CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine wonders why the recent Scottish Greens conference gained such little coverage in Scotland's newspapers
THERE is a strange dislocation in current debate about Scottish politics, one that was never clearer to me than at the Green Party conference at the weekend. Still, our media seems to be geared up to cover Scottish national politics in 'big man' mode (or since in Scotland they're mostly 'big woman', we might better call it 'big boss' mode).
But big boss politics is the politics of majority government. That is a thing of the past, a five-year period that I rather doubt is going to return.
It is much more accurate to recognise that this is once again an era of negotiated politics. The Scottish Government can't win a single parliamentary vote without someone else's permission. One vote short of a majority is much the same as five votes short – or 10.
In most countries with proportional parliaments there would therefore be substantial interest in what is going on at the Green Party conference among the mainstream media. But in Scotland, well, there isn't.
So we get all the imagery of the first minister as the embodiment of power and a media narrative that seems overly dominated by asking 'what does Nicola want?'. It is surprising that we don't have more discussion of 'how is Nicola going to get it?'.
It is this in particular that seemed to stick out for me at the Greens' conference at the weekend. In any normal reality it should be the Greens that the SNP is looking to for support. Certainly of the options (the alternatives being unionists and in particular the 'hated' Tories and the often even more hated Labour), a 'progressive alliance' with the Greens seems the obvious option. And I'm pretty sure it would be the option favoured by the vast majority of SNP members.
So, in most countries with proportional parliaments there would therefore be substantial interest in what is going on at the Green Party conference among the mainstream media. But in Scotland, well, there isn't.
This was brought home to me as I was reading the Sunday Herald over breakfast before heading to Perth for a fringe meeting Common Weal was holding. I thought I'd quickly catch up on what had happened on the Saturday of conference (the biggest day of the weekend).
So what is going on here? Why aren't we getting a properly nuanced take on political life in Scotland? Why are the Greens so roundly ignored (and yet the much less significant Lib Dems appear almost as much)?
Nothing. I looked through the paper twice. Still nothing. And that's the independence-supporting newspaper. I saw the National did a decent job and while I didn't get a good look at the papers on Saturday there only seemed to be fairly boilerplate coverage apart from that. [Additional Note – I’ve been unfair on the Herald which covered the conference better than I’ve given credit for here.]
So what is going on here? Why aren't we getting a properly nuanced take on political life in Scotland? Why are the Greens so roundly ignored (and yet the much less significant Lib Dems appear almost as much)?
I think there are a number of reasons. I have a very high regard for the Greens. They mostly try to address issues with a seriousness and openness that we just don't get from the other parties. When something isn't working, generally the Greens try to work out why and find a solution.
(The SNP put out a press release denying the thing is broken. Labour puts out a press release saying the SNP broke it using illegal weapons of mass destruction – or something else hysterical. The Tories put out a press release saying the union is at risk and people should vote Ruth.)
And there is a lot of genuine talent in the Greens. They really should be talked about more when we talk about Scotland's future.
For whatever reason, the SNP see the Greens as safe, non-threatening. I think this is partly because the Greens have a consistent policy of not negotiating alliances or coalitions.
But for whatever reason, the SNP see the Greens as safe, non-threatening. The right of the SNP has been saying for ages that anyone who isn't happy with the SNP can always go away to the Greens (but Rise was to be despised for some reason). Generally it isn't a good thing when your opponent is recruiting for you…
I think this is partly because the Greens have a consistent policy of not negotiating alliances or coalitions. While I can see the desire not to get into a formal coalition (and the Scottish Government wouldn't countenance it anyway), I think I'd be inclined to open talks with the SNP or the Scottish Government.
I'd be looking to 'group' policy issues and seek concessions in one for support for another. It might not work, but without trying that the Greens could easily get bounced into irrelevance.
Because the second reason these issues don't get discussed is that there is an assumption (promoted by the SNP leadership) that it doesn't really matter. Somehow they'll just patch together that needed majority on a vote-by-vote basis.
The confidence comes from the belief that if the policy is progressive then the Greens and Labour will have no choice but to back it. And if the policy isn't progressive then they can just get the Tories, kind of like they did during the last period of minority government.
While I can see the desire not to get into a formal coalition (and the Scottish Government wouldn't countenance it anyway), I think I'd be inclined to open talks with the SNP or the Scottish Government.
But the Tories only really helped out with finance bills the last time round – and that was in the context of the Labour Party behaving like a spoilt child determined to be unreasonable. The Tories were happy to undermine Labour and Labour was more than happy to undermine itself.
At the moment it looks to me like the SNP will need the Tories to get through the APD cut, the Council Tax 'changes', possibly mandatory testing of primary school children, and probably the voucher system with which they plan to replace publicly provided childcare. There is more on the list.
The SNP leadership appears unduly confident on this issue just now – through the lens of big boss politics it's everyone else who has the problem. But right now the SNP would be facing something of a crisis on the Council Tax if Kezia Dugdale was capable of pressing the right button at the right time.
And I cannot emphasise just how seriously damaging it will be if the SNP sleepwalks into a loose Tory/SNP coalition.
Another reason for all of this is the weird and seemingly never-ending distractions from the domestic agenda in Scotland. Between independence and Brexit, it's like everyone wants to talk about anything other than domestic policy.
Frankly, I'm tired of reading news stories about how Nicola Sturgeon or someone else is 'demanding' there is no hard Brexit for Scotland. It's an easy space-filler, but it doesn't seem like actual news to me.
Frankly, I'm tired of reading news stories about how Nicola Sturgeon or someone else is 'demanding' there is no hard Brexit for Scotland. It's an easy space-filler, but it doesn't seem like actual news to me (or at least not from the third-to-49th time it appeared).
Which is probably the final reason for this – the desperate state of the Scottish media. I was trying to work out why there just hasn't been proper discussion of a whole range of issues in Scotland. Where were the commentators?
Then I started to subtract first the activist commentators (generally non-journalists who write for newspapers from a rigid political stance). Then the click-bait columnists. Then the staffers (a lot of political correspondents now have to fill in quite a bit of commentary space as well as news reporting, which doesn't leave much time for reflection or exploration of ideas).
Who does that leave in the category of professional, analytical commentators? Iain McWhitrer? David Torrance? (I don't always agree with David Torrance but he is certainly trying to cover politics intelligently and critically.) Kevin McKenna? Alex Massie? Lesley Riddoch? Joyce McMillan? It's hardly a sufficient roster to really explore what's happening in Scotland just now.
The Scottish Greens are by no means perfect – I think they are sometimes a touch tactically naïve and right now they face some of the same internal bickering that besets all political parties. And they also have an 'expansion' problem – because they don't look like breaking into Scotland's working class vote, the jump from six to a dozen MSPs looks difficult.
Whatever direction Scotland goes from here, it needs to be forward. We can't afford to follow the UK backwards into a weird imaginary past-present. And we can't afford to follow the current political narrative round and round in circles.
But to my mind they deserve a lot more coverage and respect than they currently get. And I think mostly this is because we're still stuck with 19th century attitudes to parliamentary politics, a badly under-resourced media and an unprecedentedly volatile political environment.
Whatever direction Scotland goes from here, it needs to be forward. We can't afford to follow the UK backwards into a weird imaginary past-present. And we can't afford to follow the current political narrative round and round in circles.
The future has to be in some way different from the present. A political culture that doesn't seem capable of taking the Greens seriously in an era of a minority parliament doesn't seem to me capable of producing a different future – or at least not one we're in control of.
And in the end that is my fear – that the brief period in which a broad political culture took hold (during the independence referendum), when the corporations and the vested interests lost their control, will be gone. I don't think there is any doubt they want it back.
Progressive politics is ill served by easy digs at xenophobia and nuclear weapons at the expense of a proper debate about where we are and where we're going. We're not getting it from the Scottish Government and we're not allowed to hear it coming from parties like the Greens or from civic society.
No good will come from any of this – except for the lobbyists. Scotland really deserves so much better.
Picture courtesy of NUS Scotland
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