19/12/2013 Newsnight Scotland


19/12/2013

Similar Content

Browse content similar to 19/12/2013. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

and they were still being attended to an hour or so later. I have seen

:00:00.:00:00.

a crane going up to the roof of the theatre to fix it. Tonight we have

:00:00.:00:18.

had the SNP's white paper arguing the case for independence, we have

:00:19.:00:23.

had a raft of documents arguing for the opposite and the result is the

:00:24.:00:27.

campaigns are pretty much where they were last Christmas. What happens

:00:28.:00:33.

next? What does the Yes campaign have to do to turn things around?

:00:34.:00:40.

Does Better Together risk expiring out of complacency? How do they keep

:00:41.:00:44.

us interested? The referendum campaign is a long one by the

:00:45.:00:48.

standards of British politics and there are another nine months to

:00:49.:00:53.

go. But despite campaigners working themselves into a frenzy, the polls

:00:54.:00:58.

are pretty much where they were one year ago. Huw Williams examines

:00:59.:01:07.

where we are at this Christmas. It is the season of goodwill, time for

:01:08.:01:12.

tidings of comfort and joy and peace on earth among women and men. An

:01:13.:01:23.

astounding cultural heritage... But this year has seen the referendum

:01:24.:01:28.

campaign ramping up. The Scottish Government launched its White Paper

:01:29.:01:33.

on Scotland's feature. But how much influence have the Yes campaign for

:01:34.:01:36.

the better together campaign actually had? The latest polling

:01:37.:01:47.

figures published today show a continuing shift towards voting yes

:01:48.:01:52.

for independence. That is a trend that has been going on for the last

:01:53.:01:57.

few months, but there is a stub when third to say they do not know how to

:01:58.:02:02.

vote. Today's survey shows awareness of the Scottish Government's white

:02:03.:02:10.

paper was very high amongst the over 55s, but lower amongst younger

:02:11.:02:14.

voters. But not many people who knew about it said it would change the

:02:15.:02:20.

way they would vote. The novelty is softening and they are tending to

:02:21.:02:25.

move towards no as they do not know. There is a lot of work from both

:02:26.:02:28.

camps to win the people back for the No campaign or for the Yes campaign

:02:29.:02:35.

to win people back. How should they sell themselves to consolidate their

:02:36.:02:41.

support and went over the undecided? The Yes campaign has got positivity

:02:42.:02:46.

on its side. It is all about the future, potential, things that could

:02:47.:02:51.

and might happen and that is quite attractive, quite seductive. But

:02:52.:02:57.

that can tip over into recklessness. They have got an emotion they can

:02:58.:03:02.

build on. The advantage of the No campaign has is that most people are

:03:03.:03:07.

risk averse. It is very difficult to launch new products and open up new

:03:08.:03:12.

sectors in the market and it is very hard work. People like what they are

:03:13.:03:17.

familiar with. It is worth remembering next September is still

:03:18.:03:23.

nine months away. We have had arguments on both sides so far. With

:03:24.:03:27.

the release of the White Paper that will start things off a bit more and

:03:28.:03:33.

once we get into 2014 it might concentrate minds a little bit and

:03:34.:03:38.

make people take it more seriously. The campaign will ramp up at that

:03:39.:03:44.

point in time as well. The No campaign are quite a long way in

:03:45.:03:47.

front and that is where this momentum starts to become much more

:03:48.:03:52.

interesting. In a marketing sense if your message was not getting across,

:03:53.:03:58.

you would not want to push too hard and too fast. You would hold back

:03:59.:04:02.

and keep your reserves in store and let them loose later on in the

:04:03.:04:08.

spring or the summer of next year. Spring is an important time in the

:04:09.:04:12.

Highlands when shooting estates Brendan Moore is to benefit the

:04:13.:04:17.

grouse. Perhaps next year it will also be the time when the referendum

:04:18.:04:21.

campaigns start to set the heather alight. I am joined by the former

:04:22.:04:26.

