

numbers of Liberal Democrat councillors where the party has

been part of the council administration, the party could

suffer serious losses. They probably have the bleakest

prospects of the four main parties in Scotland. Then maybe you could

say something to cheer the Conservatives up? They do not have

a lot to lose. Their best hope is that they might still managed to be

the biggest party in South Ayrshire. The truth is that at some point,

the Conservatives in Scotland have to do more than hold their own,

given that they do not have very much already. I suspect we will not

see much of what David Cameron was hoping for in the Conservative

conference last weekend, some signs of progress with the Scottish

Conservatives. We have three new party leaders in action in an

election for the first time. So even if people are not interested

in the local elections, it is a test for all of them. What are the

implications of that? Ruth Davidson's set herself up during

her leadership, saying that the local elections would be the point

at which she made her mark. Actually, there is no great

evidence that the Tories are going anywhere in Scotland. The Greens

may end up having a good set of results. If they end up being the

kingmakers in Glasgow, they will look like people who have taken

some sort of prize from these results. In the main, the story

will still be who controls Scotland. The results of the local elections

will be seen in the context of the referendum. Is this a staging post

on the road to a referendum? Do the SNP take Glasgow? Do they make

further gains elsewhere, all our Labour able to make a comeback and

regain control? Labour could fight and oppositional-style campaign in

these elections. That is the beauty of not being in power anywhere. You

could say there are the Tory cuts in Westminster, which the Lib Dems

are tied in with as well. You could say the cuts in Edinburgh are not

protecting public services, so there is the opportunity for Labour

to make a decent fist of this. But balance that against the fact that

their troops are demoralised and the SNP troops are very much up for

the referendum fight. It will not tell us much unless there is a

reasonable turnout, will it? and no. I am not that pessimistic

about the turnout. The turnout is actually relatively good. We tend

to get a turnout in the low 40%, certainly better than England. In

England over the last few years, low turnouts have been the norm. It

will depend on whether -- the degree to which people regard this

as a surrogate for their views about independence. It is the

degree to which people want to talk about Alex Salmond and independents

and how far that brings people to the polls which will be crucial so

far as turnout is concerned. If the SNP don't do as well as the high

expectations they have set for themselves, people both north and

south of the border will begin to say maybe the SNP bubble is

beginning to burst. The SNP probably have everything to lose in

these local elections and not a lot to gain. We had some quite

interesting UK polls over the last few days. We have indeed. The

Budget, together with other recent events,... Including pasties, it

may be that the Conservative roads are beginning to fall significantly

below what they got in the last election. Until now, we have been

used to the Liberal Democrats being in trouble for being in office. For

the first time, the Conservatives look as though they may have lost

their touch. To that extent, we may have seen some significant news

over the last few days. It is extraordinary. The Government

appear to have created a petrol crisis over the last 24 hours all

of their very own. I think they fancied that, because they were in

the midst of a sleaze crisis. And they thought the way to get out of

the sleaze crisis and deflect attention from more their rich

donors is to get the heat on to Evan -- Ed Miliband, whose big

backer is the Unite union, with the threat of the strike action. So if

it is not an oxymoron, you can see why Tory strategists thought, let's

get out of this mess by throwing this at him. People remember how

damaging the last few crisis was for the Government. But it has

Is there a sense that you would expect... It does not feel

sustainable. Paul taking in the aftermath of a budget, and then you

get the opposition bouncing up 10 points. You have had a run of

things for the Tories, the budget, the sleaze row. Tories care about

their rich friends, David Cameron is trying to say we are all in this

together. That will be a long-term problem for the Tories.

Five days since then gas leak on the Elgin platform, they are no

closer to understanding what is going on. One of the offshore

unions escorts in that the exclusion zone will be extended.

This situation it is that a significant amount of gas is

leaking into the North Sea. Earlier, Total suggested they had found the

source of the league. It is not clear or whether the Leakeys from a

disused paper. -- League. That can be get news that the source is a

small reservoir or rather than a large well. Today, the news that

two companies are advising Total on what to do next. Not best pleased

for our Unite, the odd shower Worker's Union. They want to extend

the exclusion zone. Back to the clear, they're all up seems to be

that it will disperse. None of these scenarios are certain to

happen. We were led to believe we would

half an interview with David Hainsworth but we're told he is no

longer available. I spot to a reporter in Aberdeen, Steven Duff.

They now know that while the gas is emanating, this source of the gas

is 4,000 metres underneath the seabed at a reservoir above the

productive reservoir. It was causing them problems. The gases

coming up the pipe the wrong way and that is why it has been leaking.

Good-news that they know what they're feeling worse. -- dealing

with. As I understand it, the reservoir is not a high temperature,

high-pressure well. The gas does not contain hydrogen sulphide which

is toxic. The gases flammable and that is the danger. The likelihood

is that -- was that the gas was toxic. It does not seem sort. The

original productive reservoir which was a high pressure reservoir which

had caused problems to plug that. That is bemused. It makes it

difficult job and that bit easier. Let us imagine they can get

personnel on the problem -- plat form. Is that simple to plug it?

The two options are or, one would involve getting control workers out

to the platform to plug the well. That is not an unusual operation.

Total has employed in another company who were involved plugging

the deep-water horizon well. Total said they could for see being able

to fly helicopters onto the platform. We understand it is still

burning. The gas cloud is just being blown in a different

direction? Total were forced to admit that flair was left burning

when the platform was abandoned. You can see that we're stack but

you cannot see that Leah. A bit player is only a matter of inches.

We are having a problem... We're getting contradictory accounts. One

story is emerging from Total that they're putting health and safety

first on Monday and they wanted to evacuate their personnel. The other

story is that this Blair is part of the safety procedure for a band in

up a platform. It has been very difficult to get information from

Total. The people at the end of the line are not media people. They do

not want them to be speculating. It makes it difficult. Their flair is