There may be trouble ahead. Gordon Brown is a very clever man. But he's prone to bearing grudges for decades. This we know too. It seems he has not forgiven Alex Salmond for his temerity in bloodying Scottish Labour's nose. As Gerri Peev reports in The Scotsman:
IT COSTS a few pence but the price of a phone call to congratulate Scotland's new First Minister was too high for the next Prime Minister to bear.
Gordon Brown has not picked up the phone to call Alex Salmond, the First Minister, whom he believes is hell-bent on destroying the United Kingdom, the political stewardship of which Mr Brown is weeks away from inheriting...
...[At a press conference in London Mr Brown] grinned repeatedly as he took questions about his triumph and about the full prime ministerial range of political issues, from managing the National Health Service to Britain's relationship with Europe and the US.
But one question seemed to send a dark cloud fleeting across the Chancellor's sunny visage: "Why had he not congratulated Mr Salmond on his appointment, and did he look forward to working with the new First Minster?"
"I congratulate him on becoming First Minister," Mr Brown replied, momentarily forgetting to smile. As for why he had not picked up the phone in person, Mr Brown insisted that a call to Mr Salmond on Wednesday from Douglas Alexander, "our Secretary of State for Scotland," would suffice."
This is silly. And childish. Brown's characteristic lack of grace - or, moe importantly, the perception of said failing - hands the SNP a victory before the new parliament has convened for business. Brown's refusal to call Salmond makes him appear churlish and small-spirited. Salmond, who has struck all the right magnanimous, inclusive notes this week, was able to be outwardly generous:
"Now that the dust is settling I'm quite sure that Gordon, like me, puts the Scottish interest among our paramount concerns and that we will work together in the Scottish interest."
That's a teasingly barbed comment. I'm quite sure is really code for It will be interesting to see if Gordon is big enough to accept the election verdict. I'm not so sure he is, are you? The surface chumminess of the comment hides the deeper questions you can be sure Salmond will asks each time London tries to thwart him: Who speaks for Scotland? Who guards the Scottish interest? Holyrood or London Labour?
Now, as I've argued before (and will, you are warned, do so again) this is a bandwagon the Tories should leap aboard. They should be Tartan Gaullists, committed to speaking for Scotland, not to sever the Union but to strengthen it as a partnership of equals. The Union can only survive, they should say, if it respects the rights and privileges of each of its members. That means more power for Scotland at Holyrood and more power or fairness for England at Westminster.
The price of this, naturally, is a sort of confederal United Kingdom (here, perhaps, is a role for a more systematically reformed House of Lords), but so be it. Having been caught on the hop by the desire for devolution, the Tories should be in the vanguard o trying to make it work. Small stuff on "bread and butter issues" is all well and good, but the Tories need to be bold and creative. They have little to lose from taking some risks. By doing so, thy can have some fun with Labour, portraying Labour and gordon Brown as the paty that doesn't like or respect or trust Scotland to manage its own affairs. Since Brown's reputation as a control freak is hardly unwarranted there's every reason to suppose this could be an effective ploy.
Equally, the Tories need to be Scots first and Tories second if they are to have any hope of challenging the SNP in the nationalists' once-Tory rural and north-east strongholds. That means, as I say, a proud Tartan Gaullism.
So, First Minister Salmond it is. Dare one risk saying that these are exciting times north of the border? I think one might.
In one respect, mind you, this minority administration at Holyrood is actually something of a return to old habits. The SNP will be compelled to administrate rather than legislate, much as the ministers in the old Scottish Office managed to run Scotland without feeling the need to pass much Scottish-specific legislation at all.
Of course, that did also mean that Scottish bills were often tacked on to English bills at Westminster, receiving little by way of scrutiny. So theoretically the committee process at Holyrood should be more rigorous than was the case in ancient times when Scotland was also ruled by a government that only a minority of Scots supported.
So there's that. A minority administration is not the end of the world. Anything that makes it difficult for politicians to pass legislation is to be welcomed. Since much of the worst legislation Holyrood has passed has been tiresomely, depressingly popular within the Scottish Parliament (and theft, free goodies for the middle class, banning things etc etc) there's extra reason to cheer a minority administration that will find it more difficult, one hopes, to interfere with people's lives. Well, one lives in hope.
God knows why, but one does...
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