Scottish Government adviser Alex Bell and by the art critic and

:04:27.:04:31.

commentator Joyce McMillan and in Glasgow the lawyer and labour

:04:32.:04:36.

activist Ian Smart. Alex Bell, we were told the White Paper was going

:04:37.:04:41.

to be the game changer and all our questions would be answered. It has

:04:42.:04:45.

not quite worked out like that, has it? It has in the sense we have a

:04:46.:04:52.

clear position, a point of view from which people can argue and that is a

:04:53.:04:57.

strong thing for those in the Yes campaign. It is a heartening

:04:58.:05:00.

campaign to go to the doorstep knowing that you have 650 questions

:05:01.:05:06.

that have been answered. It is heartening to people in the campaign

:05:07.:05:10.

that they feel this great sense that the other side has not defined what

:05:11.:05:15.

they are about. We still do not know what is so good about the UK. In

:05:16.:05:20.

that sense it has moved things along and it has given the campaigners

:05:21.:05:25.

some kind of courage to go further on to more doorsteps. The White

:05:26.:05:32.

Paper was one of the issues you had with the leadership of the SNP. What

:05:33.:05:36.

do you think it should have done that it did not do? The analysis the

:05:37.:05:42.

Scottish Government is putting forward is not sufficiently

:05:43.:05:45.

compelling all the way to independence. A lot of what is in

:05:46.:05:49.

the White Paper could be achieved with some form of Devo Max. When it

:05:50.:05:55.

refers to the full ranges of the state, it does so in quite a

:05:56.:06:00.

speculative way. If you look at its promise of the early years, then

:06:01.:06:05.

what you get is a pledge about more childcare hours, but then some

:06:06.:06:09.

speculative paragraphs about how you could link up welfare, tax and other

:06:10.:06:14.

things. If you are selling independence, that is the bit you

:06:15.:06:19.

want to flog much harder. You want to say, give me all the powers and I

:06:20.:06:25.

can conspire a tax, welfare and other systems, such that it is a lot

:06:26.:06:33.

better off in Scotland. Ian Smart, you would agree with a lot of what

:06:34.:06:39.

Alex Bell has just said? The overwhelming element of the Yes

:06:40.:06:45.

campaign is how inept it has been. If you go back to the original

:06:46.:06:49.

message of the Lord, that decisions are best taken by the people in

:06:50.:06:53.

Scotland, that is a very powerful message. It is not necessarily easy

:06:54.:07:01.

for us to deal with. But they are building up these ragtag

:07:02.:07:10.

lunatics... This is on the margins. You presumably would agree with Alex

:07:11.:07:16.

Bell that your opponents would have had a better case had they outlined

:07:17.:07:21.

some of the things he is suggesting? I think they would have

:07:22.:07:26.

done better if they had started with we are in favour of independence and

:07:27.:07:30.

that is a blank sheet of paper that Scotland can do whatever it likes

:07:31.:07:35.

with. But most of this policy stuff is costly and it makes it look like

:07:36.:07:42.

a hopeless leap of faith. Do you think it should have been more

:07:43.:07:47.

radical? I am often in favour of people being more radical. My

:07:48.:07:52.

problem with the SNP is it has not worked out its relationship to the

:07:53.:07:57.

critical phase of advanced capitalism we are at. It is still

:07:58.:08:02.

trying in a Blairite wait to be all things to all people and suggest we

:08:03.:08:06.

can have a social democracy without confronting some of the

:08:07.:08:10.

configurations of big business that we are accustomed to in the UK. The

:08:11.:08:15.

whole issue over Grangemouth was a symbol of that. A normal social

:08:16.:08:20.

democracy would not have such a major energy resource in private

:08:21.:08:27.

ownership, but you do not hear that kind of thing from the SNP. You are

:08:28.:08:33.

not saying nationalised the top 250 monopolies? No, of course not, but

:08:34.:08:37.

if you look at Governments across Europe you are not seeing major

:08:38.:08:41.

energy resources in private ownership. The French Government

:08:42.:08:50.

still owns 80% of EDF. They are talking about Nordic social

:08:51.:08:52.

democracy on the social policy side of what they are doing, so they need

:08:53.:08:57.

to be more realistic about what that means. You would have liked to have

:08:58.:09:04.

seen more of the Will Hutton type ideas of changing the way that

:09:05.:09:09.

private companies would be governed in Scotland, the way finance would

:09:10.:09:15.

be governed, getting rid of short termism. There were ideas in there

:09:16.:09:20.

about mandatory trade union representation, worker

:09:21.:09:22.

representation, but they were just floated. There were lots of ideas

:09:23.:09:29.

anyone on the left would find preferable to anything coming out of

:09:30.:09:34.

the Labour Party at the moment. But there are still contradictions that

:09:35.:09:37.

make you feel a bit uneasy and I would like to see the SNP working

:09:38.:09:43.

harder at making international alliances to develop a kind of idea

:09:44.:09:49.

and a series of systems that might restore to governments across the

:09:50.:09:52.

western world some control over their social policy and stop us from

:09:53.:09:58.

being sucked into an increasingly strange phase where multinationals

:09:59.:10:00.

are almost dictating Government policy.

:10:01.:10:06.

Ian Smart, if you have a theory about why that could be quite

:10:07.:10:11.

dangerous for the SNP if they did what both Alex Bell and Joyce

:10:12.:10:21.

McMillan have suggested. The SNP do not traditionally do well and Labour

:10:22.:10:27.

areas. For the first time ever recently they did do well in those

:10:28.:10:31.

areas but the bulk of the support us in rural north-east Scotland and

:10:32.:10:34.

those people are not attracted to any kind of left-wing prospectus

:10:35.:10:40.

involving denationalisation of utilities -- nationalisation. You

:10:41.:10:48.

know, subsidising the feckless and long-term unemployed as they would

:10:49.:10:53.

see it. The danger is that the SNP get tied up in this agenda and that

:10:54.:10:58.

the price of chasing our vote will mean that they will lose a lot of

:10:59.:11:02.

their traditional vote. That is a problem, Alex Bell, for the SNP.

:11:03.:11:10.

This could play well in meetings and Glasgow and Edinburgh but the SNP do

:11:11.:11:15.

have to worry about how this goes down on the streets of the likes of

:11:16.:11:22.

Forfar? If you are trying to win a majority in Scotland you must choose

:11:23.:11:29.

the votes that you do not have. But you must not alienate those who

:11:30.:11:34.

vote for you already. That is not the case at the moment. The

:11:35.:11:40.

challenge for the SNP is to win new boats and by doing so they must

:11:41.:11:46.

break new territory. I think this slightly bizarre for a man as

:11:47.:11:51.

engaged and understanding and raising awareness of Scotland for

:11:52.:11:58.

Labour over the decades, for him to dismiss the wider debate that is

:11:59.:12:03.

going on in Scotland is very strange. The referendum will be won

:12:04.:12:07.

or lost, but what is happening to Scotland and the process? Where are

:12:08.:12:11.

we going to intellectual a during this? What will be effect on

:12:12.:12:18.

September the 19th when we looked around and ask ourselves" what do we

:12:19.:12:22.

do next?" To independence you have a sense of that but there will be a

:12:23.:12:28.

mass of the morning on the 19th if we can't around and said that we

:12:29.:12:31.

voted no but what do we do next? Therefore at least Joyce McMillan

:12:32.:12:37.

and myself are trying to engage in a nonpartisan debate which is about

:12:38.:12:42.

how Scotland's leases itself in the world. You have to level is, one

:12:43.:12:48.

that the SNP must win that extra vote therefore it is silly to say it

:12:49.:12:52.

should avoid the west coast of Scotland and number two, all of us

:12:53.:12:56.

who engage in Scottish politics must engage in a global argument. Joyce

:12:57.:13:05.

McMillan looks bemused. I am amazed to hear Ian Smart dismissed some

:13:06.:13:10.

sort of return to a socialist democracy to one that is so

:13:11.:13:13.

left-wing that Google in the North East of Scotland will not support

:13:14.:13:17.

it. You must be clear about this, it is the current British government

:13:18.:13:22.

that is remarkably right wing by any kind of European standard and what

:13:23.:13:24.

we are looking for in this independence debate is some way back

:13:25.:13:30.

through a form of British politics or independence through a more

:13:31.:13:34.

rational form of government and the interest of all of the people. The

:13:35.:13:38.

crucial factor in this campaign has you can pick away at the SNP's

:13:39.:13:43.

programme if people say they are getting bogged down in the details,

:13:44.:13:47.

others say they cannot answer the questions, but at least they have

:13:48.:13:52.

tried as imperfectly as anyone might argue, to write down their

:13:53.:13:56.

prospective for a progressive programme for a future Scotland

:13:57.:13:59.

under independence. The absolutely outstanding factor as... Give them a

:14:00.:14:12.

chance to reply! A corporation tax cut is not social

:14:13.:14:19.

democracy. Asking workers to give up active involvement in a trade union

:14:20.:14:23.

is far from a progressive democracy, this is absolute nonsense! That is

:14:24.:14:34.

what the White Paper says. What they are trying to do us all of these

:14:35.:14:38.

things and give them to all of the people. We are focusing on the Yes

:14:39.:14:42.

campaign, is the problem not that the No campaign... What is the point

:14:43.:14:48.

of this Better Together campaign? In a sense what someone like you would

:14:49.:14:53.

like to say presumably is that you would not want a direct debate on

:14:54.:14:57.

these terms, the whole issue of independence as irrelevant, there

:14:58.:15:00.

are more important things to worry about, yet the focus of the Better

:15:01.:15:05.

Together campaign is to address the Yes campaign on the territory of

:15:06.:15:12.

their choosing. I think opposition to independence as what unites the

:15:13.:15:22.

No campaign. Is there any evidence that the Better Together campaign

:15:23.:15:26.

are getting on any better than the Yes campaign? The Scottish

:15:27.:15:30.

government uses JFK International Airport amounts of money to do

:15:31.:15:35.

bat-mac promote an idea but the fact that the Better Together campaign is

:15:36.:15:38.

doing better shows that we are doing well. That is not good enough. Let

:15:39.:15:46.

me bring up an issue I discussed with Alex Salmond. There was a poll

:15:47.:15:52.

in Aberdeenshire of school students who voted 75% against independence.

:15:53.:15:57.

Sorry, are we supposed to believe that young people in Aberdeenshire

:15:58.:16:00.

made that decision because they thought Alistair Darling or Alistair

:16:01.:16:05.

Carmichael where really convincing or because they just don't see the

:16:06.:16:08.

whole issue as being relevant to them? It is the latter. The point of

:16:09.:16:17.

the cat -- Better Together campaign is to address the concerns that

:16:18.:16:20.

people might have and to highlight their concerns and make sure that

:16:21.:16:23.

the maximise their concerns to make sure that independence is finished

:16:24.:16:30.

not for a generation but for ever. We are running out of time. Quickly,

:16:31.:16:37.

Alex Bell, obviously the Yes campaign is a game changer. What is

:16:38.:16:41.

it going to be? The Yes campaign must get its case at Ross with more

:16:42.:16:47.

enthusiasm. I need more than that! I come from a Labour background. My

:16:48.:16:52.

father wrote speeches for a Labour Prime Minister. I was brought up

:16:53.:16:57.

around left-wing thinking and socialism. You were not going to get

:16:58.:17:05.

the things you wanted from a Labour point of view and that is why I am

:17:06.:17:11.

now more pro-nationalist. Briefly please, Joyce McMillan, what do you

:17:12.:17:16.

think must change. Over the past year nothing much has changed is the

:17:17.:17:23.

basic bones of it. If the better together campaign continues and its

:17:24.:17:29.

president -- present mode, then the Yes campaign will have little other

:17:30.:17:33.

to do than sit and wait for the no vote to begin to crumble because the

:17:34.:17:40.

10th two mat -- Better Together campaign has failed to give us a

:17:41.:17:43.

vision of a better United Kingdom. People will become increasingly

:17:44.:17:49.

unable to vote for it. The negativity as shocking and there is

:17:50.:17:54.

too much scaremongering, it is ridiculous. Which side are due on at

:17:55.:18:01.

the moment? I am definitely leaning towards the Yes campaign because I

:18:02.:18:05.

cannot stand the negativity of the No campaign.

:18:06.:18:10.

You should be expected at this point to say the terrible danger for the

:18:11.:18:15.

Better Together campaign is complacency but in a bombshell in

:18:16.:18:19.

your latest blog you have not said that. I was having a rather end of

:18:20.:18:26.

year the joke. There is no room for complacency.

:18:27.:18:34.

Tomorrow's front pages: The Telegraph talks about those injured

:18:35.:18:38.

after the roof collapsed in the west end theatre. Join us again in

:18:39.:18:43.

January. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Goodbye.

:18:44.:18:49.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS