FABIAN SOCIE'fY BRITISH LIBRARY OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 10, PORTUGAL STREET, LONDON WC2A 2HD BLPES 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 FABIAr 21 0480731 8 BRITISH LIBRARY OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE 10 Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HD The date for return is shown below unless the book is recalled for another reader. A fine will be charged if the book is returned after the due date. To renew, take the book to the Service Counter or telephone: 0171-955 7225 SOCIE'I' Y The Fabian Society an Society is Britain 's senior think tank. Concerned since its Jn with evolutionary political and economic reform and progressive 1an~e, t~e F.abian Soci~ty has played a central role for more than a the left-of- Y and 1 the changing he party's ~dium and enges ; society political the new debate. aticallymembers ) ian examine ecent ) ility to dely economic .in long ritical - entral to - ~, from Jriately ) ocratic n citizens ks to r both BLPES 111111 Ill/Ill/Ill/Ill lllllllll/11111 /Ill11111 FABIAr 21 0480731 8 SOCIIETY The Fabian Society The Fabian Society IS Britain's sen1or thmk tank. Concerned since its foundation with evolutionary political and economic reform and progressive social change, the Fabian Society has played a central role for more than a century in the development of political ideas and public policy on the left-ofcentre. The Society is affiliated to the Labour Party but is editorially and organisationally independent. In recent years the Society's work on the modernisation of the Labour Party's constitution and its analysis of changing political attitudes have played a significant part in the renewal of the party's public appeal. Today the Fab1an Society seeks to help shape the agenda for the medium and long term of the new Labour Government. Analysing the key challenges facmg the UK and the rest of the industrialised world in a changing soc1ety and global economy, the Soc1ety's programme aims to explore the political ideas and the policy reforms which will define the left-of-centre in the new century. Through its pamphlets, discussion papers, seminars and conferences, the Society provides an arena for open-minded public debate. The Fabian Society is un1que among think tanks in being a democratically- constituted membership organisation . Its five and a half thousand members engage in polit1cal education and argument through the Soc1ety's pub I ications, conferences and other events, its quarterly journal Fabian Review and a network of local societies and meetings. Redesigning the State The Fabian Society's programme on 'Redesigning the State' seeks to examine the role and form of a state appropriate to 21st century Britain. In recent years the role of the state has come under multiple challenge: its abil1ty to tax adequately and to del1ver pub I ic serv1ces efficiently has been w1dely doubted, while 'globalisat1on' has aparently raised quest1ons of its econom1c competence. Public confidence in the institutions of government is 1n long term declme. The Fab1an Society's programme a1ms to reassess the purpose and Critical funct1ons of the state in a changing soc1al and econom1c context. Central to th1s are the questions of the levels at wh1ch the state should operate, from the local to the supra-national, and to the maintenance of an appropriately funded publ1c sphere. lt hopes to contribute to the renewal of democratiC legitimacy b exploring ways of improvmg the relat1onsh1ps between Citizens and their governments, mcludmg constitutional reforms. And 1t seeks to 1dent1fy how the state can 1mprove the del1very of publ1c serv1ces for both customers and Citizens. The New Scotland CoLL F 8'1~6 Contents 1. The dream of Scottish home rule 2. Scottish politics at the millennium 4 3. A radical agenda for a Pari iament 6 4. The new politics thesis 9 5. How the Pari iament changes Scottish politics 13 6. The impact of a Scottish Parliament on party organisation 20 7. The challenge of new Labour to Scottish politics 25 8. The West of Scotland question 28 9. What becomes of the British Parliament 31 10. Conclusions: from the old to the new Britain 34 Notes 37 Gerry Hassan is organiser of the Centre for Scottish Pub I ic Policy conference 'The New Scotland' sponsored by the Fabian Society, and is also organiser of the Scottish nexus group. He has written widely on Scottish and British politics, and contr1but d to 'The Bla1r Agenda' (1996) and 'The Moderniser's Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair' (forth. 1988). He is the author of the forthcoming 'A History of Scottish Labour and Home Rule' (Lawrence and Wishart, 1999). This pamphlet IS dedicated to home rule supporters everywhere, including those who championed the cause through many lean years and those who have not l1ved to see the establishment of a Parliament, including my father, Edw1n Hassan (1933-1993). 1. The dream of Scottish home rule These are exciting and dynamic times in Scottish politics when the dreams and aspirations of over a century of home rule campaigners are calmly becoming reality. The return of a Labour Government on M ay 1st 1997 with an historic 1 79 seat avera 11 majority committed to legislate for a Scottish Parliament in the first year, the wipe-out of Scots Tory MPs, the publi cation within three months of a widely praised White Paper, and the resounding 'Yes, Yes' referendum vote, have all contributed to the most favourable imaginable circumstances for the passing of a Scotland Bi 11 through the Houses of Pari iament. The ghosts and pains of the 1974-79 devolution debates-that Labour could not deliver devolution, the House of Commons or Lords would never agree to radical constitutional reform, that the Scottish home rule parti es could never work together because of their divisions, or that after the 1 9 79 referendum, the Scots would never have the self-confidence to vote for change-have one by one been slain or put to rest. This fast changing Scottish political environment throws up new questions for all the political parti es. What policy issues can a Parliament address, and how will it change the politics, culture and organisation of the parti es and civil society? New relationships will begin to evolve between the Scottish and British Parliaments, and between the Scottish political parti es and (with the exception of the SNP), their British counterparts, which will reveal tensions and strains. In many respects, these will be most pronounced in the Labour Party, as it is the dominant party north of the border and in Government at the UK level. In what ways will the 'New Labour' agenda impact on Scottish Labour and the Scottish political system? And what influence will the 'new politics' agenda have with its avowed aim of avoiding a 'Westminster of the North ' ? 1 Finally, Labour's constitutional reforms have rightly prio ritised the implementation of devolution to Scotland and Wales and securing a peace settlement in Northern I re land, but do not yet sit within a coherent framework that points the way towards a new territorial settlement for the United Kingdom. Labour's current stance-to implement radi cal, but piecemeal reform, while maintaining the politics of Westminster sovereignty and the unitary state-is not sustainable. Instead, we need to think out a new practical politics of decentralisation which maps onto the realities of the United Kingdom. This has to engage with issues such as the different demands for decentralism and inventing a new credo for the politics of the limited centre. Such challenges can be addressed, through radicalism and innovation by the Labour Government, and in so doing reshape the United Kingdom in a way that endures long after Tony Blair's Premiership passes into history. The main arguments of 'The New Scotland' are: e Scottish politics have been profoundly changed since 1979 and this is the product of both short-term (Thatcherism) and long-term factors (decline of Empire). e The influence of a Scottish centre-left home rule consensus has been so persuasive that it has largely ignored the need to develop a radical programme for a Scottish Parliament. e For the Scottish Parliament to succeed, it will have to break with much of what passes for conventiona l wisdom on the Scottish left. e lt wi 11 have to develop new models of service provision and be an enabling, empowering agency which breaks with the past practices of British Government and Scottish loca l government. e The Scottish Parliament has to relate to the econom ic, social and cultural changes in the last twenty years from Scotland's changing industrial base to its more open social structure. Central ist and statist solutions which were relevant to the Scottish Assembly in 1979 are no longer applicable. e lt must work within the grain of the wider environment of limited government, low ta xation and wider personal choice, rather than turn back the clock on everything that has happened since 1979-as some on the Scottish left hope. e The I imits of the 'new politics' thesis have to be acknowledged, based as it is on support for a more consensual kind of politics. e The nature of the Scottish consensus has to be put under more detailed scrutiny, along with the lack of diversity in much of Scottish public life and civil society. e The establishment of a Scottish Parliament will mean that the main political parties will have to turn their attention to economic and social issues. This will force the Scottish left to develop policies which break with its conservative agenda of the Scottish status quo. One of the main arguments running through 'The New Scotland' is that many of the most fundamental challenges wi 11 be faced by the Scottish Labour Party, given its historic dominance in Scotland and its governing role at a British level. The main challenges out I i ned include: e Scottish voting patterns for the new Pari iament are shifting from the traditional asymmetrical system of Labour dominance to a two party competitive contest between Labour and SNP. This wil l throw up new challenges to Scottish Labour and require a very different kind of politics. e Scottish Labour has to develop an autonomous strategy by borrowing ski lls and resources from the British Labour Party and devloping itself into an effective electoral force. e The party has to achieve a delicate balancing act between Westminster MPs wanting to stand for a Scottish Parliament and recruiting new talent. e Whi le Scottish Labour has to begin developing a Scottish orientated strategy towards the Pari iament, it also has to develop a British strategy for the British Pari iament. This w ill involve a nationalist strategy at one level and a Unionist one at the other, institutionalising the previous interna l settlement within Scottish Labour. e Th e 'West of Scotland Labour Question' must be addressed, namely the quality of Labour representation at a local and national level in the West of Scotland. e The 'West Lothian Question ' has to answered politically through patchwork devolution in the short-term and a federa l, decentralised Britain for the future. e Labour has rightly addressed the issue of the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster post-devolution and shou ld also review the Barnett funding formula and post of Secretary of State for Scotland. e Labour should estab lish a Commission on the Governance of the UK simi lar to the jenkins Commission to look at a framework for UK Government post-devolution. 2. Scottish politics at the millennium What is Scotland and what is Scottish politics? To the majority of people in the UK (i.e. the English), Scotland is an afterthought: something that is not in the forefront of their minds because it does not directly impact on their I ives. The exact opposite is true for how the Scots see England because no matter what views they hold, there is no avoiding the fact that for Scots their relationship with England still defines a large part of how they see themselves and the world. Scottish politics can be see n through two perspectives: the Scottish dominated agenda of the Scottish media and press, and the Westminster obsessed agenda, whereby Scottish politicians are often merely bit parts in major British political dramas (while many senior Scottish Labour politicians have semi-detached relationships with Scottish politics). These two perspectives influence the shape of Scottish politics and the strategies of the major politica l parties. Th e Scottish political environment is slowly facing up to the biggest period of change and challenge it has ever witnessed: the establishment of a Scottish Parliament. This is due to a number of factors, short and long-term, with major implications for a number of the players and institutions. Long-term changes in the position of Scotland have been affected by British economic decline. A general sense of Britishness has been profoundly weakened by the erosion of such internal supports as Protestantism, the monarchy and the loss of Empire. Contemporary Scottish nationalism has moved to fill thi s gap. Short-term developments have added to these trends. The experience.Qf 1hatcberism f1Jrther alienated many Scots from institutions of the British ~Thepost-war settlement with the welfare state and NHS were profoundly British institutions, and their retrenchment under Thatcherism exposed the fragility of British identities. l l Two-thirds of Scottish people now define themselves as having a Scottish or predominantly Scottish identity against less than one in ten British or predominantly British . 2 Over the last 20 years, this Scottish/British cleavage 1as become a defining factor between the political parti es, with all, bar the Conservatives, wanting to appea r more Scottish than each other. This terrain begun to shift with Michael Forsyth 's ill-fated attempt to rebrCIDd..!Qe Conservatives as Scottish and more profoundly, with New Labour's British .orientated strategy_. Scotland in the UK has always been a constitutional anomaly-'a stateless nation ' 3 or 'a decapitated national state' 4-a distinct, defined nation in what is supposed to be a unitary state. However, the UK is in practice not as simple and easy to understand as a unitary or a federal state, but something blurred and the product of typical British compromise and incremental reform . lt incorporates both a high degree of central ism and pari iamentary sovereignty, with agreed different institutional arrangements for its four nations. The view of Scottish Labour has for long shaped these arrangements in terms of Scotland. In its 110 year history, Scottish Labour has alternately blown hot and cold on the home rule question, sometimes seeing it as part of the unbroken radical tradition of Scottish dissent from Gladstonian Liberalism and Keir Hardie socialism and at other times seeing it as a parochial, reactionary politics holding up socialist progress. The conflicts and dilemmas that have produced these changes wi 11 not suddenly go away or be resolved with the advent of a Parliament, but instead will be institutionalised. This is because the nature of these conflicts goes deeper than whether Scotland has a Pari iament or not. They reflect the tensions and fault I i nes in all Scottish political parties (including the SNP), public institutions and civil society between Scottish and British strategies. For Scottish Labour, these issues are expressed in the extent to which it can follow its own agenda and the degree of autonomy it enjoys within British Labour. The relationship of Scottish and British Labour is analogous to that of Scotland in the Union : a constantly changing one, of 'managed' and 'partial autonomy' 5 and shared sovereignty between two clearly unequal partners. A Scottish Parliament changes the way Scottish politics are dealt with, managed and negotiated, and alters the nature of the United Kingdom. Scottish politics remain in the U K political system, but from a more semidetached position. New pressures and opportunities will exist for political parties and civil society to respond differently to internal and external constraints and to Scottish and British audiences. Scottish political parties have traditionally engaged in the delicate process of 'bridge building' 6 representing British interests in Scotland and as advocates for Scotland at Westminster. This carefu I balancing act wi 11 have to change with the advent of the Pari iament. 3. A radical agenda for a Parliament The ampaign forS ottish s If-government has often looked exclusively at ways of achieving Parliam nt and proving toW tminster that there was a massive wave of support inS otland for change. lt has ompletely failed to address how a Parliament will make a differen e to the lives of most Scots by improving thee onomi and social conditions of the p ople. The strength of the Scottish con sensus The idea of an a li-p rsuasiv anti-Tory consensus has grown over eighteen years of Conserva tive Gov rnm nt to the extent that a notion of national homogeneity has d v lop d-of S otland as left-wing and anti-Tory and England as right-wing and Tory. This has had implications for the d velopm nt of a radi a/, dynamic and detail d agenda for a Scottish Pari iament, with th pr vai I i ng view of the S ottish consensus that because a Parliament will b th xpr swill and living embodim nt of the consensus, it is axiomati that the Parliament will be a radi cal force and make a diff ren e. This perspe tiv is o strong that with less than a year to the first Scottish Parliam nt el tions, very little serious policy development and analysis about its work and rol have taken place. The Scotti h home rule consensus ha fo used for many y ar primarily on institutional processes and politics. Lindsay Paterson expr s d on ern when he asked three years ago: 'What will a Scottish Parliament a tually do? ... the leader of the Scottish on nsus are ill-pr par d for autonomy. They have devoted all their analyti a/ a tiviti s to how to a hieve a Scottish Parliament, and have virtually ignor d wh t th y an do when they get there.' 8 Richard Parry has posed three social policy futures for the Parliament: 'Professionally based stasis' where the Scottish professional classes use their influence to maintain their advantaged position; 'Innovative social policy' with flexibility and client-led policies; and 'conflict-ridden social policy' based on differences between expectations of a Parliament and its actual policy agenda. 9 This has to be seen in the context of the Scottish left's defensiveness and blanket opposition to a Thatcherite agenda post-1979, while at the same time the English left has responded to the crisis of social democracy by developing new notions of citizenship and civil society. 10 The Scottish left's silence in these areas does not auger well for a radical agenda for a Parliament, but rather stasis or conflict. The administration of the Scottish status quo or disillusionment of the hopes of the Pari iament can only be challenged by thinking afresh about the pal icy agenda and environment of the new body. That requires acknowledging the changes that Thatcherism aided and encouraged post-1979, such as limited government, low taxation, increased labour market flexibility and wider personal choice and working with these trends to develop policies on greater opportunity and tackling social inequalities. A Scottish Parliament cannot put the clock back and has to operate within the terrain of what has been called, borrowing from Wi 11 H utton 's analysis of contemporary Britain, 'the three Scotlands': the settled, insecure and excluded Scotlands. 11 These social realities are similar to those found across the Western world, but there has been a tendency for the Scottish consensus to assume that Scotland was immune from such social change, or could be made so by active government. lt is sti 11 the driving force behind some of the Scottish left's support for a Scottish Parliament. A Scottish Pari iament will have control over the Scottish Office ex enditure of £14.523 billion-£2,830 per head. 12 lt will contra most aspects of Scottish I ife and is a step forward compared to the pal itics of 'Our Changing Democracy'-the previous Labour Government's last White Paper on Scottish devolution and the i 11-fated Scotland Act 1978. lt wj 11 ha ye control oyer mo~ o domestic life bar macro-economic polic and i I · 62.9% of Scottish identifiable public expen 1ture and 48.2% of General Government Expenditure (GGE) controlled by the Parliament. 13 Although the Parliament's powers are impressive, its financial freedom is verx: narrow, with the right to vary or reduce income tax by 3 pence in the pound onfYaccounting for a maximum 3% of the Parliament's income or a maximum £684 per income taxpayer per annum. 14 Given that it is also going to cost £40 million a year to run the Parliament and there are large one-off starting up costs of up to £100 million for designing, building and equipping the new Parliament at Holyrood as well as the additional costs of temporarily housing the Pari iament at the General Assembly, the room forfi nancial manoeuvre looks even more restricted. The need for a new policy agenda Across a range of areas, creative thinking by the political parties and other agencies are ur_gently needed: on economic regeneration, Scotland's appalling record of health, the neglect of public housing, on the complacent superiority of much of Scottish educatioo.. and much more. Ideas have to be developed ~hieh break with British Government and Scottish local government practice, as these are the very traditions which have failed Scotland. New ways of working are needed, such as cross-departmental collaboration at a Scottish Parliament level, partnerships between local and central government, short- term task forces for specific goals, including bringing in people outside pal itics, such as private enterprise and community activists. A Scottish Parliament must advocate opening up and decentralising decision- making across Scotland. lt must not be. as it could be, a centralising fore~ within Scotlaud, taking powers to Edinburgh from local government and other pub I ic bodies. Instead, it must have the confidence to be an enabling and empowering body setting a framework and minim11m standards and allow.i.Qg 'lia open access. scrutiny and transparency, others to participate in the decision-making process. In the area of local government this would mean introducing PR to local government for the 2002 local elections and abolishing the inequities of Labour one-party states across the West of Scotland while moving to citywide elected provosts for the major cities: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. The Parliament must at the earliest possible date pass a Freedom of Information Act which guarantees the widest pub I ic access to government New ways of working, passing legislation, hearing evidence and consulting with interested groups must also be considered by the Parliament The Parliament has to be emboldened by a vision of making Scotland a better, ruore open society, rather than one where the great and the good or old boys networks take decisions behind closed doors. 4. The new politics thesis The 'new politics' of the Pari iament perspective has been associated with the home rule consensus and the Scottish Constitutional Convention and centres on two premises: that Scotland has changed dramatically si nee 19 79 for the better, and that new structures can be put in place to give articulation to this 'new politics'. 'Scotland is better' Scotland has obviously changed since 1979. T~re are fewer Tory voters aoQ. oo Tory MP~. There has been a seismic shift towards home rule from the 1979 to 1997 referendum. The 'new politics' perspective argues that these changes mean a new home rule settlement is required, which moves on from the inequities of the 1979 proposals and reflects this new found confidence and diversity. A Scottish Pari iament has to break with Westminster traditions and also tackle issues which dogged the last devolution package, such as fears of Labour one party rule and Central Belt domination by developing new ideas and processes of democracy. Dennis Canavan, Labour MP for Falkirk West, summarised this, seeing the 1978 Act as asking: 'How mtJCb could and should be devolved, without threatening the unity of the United Kingdom?', whereas 'A Claim of Right', the starting point of the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention had a very different premise: 'To what degree do we want to share our sovereignty with any other nation or group of nations, whether in the United Kingdom or the European Community or both?' 15 The 'Scotland is better' perspective draws on cu ltural and socia l shifts, arguing that Scotland is now more confident, diverse and pluralist. it talks of 'a new renaissance' 16 of the arts and I iterature, and boldly sees a Scottish Pari iament as leading to '9 New Scottish En I ightenment.' 17 A range of factors are produced as evidence, from the success of films I ike Trainspotting to Glasgow's rise as an arts and cultural capital. What is less touched upon is the I imited nature of this change: the perilous financial base of G lasgow's rebirth and that for every Trainspotting there are a dozen mini Braveheartsevoking a romanticised mythical past (or present). Much of Scotland's cultural renaissance has occurred in certain strata of the Scottish middle classes in areas of arts, culture and the media who, because of their privi leged position, have assumed that they can speak for Scotland and importantly, tell the story of modern day Scotland. These groups are the same people who comprise Scotland's blethering classes and the home rule consensus. What actually characterises modern day Scotland is the lack of self-confidence and diversity in much of Scottish civi I society and the i I l-ease and discomfort expressed towards diversity and dissent. Much of Scottish public life is shaped and distorted by Labour's one-party hold across large n a range of ubj ts publi life is marred by a -f r x m pi , on r ligion, g nd r, s xuality and The new political culture of consensus nsus Lord lrvine, Lord Chancellor, in a leaked Cabinet Committee Minute, opposed moves by Donald Dewar to exempt the Pari iament from the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 for its first elections because 'this would allow it to be presented as an artificial and expedient response to a particu lar political problem.' 19 At the same time, gender balance proposals by the Scottish Liberal Democrat leadership for their own 56 I ist candidates were rejected at the 1998 Scottish Lib Dem conference on the grounds of central ism . 20 Labour plans to advance gender equality by the process of twinning whereby neighbouring constituencies wil l be paired to se lect one man and one woman candidate. The party hopes this will avoid it being open to legal challenge. 21 Let us assume that both Labour and the Libera l Democrats manage by a variety of means to increase substantially the numbers of female MSPs. lt is does not automatically follow from this that this wil l further the 'new politics'. The election of more than 100 Labour women in the 1997 election has not ended Westminster's exclusive male culture. The election of a sizeable number of Labour and Lib Dem MSPs might do little to challenge traditional male practices which are deeply embedded in Scottish politics; although there is the possibility that the establishment of a new body like a Scottish Parliament allows for a once in a generation shift in cultural values. The meaning of consensus politics Another criticism of the 'new politics' is the nature and purpose of consensus politics. The nature of the consensus invoked is the home rule consensus: a deeply conservative, complacent, inward looking opinion which is summed up by the inertia of the phrase 'the settled will of the Scottish people'. Pi vota l to this consensus is the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention and 'A Claim of Right' -the achievements of Scotland's political establishment excluded by the Conservatives. Consensus to these groups is synonymous with opposition to Thatcherism and support for the Scottish status quo, and while there are many positive elements to consensus in any political democracy, what Scotland needs is more diversity, debate and radical change, rather than complacency and closure. The reality of Scottish civil society_ Scotland is a small country with limited resources and skills in most areas from intellectual activity to politics, cu lture and sport. The forces of Scottish civi I society, whether they be think-tanks, the voluntary sector or other institutions, do not have the financial or infrastructure supports to develop major research departments or projects, and nor do the political parties. There is no Scottish equivalent of the Fabian Society, IPPR or DEMOS. Two ,centre-left think tanks do exist: the Centre for Scottish Public Policy, formerly ;the John Wheatley Centre, and the Scottish Council Foundation, but both have scarce resources and personnel . Many Scottish analyses of social trends and policies have to use UK data and figures because no equivalent Scottish figures exist with obvious pitfalls. The Scottish Pari iament and Scottish Office will be able to address the later, and are already assessing the resources and data needed for the new devolution settlement with a new£ 2 mi 11 ion Scottish household survey planned, but a wider environment of fertile ideas and debate will require a much more profound shift in Scottish civil society. This limited nature of Scottish civil society has consequences for much of Scottish public life-namely, that the long march through institutions and agencies to lobby, network, campaign and gain access and influence those in power is not very long because there are not that many agencies in civil society. This has profound implications, both conservative and liberating, in that it is not very difficult in Scotland to access those in power, or make a serious im act and thus, within a short space of time, move from the margins of influence to the status of an 'insi er'. However, the corollary of this, is that, to undertake this short journey a pre-condition for success is being or adopting the mantle of a 'conformist' who accepts and is incorporated into the prevailing consensus. The penalty of deviating from the dominant consensus view can be absolute and it is easy for a person or agency to be branded as a 'heretic' or 'troublemaker' and cast into a position of powerlessness. And because Scottish civi I society is so lacking in diversity and resources, it. is near impossible in Scotland to maintain the position of an 'outsider' because the resources are not avai I able in pub I ic I ife to make it a viable option. Thus, Scottish civil society is simultaneously shaped by a politics of inclusion and ex cl us ion which maintain the current position of stasis, and which must be challenged, not supported by the new Pari iament. For the Pari iament to be a force for greater diversity and pi ural ism rather than orthodoxy and conventional wisdom requires a dynamic model of collaborative politics, tapping into and addressing new forces in Scottish civil society and going beyond the narrow institutional agenda of the Scottish home rule consensus onto an economic, social and cultural vision for the new Scotland. 5. How the Parliament changes Scottish politics The establishment of a Scottish Parliament will have consequences for all political parties and the competitive nature of the party system. For a start, the advent of a Scottish Pari iament breaks the conservative impasse Scottish politics have found itself in for over 20 years whereby the political parties differentiated themselves on the Union to the exclusion of economic and social issues. Scottish Labour will now have to find a radicalism that responds to Scottish issues rather than external issues, while the Scottish Conservatives need to begin a search to discover what a new Unionism can be. The SNP will need to anchor its identity firmly to the centre-left post-devolution and look for potential allies in the Parliament; the Liberal Democrats have to break out of their ghetto as a rural protest party and become a national party, and assess the impact of their closeness to Labour in Scotland and at the UK level. There may be mutual advantages ofSNP-Lib Dem co-operation in a Parliament borne out of their mutual need to articulate national agendas beyond their current rural Pari iamentary bases, whi le both have incentives in challenging Labour's dominance of Scottish politics. The new electoral system and Scottish politics Scottish Labour will find that a Parliament elected by the Additional Member System (AMS) of Proportional Representation will make it unlikely for Labour to win an overall majority, btJt shift the balance of power within Scottish - Labour. From its formative period in the 1920s when Labour became a national party and the official opposition, Scottish Labour established its main base of support in the West of Scotland which has defined, shaped, distorted and limited the politics of Scottish Labour. The new electoral system will break the Labour homogeneity in areas like Glasgow, where Labour currently hold all ten Westminster seats on 60% of the vote. Under the new system the SNP, Conservatives and Lib Dems could all win AMS seats. Labour wi ll pick up some AMS seats in non-traditional Labour areas such as the Highlands and Borders, and while the party will remain in abso lute terms dominated by the West of Scotland, the relative balance between the West and the rest of Scotland will subtly shift. This will continue a process begun in the 1980s of Labour winning support in middle class areas like the Glasgow suburbs and Edinburgh, and becoming less reliant on its traditional working class vote in the West of Scotland . A situation which will be reflected by the move of Scottish Labour Headquarters, Keir Hardie House, from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Labour's dominance from 1959 has been based electorally on the slow decline of the Scottish Conservatives, first as an urban force in the West of Scotland, then, across all urban Scotland, while, the SNP's emergence as the p11n 1pal oppos 1t10n hds been mat hed by a hi t ri failure to br akthrough agdin~t Labour even in the mo t propitiou c ndition . Religious identity an I voting ha a ted as a ross-las lcavag to diff ring clt>grees in Scott1 h politi sat diff rent times. Th ons rvativ s gain d signifi ant support from th Prot stant working la until th 1950 and I 60s around issu su ha Unioni m, [mpir and British ne , while th Labour Party had a near monopoly hold on the c thol i w rki ng la sand micldl la until v ry r ntly. The inter e ting of la and religion in otti h voting ha provided a powerful barrier again t third parti es making ignifi ant inroad in popular ~uppol1 . The NPvote in t b r 1 74 wa 20% low ramong t atholi 22 ompared to hur h of otland vot r , wh reas by 19 2 th NP vot among atholi wa~ only 4% b low its vote with Prot tants. n otland's atholi mmunity me ke up a iz abl pc rt f the el torate in the We t of otland c1nd le gow, and the NP' la k of u until re ently inwinningitovcrha providedapow rfulbl konitwinning Labour cat . A pani ular c ample of this was provided by th Monk land by 1 tion in 1 94 where a Lab ur ampaign surround d by oun il I az allegation h Id onto th scat by a narrow majority b au Labour h Id 80% of th atholi votewhile the NP won 5%of the Prot tant vot .? 1 Dt~~p1te Monh-land -., 1t'lig1ou' v ling i be oming less ommonplac in cotlan I with the Protpqant base of the onserva tiv di ppec ring and th ,1th li blo of Lab ur upport slow/ roding. This ornbined with e nomi and .o ial hangc will produ a mor volaril and unpredi tabl en ironmentwhi hwillgiv the NPgr cteropportuniti t winwid r support, but al o m an that th future of otti hp liti will b all th mor d1ffi ult t pr di t. I h ott i~h on'e' at1 es st<11 t fr m a low base l 7 ele lion (a mil,si e 8% behind Lab ur) and ha rep1e~rntation c1nd ontrol no lo al Ollll il . The PR tht on~t'r .1ti' l'' mt ott,-.h politi c1llife. f 1 7.5% f th e vot in th \PR' ·,tem will b11n 1 NP reprr~rntdtlon 1nto Lc1bour'' ,\n l .11lo'' the NP to b1P,1kout of the 1mp.1,,'" hrrc to ' in broad ~upp rt 11 IH'l'cJ, to " 111 L.lbOlll ,l',\h but to get an 1n1l1al blo k t supp rt 1t' 111 T ry seats. Both the SNP and Conservatives are penalised by the existing Westminster system and a clear majority of their MSPs wi 11 be elected by AMS regional lists. The politics of a governing majority Translating the 1992 and 1997 Scottish general election results into the Scottish Pari iament electoral system (see Table 1) i 11 ustrates how far Scottish politics will be transformed. Whereas in 1992, on 45.6% of the vote, Scottish Labour secured 78% of the seats at Westminster, in the new Pari iament it wi 11 win 49 % of the seats. The changes between the two hypothetical Scottish results also underlines that whereas at Westminster small changes in the vote can produce massive changes in seats such as the wipe-out of the Scottish Tories, under the new system, changes in representation would be more subtle and less distortive. Table one: Scottish Election results 1992-1997 Westminster System Scottish Parliarrentray System No. of seats womn No. of notional seats won 1992 1997 change 1992 1997 change Labour 49 56 +7 54 63 +9 SNP 3 6 +3 28 28 0 Con. 11 0 -11 30 22 -8 Lib D=m 9 10 +1 17 16 -1 Seven possible governing scenarios are possible in Scotland's four party system with 65 seats needed by any single party or combination of parties to achieve an overall majority of one: e a Labour majority administration . Although unlikely, Labour won 49.9% of the Scottish vote in 1966, which would be enough to win it than 50% of the seats in the new Parliament. e a Labour minority administration. This could be feasible on Labour's 1997 showing-where it missed an overall majority by a mere two seats. e a Lab-Lib coalition. This would be viable in both 1992 and 1997 with 71 and 79 seats respectively. e an SNP minority administration. On neither the 1992 or 1997 results is this a runner, with the SNP group on its best showing still trailing Labour by 26 seats. e an SNP-Lib Dem coa lition. This wou ld again be unlikely on any figures- in 1992 such an alliance fel l nine seats short of Labour. e an SNP-Conservative agreement. On the 1992 figures, such an arrangement wou ld have four more seats than Labour which if a Lab-Lib coalition was not possible, could stand a chance, but not until the Conservatives have proven their Scottish credentials. e an anti-Labour front. As long as Labour falls short of an overall majority, this unlikely alliance wou ld be able to command a majority, but seems highly improbable for the foreseeable future. Some commentators wi 11 argue that some of these alliances seem extremely implausible. However, this makes the mistake of judging Scottish politics from its current framework, rather than imagining the new dynamics that could be unleashed by a Parliament. An SNP-Lib Dem coalition could be a viable governing bloc without an overall majority as long as it had more seats than Labour, allowing it to operate with the tacit approval of the Conservatives. And while an SNP-Conservative agreement or three party anti- Labour front is improbable at the moment as a governing coalition, it has possibi I ities as an issue-based alliance. In the longer term, once the Conservatives come back into Scottish politics from the wilderness, the three main opposition parties could find common ground in dismantling the local Labour state of patronage and privi lege. New alliances and understandings will emerge which seem far-fetched now. Malcolm Rifkind raised the possibilities of an anti-nationalist alliance between Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems to resist the separatism of the SNP. This met with a favourab le response from Labour w ith a spokesperson commenting: 'If they want to make the Parliament work we will work with them. The SNP want to destroy the Parliament in favour of independence. We wi ll do anything we can to protect the Parliament.' 25 How this would work in practice is still unclear, with the likelihood of a 'grand coalition' of the Unionist parties to resist the SNP unlikely, but it does show that Labour wi 11 have to work and co-operate with the Conservatives, something it has long thrown abuse at the SNP for. lt also underlines the extent of Labour hostility towards the SNP and its confusion over strategy in response to the SNP's recent rise in the opinion polls. A new era of voter choice Numerous questions remain about the potential politics of the Pari iament. Who wi ll the Scots identify as best placed to advocate for Scotland's interests? Opinion polls have consistently shown that there is a bias in favour of the S Pin comparison to Westminster elections of between 8% and 20%. There has also been a discernible rise in the Westminster/Scottish Parliament deviation in favour of the SNP who have seen their support rising for the past seven months (see Table 2). The System Three poll of May 1998 which gave Scottish Parliament voting intentions showing the SNP on 41 % and Labour on 36 % was the highest ever opinion poll rating gained by the SNP and was their first lead over Labour in twenty one years in the summer of 1977. The April1998 System Three poll showing Labour and SNP level confirmed the unprecedented degree of fluidity in Scottish politics with 15% of Westminster Labour voters and 23 % ofTory voters switching to the SNP in the Scottish elections. 26 Table 2: Scottish voting preferences for Westminster and Scottish Parliamentary elections. W estm inste r Lab SNP Con Lib Lab lead over S p G .E. May 1 9 9 7 46 22 1 8 1 3 + 2 4 Nov. 97 5 1 24 1 2 1 2 + 2 7 Feb . 98 so 25 1 1 1 2 + 2 5 Mar. 98 46 28 1 4 1 1 + 1 8 Apr. 98 48 28 1 2 9 + 2 0 M ay 98 44 30 1 4 1 1 + 1 4 Scottish Parl iament Nov . 97 48 29 1 3 9 + 1 9 Feb . 98 44 3 3 9 1 2 + 1 1 Mar. 98 39 38 1 2 1 0 + 1 Apr.98 40 40 8 1 0 0 M ay 9 8 36 41 1 1 1 0 -5 Source:System Three polls; The Herald What the series of polls also confirm is that Scottish politics has become a two party contest between Labour and the SNP, with the SNP beginning to gain a monopoly of non-Labour votes. This is due to the long-term decline of the Conservatives and medium term decline of the Liberal Democrats. In the 1983 election, the combined Labour-SNP vote was 47%, whereas in 1997 it totalled 68% and in the May 1998 poll for the Pari iament has risen to 77%. In the same period, the Conservative vote has fallen from 28% in 1983 to 11 % in 1998, and the Lib Dems from 24% to 1 0%. Scottish politics for the new Parliament have shifted from the asymmetrical system of Labour dominance of the last forty years to a competitive party contest between Labour and SNP. While a large part of the SNP's gaining has been at the expense of the Conservatives and Lib Dems, the bad news for the SNP is that there is only so far that they can squeeze both parties. The SNP have probably reached the plateau of their support at 41% winning third and fourth party support and know that in such a four party system it has to win over Labour votes to become the largest party. The previous high of the SNP at a national election was 33% in the 1994 Euro-elections, a 'second-order' election the SNP traditionally poll well in and it seems likely they will poll at least this in the first Scottish Pari iament elections. 27 SNP coalition strategy is currently divided on the issue of a referendum on independence. Even on the most optimistic electoral scenarios for the SNP it would need the Lib Dems to achieve a governing majority and they have made it clear that they wi 11 not sanction another constitutional referend urn so soon after the previous one. Some in the SNP see the issue of a referendum as negotiable, others as an article of faith, and while this has overlaps with the gradual ist/fundamentalist divide in the SNP, it is also influenced by considerations of broader strategy for the Pari iament. The SNP precondition of a referendum may well prevent it winning a share of political power, irrespective of how well it does in the first Scottish Pari iamentary elections, but this could be the deliberate intention of the party leadership. They are more than aware of the lack of political experience of their candidates and may wish to have a first Pari iamentary term in opposition resourcing and ski lling them. A more likely SNP strategy involves sitting as the largest opposition party criticising the narrow powers and impotence of the Scottish Pari iament as they see it, wh i1st waiting for more deep seated unease to emerge with the Labour Government, and confident, that in the longer-term, trends in Scottish politics wi 11 favour the SNP. How widespread will the practice of ticket-splitting become in a world of voter volatility? Could Labour voters in FPTP seats be more inclined to vote SNP in the AMS seats given that the SNP is the second preference of most Labour voters? Ticket splitting already exists at a number of levels, with, for example, in the High lands Region, there being a long tradition of voting for Independents at council level, Liberal Democrat for Westminster and SNP for the European Pari iament. A May 1998 Scotland on Sunday poll gave some clues here showing a distinct difference between how voters would vote in the FPTP and AMS seats: in FPTP: Labour 42 %, SNP 36%; in AMS: Labour 36%, SNP 39% (see Table 3) . This showed a large degree of movement between first and Table 3:Scottish Voting Intentions, May 1998 Lab SNJ Con Lib Lab lead over SNJ UK Parliarrent 47 27 16 9 +20 Scottish Pari iarrent: FPTP 42 36 12 9 +6 Scottish Pari iarrent: .AM) 36 39 11 11 -3 Source: ICM polls; Scotland on Sunday. second votes with 30% of Labour first votes moving to the SNP for the second vote, 20% of SNP first votes moving in the opposite direction, and 13% of Conservative first voters sw itching to the SNP. 28 This is above the differences between Westminster and Scottish Parliament voting where a significant section of the Labour vote is currently switching to the SNP. The new political dynamics of the Pari iament will allow the opportunity to develop new forms of collaboration which begin to shift and redefine the way we think about Scottish politics. However, whether the Parliament challenges the values of the Scottish consensus or supports it depends on what kind of model of collaborative politics it practises and how the Parliament sees itse lf in relation to other political and social forces . In I ikel ihood, the Pari iament wi 11 see its role as the defender of the Scottish status quo. lt will be a challenge to those wanting a more enabling and pioneering Pari iament to force open the debate about the Scottish internal settlement. 6. The impact of a Scottish Parliament on party organisation The processes and dynamics of the new political environment of a Parliament wi ll have many repercussions on all the political parties and particularly at organisational levels. The major political parties are all currently setting up mechanisms for candidate selection for the May 1999 elections. This cannot sjmply be a reproduction of Westminster procedures as parties have to choos~ two types of candidates: FPTP and AMS while l~bg• 1r is committed to the method of twinning to achieve gender equality in ca ndidates. -.. All the parties are attempting to go beyond the narrow social groups of professional politicians, middle class vested interests and pressure groups from which most MPs are drawn. T.h.e SNP's six MPs have all expressed the desire to return to Scotland, leaving the question of who will represent them in Westminster, while of the Lib Dem's ten Westminster MPs only two, Jim Wallace and Donald Gorrie, have indicated a wish to stand for the new Pari iament. The Scottish Conservatives, sti 11 reel i and t i ng to recover from tbe1997wipe-out,areconsideringstandingonly73EPTPcan i ates ort e 129 seats with their 56 AMS ea d from the FPTP group. 29 This seems a public recognition of the [ack of talgnt and q~~ality ~s available to the Conservatives. Table 4. Scottish Parliamentary seats on 1997 election voting Vote% FPTP seats AMS seats Total Lab. 45.6 56 7 63 SNP 22.1 6 22 28 Con. 1 7.5 0 22 22 Lib. Dem. 13.0 1 1 5 16 Source: John Curtice, Strathclyde University. The Scottish Labour Party faces the most difficult balancing act of all : if too few of its Scottish MPs opt to stand for the Parliament, opponents will say it is because it is a pseudo-Parliament, but, if too many stand, it will be seen as blocking new talent and continuing the old politics. Currently 9 out of 56 MPs have made their intentions to stand for the Scottish Parliament clear. lt is more a question of quality than numbers, with one senior Labour source quoted as saying: 'Most of those who have said 'Yes' so far are has-beens or never-will bes. That's not a great start.' 30 The different balances between FPTP and AMS MSPs in each parliamentary grouping will have wider repercussions (see Table 4). Labour will have relatively few AMS candidates elected because it wi 11 win few top up I ist members. Analysing the 1997 election results onto the AMS Euro- constituencies illustrates Labour's problem here. In May 1997 Labour did so well in Scotland under FPTP winning on 46% of the vote 78% of the seats, that their is little room for it to win AMS seats. In Labour's Central Belt heartlands it will have a good chance of winning no extra AMS seats and on the 1997 voting figures Labour would not win any AMS seats in three out of the eight E uro-seats. The electoral balances in the eight gigantic Euro seats will become familiar to political strategists over the next year. Labour start with a majority in seven out of the eight FPTP seats with entire or predominant Labour representation in four of the eight. This changes with the AMS seats to four of eight seats having Labour majorities and in most the SNP being the main opposition. Analysis by John Curtice of current oil ratin s shows the SNP becoming the lead a in · rth East Scotlan an Mid Scotland and Fife. These are all outside the Central Belt, but on its current support the SNP would dowell across Scotland, winning six out of the seven AMS seats in Glasgow and all of the seven in the Central Scotland seat. The SNP's repeated failure under FPTP means that even when it establishes a national lead over Labour this does not convert into constituency seats. The SNP and Conservative groups will be made up predominantly from list members. Indeed, one interesting question at the elections wi 11 be whether the Conservatives can regain enough strength to win a single Westminster style constituency, or whether they will face the humiliation of having all their MSPs elected by the AMS system, which they opposed? The odds are at the moment that they will not win a single FPTP seat in the Scottish Pari iament. The SNP may try to develop tactical and issue-based alliances with Labour MSPs, particularly on its left-nationalist wing against a Labour Government at Westminster. However, the probable balance of the SNP group in the Scottish Parliament will work against this with most of it being drawn from the Central Belt unlike the current Westminster group which is drawn exclusively from rural parts of Scotland. This new political geography of Scotland will increase, not decrease Labour-SNP tensions with Labour MSPs from the West of Scotland seeing the influx of new SNP AMS members as intruding on their 'territory'. Political parties and policy making in the new Parliament Party policy making will need to be addressed. Ihe SNP has no problerm here being an exclusively Scottish partt. The Scottish Conservatives and Lib Dems are separate parts of British organisations and the development of their bodies into distinct policy making bodies should not be a quantum leap. However, despite this formal reality, t itude required in particular for the Scottish Conservatives to develop a forwar t in i ng relevant Scottish agenda when for at least two decades they have fOTfowed on the coat-tails ofThatcherism is an enormous challenge and change. it is one that currently seems beyond the depleted resources and ski lis of the Scottish ConseNatives. The challenge will be even greater upon Scottish Labour, in part because it is the leading party in Scotland, but also the most centralist and London run. Through the 18 years of ConseNative rule, Scottish Labour activists agitated for greater autonomy and powers for the party, but little power has actually sh ifted from London to Scotland. The Pari iament demands that a Scottish party has sovereignty over its policy-making manifesto, election of leader and deputy-leader, and candidate selection. The structures Labour has devised to put in place candidates for the Parliament show the conflicting processes with input from the Scottish and British executives, allowing the opposition parties to trumpet their Scottish credentials. The Scottish party is thus currently caught in a conundrum. The case for Scottish Labour autonomy is right in principle, but in practice, British Labour advice and support is needed as the Scottish party does not currently have the resources or skills to develop as an autonomous party to initiate competitive election or modernisation strategies. The first Scottish Parliament will be a mixture of politicians with different political backgrounds. A minority of them will have already been at Westminster, while the majority will not have been. The first Parliament will be a transitional Pari iament with a generational divide between younger politicians shaped and focused primarily on Scottish politics and those socialised by British politics and Westminster, with the former group growing in number and influence as the Parliament establishes itself. The size of the Scottish Executive and payroll vote A Scottish Pari iament wi 11 also be shaped by th e size of the Scottish Executive and payroll vote of the governing majority. Differing estimates of the size of the executive range from Donald Dewar's mini vision of six Ministers comprising the First Minister and the five Government Ministers of the current areas of Scottish Office responsibility to th e SNP notion of a full blown Cabinet of 20 members. 31 Given that the Scotland Bill does not contain any limitation on the size of the Scottish Executive, a number in between these two extremes is likely, probably at or around ten, which will then be supplemented by junior ministers and whips to produce a payroll vote of about 20 MSPs. Considering that the minimum governing majority in the Parliament is 65, this means that any payroll vote will comprise between just under 1/3 to over 1/4 of its number. The present Labour Government has a payroll vote of 122 out of 418 MPs in the Commons-just over a quarter; a Scottish Pari iament would start off with a potential larger proportion of the governing bloc sucked into government with all the distortions this poses for legislation, backbench revolts and consultation between backbenchers and executive. What also has to be considered is the natural inclination of Parliaments over time to increase the payroll vote and to increase the control executives have over their legislatures, and a Scottish Pari iament will be no exception . With the more than certain likelihood that any governing majority will be ~e"P of two or more parties in alliance or coaliti<'A, there >.:GYIS{re tensions within any executive, with the junior partner in any coalition, at rfoints, feeling the need to publicly play to an audience to emphasis their continued independence. Coalition politics could also increase the pressure on producmg a large payroll vote to share out the largesse fairly between competing parties. This makes all the more persuasive a case for inclusion in Standing Orders of rules limiting the number of the Scottish Executive and payroll vote to say, ten and twenty, respectively in a 129 member Parliament, except where a two-thirds majority of a Parliament overturns this. 32 Fundamental changes are needed to Parliamentary arrangements and powers to establish the Scottish Pari iament as a model of contemporary practice, rather than some arcane agency like much of Westminster and local government. A Consultative Steering Group has been set up chaired by Henry Mcleish, Scottish Office devolution minister, to look at parliamentary procedures and has all-party representation, as well as members from academia and the voluntary sector. 33 We can start afresh with a new body, looking at what are the most realistic and accessible hours for good governance, simplifying parliamentary procedure and language, issues such as proper timetabl i ng_ for debates and making it a people's p~liament without ritual , honour and pomp dropping terms of address such as ' honourable member' and 'right honourable member'. Some in the Scottish Labour Party see the mark of making it a real)~ Pari iament copying Westminster traditions such as having a Queen 's Speech and Honours List, but this confuses artifice for reality. The powers of the Pari iament must allow the legislature to hold the executive to account, via powerful Departmental Select Committees which should have the power to examine bills in draft to improve the quality of legislative drafting. A process of Green Paper, White Paper and draft bi 11 for major legislation which could be only fast-tracked or opted-out on a two thirds majority of the Pari iament. Senior Government and pub I ic appointments should be scrutinised and approved by committee, and Departmental Select Committees have a duty to report each year on the expenditure programmes of their Departments including the increasing quangocracy to ensure 'proper accountability of the new public sector.' 34 Many of the above changes have been suggested by Parliamentary reformers for the House of Commons such as Peter Riddell. The adoption of such open and transparent procedures by a Scottish Parliament wil l aid the process of debate and reform in the Commons. 7. The challenge of new labour to Scottish politics New Labour's modernisation project has challenged many of the central assumptions of Scottish politics and its home rule consensus.Scottish politics is characterised by a conservative four party system with no party of the radical left or right. The experience of the Thatcher years under! i nes this point as, much to her chagrin, the Thatcherite revolution found I ittle support in the Scottish Tories or Scottish Office ministers who she saw as having gone native. 35 All four parties occupy the centre ground and have been only fundamentally differentiated on constitutional issues and their view of the Union. The politics of the Parliament will demand that the political parties focus and differentiate on economic and social issues: what Tom Nairn has called the 'repol iticisation' of Scottish politics. 36 Scottish Labour is simultaneously both the party of radical change: of renegotiating and modernising the Union, while being the party of the internal Scottish status quo. New Labour is seen by some in the Scottish political classes as Engli sh dominated and orientated. Scottish and British Labour have never had an easy relationship. it has never been a relationship of equals. At crucial moments in Scottish politics, 1974 and 1995, British Labour has imposed on Scottish Labour what was the right devolution policy in opposition to the Scottish party. In 1974, the British Labour leadership imposed a pro-devolution policy on the Scottish party dumping a formal anti-devolution stance of 16 years; in 1996, the Blair · leadership imposed a two question referendum on a Scottish Parliament on the Scottish party overturning a 17 year policy. If the Scottish party had been able in these circumstances to practise the degree of autonomy it now demands, we would not be sitting in the fortuitous position we now do. Scottish Labour has previously engaged in a delicate balancing act between its Unionist and nationalist perspectives. The politics of the Pari iament wi 11 require a new balancing act in which Scottish Labour adopts a Scottish approach, while Labour in Scotland champions a British strategy for the UK Parliament. The success or not of this multi-level territorial approach will depend on the emerging relationship and settlement between the two Pari iaments, and whether it allows Scottish Labour to develop ad isti nctly Scottish strategy to the exclusion of British issues in relation to the Parliament. An example of how this could work in practice can be provided by British Labour's ability to be able to work at a European level, remaining British first and foremost, while developing a distinct European agenda, a distant second. Labour's antipathy towards the SNP A fundamental problem for Scottish Labour is its constantly changing attitude towards the SNP. A large section of Labour feel nothing but antipathy for the SNP who do not correspond to the simple class politics of Labour and Tories. At the same time, Labour have also recognised at times the need to form alliances with the SNP as happened in the 1997 referendum. ~After the decisive 'Yes, Yes' result, Labour felt it had got too close to the SNP 1and had to open up 'clear tartan water'. This was the rationale behind the bitter attacks on the SNP by the party leadership at the 1998 Scottish Labour conference with Ceorge Robertson, Defence Secretary calling them 'snake oil peddlers' and Donald Dewar labelling them 'wreckers' and 'dishonest.' 37 One month later, shocked by the SNP drawing level with Labour in the polls, this approach was hurriedly reversed with a Labour strategist admitting they had 'blundered last month by launching bad-tempered attacks on the SNP.' One Labour so urce promised: 'From now on, it's positive, positive, positive.' 38 What the above i 11 ustrates is the profound sense of confusion that the existence and popularity of the SNP leaves Scottish Labour in. The intemperate language used to attack the SNP shows a complete lack of awareness of how most Scots view the SNP-as a party that promotes and represents Scottish interests. More than half of all Scots have consistently over the last twenty years believed that the SNP were good for Scotland 39 and have seen it as a defender of Scottish interests and the kind of attacks Labour has indulged in are ineffective and will rebound on it. A more realistic approach is to present the positive record of Labour achievement in office matched with a radical vision for the future. As Cordon Brown said recently: 'The debate in Scotland is going to come back to the issues that matter to the eo le of Scotland, that is education, jobs, heal h and how we can create o ort r t e uture. 40 lt is on this territory that Labour has to se ll what it has done in its first year and its plans for Scotland, versus the unreal isable politics of the SNP. Talking about economic and social issues is vital if we are to move Scotland from the politics of the status quo; continuing the Scots obsession with constitutional change which the SNP would perpetuate would negate the chances for real change in the peoples' I ives. In this sense the SNP are the inheritors of the old Labour tradition and the Scottish consensus which has to be challenged. Most Scots see the SNP as a centre-left social democratic party, but for Labour to successfully attack them, it has to discard the old agenda of Scottish Labour. A radical and challenging Scottish Labour politics seems far away at the moment. Donald Dewar may have the advice of the new Scottish Labour Director of Communications and a third special adviser, as well as the support of Cordon Brown, but the party does not currently have a vision and strategy for the future. This requires fundamental change. Many senior Scottish Labour politicians see themselves, and are seen by Scots, as British politicians rather than Scots setting a British agenda. This reduces ~he room for a creative Labour politics and leaves Labour's Scottish heartlands open to attack from the SNP. Any Scottish Labour strategy has to come from the Scottish party, respond to Scottish circumstances, and have the right to be different from British Labour. A pivotal part of Scottish Labour's renewal will be the learning curve it will undergo when at some point in the future it does not control the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Labour Party has become more and more the political establishment in Scotland and unused to losing elections. During the 1980s it had the relative safety of winning elections in Scotland while English Labour continued losing them. Thus, it was able to blame its lack of } 1 power on the perfidy and treachery of 'the English' and the lack of political . acumen in English Labour. This built up into a politics of splendid isolation and aided a certain kind of Scottish Labour chauvinism and smugness. lt will be a complete shock to Scottish Labour to find that one day it is not running the Scottish Parliament-a body it will tend to see paternalistically as 'its Parliament'. As its electoral hegemony has increased in Scotland, so it has acted in a more angry and ugly manner to challengers and particularly to the rise of the SNP which does not auger well for the moment when it finds an anti-Labour majority running the Parliament. What this will be is a defining moment for the new Scotland and Scottish Labour, where it wi 11 not be able to blame its predicament on others, but will have to begin a painful and long overdue process of renewal and modernisation. This will be a point where Scottish Labour grows up. 8. The West of Scotland labour question Scottish Labour is the dominant party in Scotland and has been since 195~. How it sees itse lf reflects and influences how Scotland sees itself. The Scottish party's doctrine and ethos, to use Drucker's phrase,41 are distinct from the British party's and have allowed it to look two ways at the same time: to talk a left politics, while practising a politics of caution and inertia. A central part of the Scottish Labour coa lition and its power base as the principal party of the political establishment and champion of the Scottish status quo is the West of Scotland Labour Question. This is a much more important political issue than the arcane West Lothian Question, which unlike Tarn Dalyell's dilemma, can be answered and addressed: namely, t~ shameful record and uali of many of Labour's representatives at a local an parliamentary level in the West o Scotland. Labour councillors who predominate in the area are generally male and middle aged with a network of similar friends who support each other and maintain collective power and influence.42 The Labour one-party local states of the West represent a politics of a past Scotland of hierarchies and certainties unmotivated by such concerns as ideas of participation and consultation, quality services, consumer rights and equal opportunities. Once upon a time this Labour machine politics delivered in the West of Scotland, but now it exists for itself. Labour's problems in the West are also evident by recent controversies surrounding a number of MPs. Labour's problems at a local government and national level have been aided by its uncontested control of the West of Scotland-where it has 31 out of 32 MPs and 11 out of 12 local authorities. Its dominance of local government increased throughout the 1980s, and this has aided Labour's problems when combined with two other factors. First, there was no widespread infusion of new left 'local social ism' by Labour councils beyond brief experiments in Edinburgh and Stirling. This meant that the traditional Labour centre-right model of the local counci I in both politics and services has remained relatively intact. Second, for a variety of reasons in the 1980s, most notably the reduction of local government to an administrative arm of central government, many talented and able Labour councillors withdrew from local politics, leaving an even less representative and imaginative group of Labour councillors to manage counci Is in increasingly difficult circumstances. The revitalisation and modernisation of local government is an immense challenge. The introduction of proportional representation for local councils would be a bold and radical move, but it would on ly be a start. Andrew Adonis, in a recent survey, states that PR would not dismantle entirely the one party local state, but would reduce the number of councils where one party has overall control to thirteen, with Labour control nearly halving from twenty to eleven. No electoral system can be devised which would wrestle control of Glasgow from Labour when it gains 61 .5% of the vote, but it is surely wrong that it gains 93% of the city's representation in the 1995 elections in return. A proportional representation wou ld mean the 39 % of Glasgow voters who did not vote Labour could enjoy more than 7% representation, and this would then be reflected in the cu lture and dynamics of city politics. Adonis puts it: 'The most typical result of electoral reform would be an increase in pi ural ism and scrutiny within the council chamber rather than changes in outright control of local authorities. This point deserves to be emphasised, for it runs counter to the simplistic notion that PR will at a stroke convert Scotland from entrenched local Labour majorities to a nation of hung councils.' 43 Wider cha nges are needed w ithin the cu lture of loca l government to attract a broader range of people into the service of their communities. This is particularly relevant when the Scottish Pari iament wi 11 attract some of the brightest and most ambitious local politicians. The committee structure of counci Is needs to give way to a system of Cabinet administration, while councillors' expenses (widely discredited) need to be replaced by a system of proper renumeration. Beyond this local decision making needs to be opened up to a variety of means such as citizens juries and local referenda which involve people more. Scottish Labour has to address the West of Scotland prob lem by more than selection procedures at a local and parliamentary level, important though they are. The selection processes established for approving Scottish Labour pari iamentary candidates aroused fears of a New Labour rout of old Labour, but from an eq ual opportunities point of view have the prospect of opening the party up to new talent and discriminating against the old boys networks which have dominated the party for so long. The party has now rightly decided to introduce a simi lar set of procedures for establishing a panel for local government candidates in 1999. However, Labour wi ll need to address the state of its Scottish Labour grass roots if it is to fundamentally tackle prob lems. Labour membership in Scotland has increased dramatically under Blair's leadership from 19,321 to 30,371, but this has not challenged or changed the closed world of many local parties. The Labour Party has recognised this with its Heartlands Project which targets Labour seats won throughout 18 years of opposition and uses the same skills that were used on marginal seats in the 1997 election. The aim is to revitalise these seats, increase membership and activities, and feed into local Labour politics: 'The Heartlands Project is directly relevant to the drive against corruption and cl iqueism in Labour town halls.' 44 A new Labour politics is needed which sees CLPs as places of social, networking and political activities, and whi ch recogni ses the political realities of a society in which local Labour Parties do not hold a monopol y on political activities, but have to compete with a world of press ure and mtere t group . LP ha to be ome centre of d1 cu 1on and debate, campa1gn , fundra1 1ng, o 1al1 mgand networkmg 1th other agenCies, allov 1ng member to opt-1n to hate er act1v1t1e they are mterested in. 9. What become of the British Parliament? h W t Lothian Qu tion an yd1d not I.J- h W t Lothian Qu tion an yd1d not I.J- years: an imbalance of nearly ten to one. 5 1 lt is the distortive FPTP electoral system which produces such a predominantly Labour bloc for Scotland and has at points rewarded the Conservatives in England: proportional representation will reduce the visibility and seeming injustice of Scots MPs voting at Westminster on non- Scottish issues, and cou ld allow for in/out arrangements on English matters as the chances of a Conservative majority in England would be reduced . The English Question Labour's proposals also raise questions in relation to England. Can the United rvi a coherent enti when Scotland, Wales and Northern Jrel;wd have their own national assemblies and Par iaments? Is it possible that the London regional authority could be the beginning of a new era of English regional decentralism or is it only a new layer of loca l government? The Labour leadership are well aware of the potential explosive nature of the English question. The immediate response in this Parliament could be something I ike an English Grand Committee, but that wou ld be a stop gap so lution and cou ld be counterproductive in acting as a cata lyst to disgruntled English nationalists on both the Labour and Tory sides. The medium term answer beyond one Parliament is patchwork decentralisation to English regions that want it along with proportional representation at a British level to institutionalise the new settlement, followed by in the long run, a federal or overall decentralising framework. Labour's approach has simi larities to She Spanish model which began with Statutes of Autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque Country backed by popular referendums in 1979 which were followed by the 1982 harmonisation laws (LOAPA) which led to the creation of seventeen autonomous provinces. 52 33 years: an imbalance of nearly ten to one. 5 1 lt is the distortive FPTP electoral system which produces such a predominantly Labour bloc for Scotland and has at points rewarded the Conservatives in England: proportional representation will reduce the visibility and seeming injustice of Scots MPs voting at Westminster on non- Scottish issues, and cou ld allow for in/out arrangements on English matters as the chances of a Conservative majority in England would be reduced . The English Question Labour's proposals also raise questions in relation to England. Can the United rvi a coherent enti when Scotland, Wales and Northern Jrel;wd have their own national assemblies and Par iaments? Is it possible that the London regional authority could be the beginning of a new era of English regional decentralism or is it only a new layer of loca l government? The Labour leadership are well aware of the potential explosive nature of the English question. The immediate response in this Parliament could be something I ike an English Grand Committee, but that wou ld be a stop gap so lution and cou ld be counterproductive in acting as a cata lyst to disgruntled English nationalists on both the Labour and Tory sides. The medium term answer beyond one Parliament is patchwork decentralisation to English regions that want it along with proportional representation at a British level to institutionalise the new settlement, followed by in the long run, a federal or overall decentralising framework. Labour's approach has simi larities to She Spanish model which began with Statutes of Autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque Country backed by popular referendums in 1979 which were followed by the 1982 harmonisation laws (LOAPA) which led to the creation of seventeen autonomous provinces. 52 33 } 34 10. Conclusions: from the old to the new Britain Labour's current constitutional reforms have begun the process of redefining the politics of the the United Kingdom. Its first year in office has seen four referendums: in September 1997 on Scottish and Welsh devolution, and in May 1998 on a London Mayor and assembly and the Irish peace settlement. This is a time of new openings and movement -and uncertainty about the longer term i m pi ications. These reforms are rightly seen as the start of a process rather than a finished package, and if this is so, the constitutional politics that are emerging wi 11 be by definition unclear and open to interpretation for the first few years. Labour's current proposals, particularly in relation to Scotland, are a carefully ca lculated political compromise between the pressures for Scottish self- government which have grown particularly since 1979, and the need for a 'limited politics' agenda to win the voters of Middle England. By arguing that the governance of the U K is fundamentally unaffected by Scottish devolution Labour has attempted to maintain the concept of Westminster sovereignty while simultaneously bringing a new territorial politics into being. The same argument is made in the claim that there are no constitutional implications in European Monetary Union (EMU). Such an approach attempts to be different things to different groups: radical in the context of Scotland, but maintaining the status quo at the British level. This is a politics developed for short-term expediency, and it will not do as a long-term constitutional arrangement. In spite of Westminster's attempts to retain power and supremacy, the establishment of three additional Parliaments and Assemblies in the UK will inevitably create a new and fluid political situation. This is already clear in the Northern Irish peace process, which has territorial implications for the whole of the UK. The establishment of bodies such as the inter-governmental Counci l of the British Isles w ill require new political and geographical relationships and structures to be built not only in terms of 'North-South' but also of 'East-West' btween the constituent parts of the British Isles. The politicsof Westminster sovereignty are already beginning to weaken. They will decline further under Labour's proposals, as power passes not only downwards to these new bodies but upwards to the various institutions of the European Union and across to increasingly interventionist courts, empowered by incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights. This new territorial politics has to be carefully managed through the transitional period of asymmetrical devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The way in which Scottish home rule changes England is still open, but it is certainly true that the English question has to be dealt with separately, and that a new United Kingdom cannot arise without a new England. Labour's programme of constitutional reform leaves a United Kingdom severely imbalanced, where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have different, but substantial degrees of devolution, and England has none. In Lord Rees-Mogg's words: 'We cannot have a situation indefinitely in which the English are run by the United Kingdom Pari iament and everyone else is run by their own Parliament.' 53 In the long term this is not sustainable settlement. As Robert Alexander comments: 'There are powerful arguments that to be workable a system needs to be symmetrical, otherwise those with more power wi 11 be resented by those with less, while at the same time being tempted to claim yet more autonomy for themselves as an admittedly "special case."' 54 Therefore, while Labour's asymmetrical devolution policies are undoubtedly the right response for the country's present needs, vision and thinking are needed to make sure they succeed in the longer term. Tbe key here is to recognise that the I I K has never, despite all the protestation. been a unitarx: state but a union state with many distinct and detailed local arrangements. lt has never had administrative standardisation on the French model. 55 The ne~d for overal l national symmetry does not preclude diversity in governing arrangements at different levels. Indeed Labour'sown traditions of decentralism and loca l initiative can help to provide a road map from the 'Old Britain' to the more diverse 'New Britain' now emerging. For the Labour Government to articulate the potential of this 'New Britain' it has to find the right balance between short-term politics and long-term vision, and at the moment there are tensions between the two. Labour's constitutional reforms are being sold as a series of piecemeal responses to different sectional and territorial demands without recourse to a bigger picture or a sense of vision. Labour needs to have an idea of the kind of Britain that wi ll emerge from this radical programme of democratisation and 'do some thinking about how the new settlement is to be underpinned from the centre. ' 56 To undertake this, the Labour leadership need to clear up ambiguities in their understanding of the United Kingdom-between a unitary and union politics. In its first year of office, the Labour Government has shifted between the two concepts, regularly invoking a clear and unambiguous sense of a unitary politics in its central control of communications, while in its understanding of popular culture and its rhetoric of a 'New Britain' clearly invoking a union politics. A Labour Government with a long-term vision needs to distance itself from the unitary politics of Westminster central ism and celebrate the idea of a union politics of difference and diversity. The means to achieve this is a constitutional inquiry-a Commission on the Governance of the United Kingdom. Headed by a senior constitutional thinker, this would be a larger version of the jenkins Commission on electoral reform, with the remit to address the broader governance of the U K after devolution. Such a Commission would explore and propose coherent 1 36 rules and principles for the governance of the UK as a whole. Crucially, this would need to include a framework for English regional devolution, either of a rolling kind or of systematic reform. In examining the powers to be retained by the UK Parliament, the Commission would be required to assess the feasibility of a federal settlement and written constitution. The Commission would help to create a wider public debate on the longer term issues of constitutional reform. The timeframe for this Commission should be at least two years: if established after the Scottish and Welsh Bills received Royal Assent, it could report back before the next election. This would mean that not only would Labour have delivered on devolution to Scotland and Wales, but would be able to offer the voters proposals for setting its reforms in a coherent vision for a new kind of United Kingdom. If the chances of the Labour Government agreeing to such a body seem remote at the moment, one must ask why. The answer is surely that, despite the amount of political ground New Labour has covered to distance itself from Old Labour, elements of the latter remain. On the long term vision of constitutional reform the party is sti 11 essentially conservative. lt would be a shame if Labour only began to address the bigger picture when problems begin to emerge with its ad hoc reforms, whether these are disagreements over the Barnett formula, competition over inward investment or European funds, or conflicts on the English question. lt would surely be better for Labour if it acted before these or other problems arose. The Scottish Parliament will play a leading part in the remaking of a new, modern United Kingdom. The Labour Government has in its first year shown a commitment and drive on a range of constitutional issues which have thrown off the constitutional grid lock of the Thatcher years. However, to make these changes far-reaching, and to use them to energise a new concept of politics in the British nations, Labour needs to combine its undoubted short-term skills with long-term vision. This requires it to make tough choices about the nature of, and an overall constitutional framework for, the United Kingdom . The opportunity Labour now has before it is an historic and unprecedented one for British radicals. Notes 1. Bernard Crick and David Millar, To Make the Parliament of Scotland a Model for Democracy, John Wheatley Centre 1995. 2. jack Brand, james Mitchell and Paula Surridge, Identity and the Vote: Class and Nationality 1n Scotland, in David Denver et al (eds.), British Elections and Parties Yearbook 1993, Harvester Wheatsheaf 1993, pp. 143-157. 3. David McCrone, Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation, Routledge 1992 . 4. Tom Nairn, Old Nationalism and New Nationalism, in Cordon Brown (ed.), The Red Paper on Scotland, Edinburgh University Student Publications Board 1975, p. 24. 5. Lindsay Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, Edinburgh University Press 1994, p. 9, 180-82. 6. Alice Brown, Lindsay Paterson and David McCrone, Politics and Society in Modern Scotland, Macmillan 1996, p. 117. 7. Richard Parry, The Scottish Parliament and Social Policy, Scottish Affairs No. 20 Summer 1997, p. 37. 8. Lindsay Paterson, The Myth of Consensus, The Herald, March 11 1995. 9. Parry, op. cit., pp. 45-46. 10. Lindsay Paterson, Scottish Autonomy and the Future of the Welfare State, Scottish Affairs No. 19 Spring 1997, p. 62, 68. 11 . james McCormick and Graham Leicester, Three Nations: Social Exclusion in Scotland, Scottish Council Foundation 1998. 12 . Scottish Office figures for 1998-99 expenditure plans. 13 . Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland 1995-96, Scottish Office 1997, p. 19. 14. Figures from Alf Young, Deputy Editor, The Herald. 15. Dennis Canavan, Sovereignty of the People, in Owen Dudley Edwards (ed.), A Claim of Right for Scotland, Polygon 1989, p. 74. 16. Gavin Wallace, Introduction, in Gavin Wallace and Randall Stevenson (eds.), The Scottish Novel since the Seventies, Edinburgh University Press 1993, p. 2. 17. Scotland Forward, Scotland's Parl iament: A New Voice in Britain, A New Vision fo( Scotland, Scotland Forward unpublished paper 1997. 18. The Scottish Parliament will only retain the balance of 73 FPTP and 56 AMS seats for the first Scottish Parliament elections and an indefinite period afterwards. This is due to the future cutt1ng of Scots Westminster representation. 19. The Scotsman, March 9 1998. 20. Scotland on Sunday, March 29 1998. 21 . Th e Scotsman , April 30 1998. 22 . jack Brand, The National Movement in Scotland, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1978, p. 153; William L. Miller, The End of British Politics?: Scots and English Political Behaviour in the Seventies, Clarendon Press 1981 , p. 1 73. 23 . Lynn Bennie, jack Brand and james Mitchell, How Scotland Votes: Scottish Parties and Elections, Manchester University Press 1997, p. 114. 24. The Scotsman June 28 1994. 25. The Herald, April 10 1998. 26. The Herald, April 8 1998. 27. Peter Lynch, Professionalisation, New Technology and Change in a Small Party: The Case of the Scottish National Party, in David M. Farrell et al (eds.), British Elections and Parties Yea rbook 1996, Frank Cass 1996, pp. 21 7-33 . 28. Scotland on Sunday, May 3 1998. 29. The Scotsman, January 28 1998. 30. The Observer, January 25 1998. 31 . The Scotsman, February 4 1998. 32 . A similar proposal is contained within Crick and Millar, op. cit., p. 16ff. 33 . The Scotsman, January 14 1998. 34. Peter Riddell, Parliament Under Pressure, Victor Gollancz 1998, p. 239. 35. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, Harper Collins 1993. 36. Tom Nairn, Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited, Verso 1997, p. 180. 37. Scotland on Sunday, March 8 1998. 38. Sunday Times, April 12 1998. 39. Bennie et al, op. cit., p. 160. 40. Sunday Times, April 12 1998. 41 . H. M. Drucker, Doctrine and Ethos of the Labour Party, Alien and Unwin 1979, pp. 8-9, 31. 42. Portrait: The West of Scotland Councillor: The Durable Dinosaur, The Scotsman, August 23 1997. 43. Andrew Adonis, Voting in Proportion: Electoral Reform for Scotland 's Councils, Scottish Council Foundation 1998, p. 11 . 44. John Williams, Keeping the Heartlands Happy, New Statesman, March 6 1998. 45. Michael Keating, Scotland in the UK: A Dissolving Union?, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 2 No. 2 Summer 1996, p. 241. 46. Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland 1995-96, op. cit., p. 9, 19. 47. David Heald and Neal Geaughan, Financing a Scottish Parliament, in Stephen Tindale (ed.), The State and the Nations: The Politics of Devo lution, Institute for Public Policy Research 1996, pp. 174-178. 48. James McCormick and Wendy Alexander, Firm Foundations: Securing the Scottish Parliament, in Tindale, op. cit., pp. 108-121; Scotland 's Parliament: Fundamentals for a New Scotland Act, The Constitution Unit 1996, pp. 108-113. 49. Royal Commission on the Constitution, Volume One Report 1969-1973, Cmnd. 5460, HMSO 1973, para. 1147, p. 341. 50. Scotland's Pari iament, op. cit., p. 1 09. 51. Cordon Guthrie and Gerry Hassan, Scotland Forward Strategy Paper: Message Development, Scotland Forward unpublished paper 1997. 52. Michael Keating, Nations Against the State: The New Politics of Nationalism in Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland, Macmillan 1996, Ch. 5 Catalonia. 53. Lord Rees-Moog, quoted in George Rosie, Our Friends in the South, STV, April 23 1998. 54. Robert Alexander, The Voice of the People: A Constitution for Tomorrow, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1997, p. 114. 55. The typology of state-building and 'union' and 'unitary' states are taken from: Stein Rokkan and Derek Urwin, introduction: Centres and Peripheries in Western Europe, in Stein Rokkan and Derek Urwin (eds.), The Politics of Territorial Identity: Studies in European Regionalism, Sage 1982, p. 11. 56. Bagehot, A Heath Robinson Constitution, The Economist, April 18 1998. The author would like to thank Alice Brown, Cordon Guthrie, Mark Lazarowicz and Jim McCormick for their comments on an earl ier draft of this paper. FABIAN SOCIE'I'Y The New Scotland are exciting and dynamic times in Scottish politics, when the dreams pi rations of ov r a c ntury of home rule campaign rs are b coming a r lity. Th fast-hangingS ottish political nvironment throws up new qu stions for all th political parti s-but particularly for Labour. In thi pamphl t G rry Hass n argu s that the long-standing consensus on the Scottish centre-1 ft on th n d for devolution has meant that the d v lopm nt of a program m for what the Scottish Parliam nt will actually doh b n larg ly ignor d. He argues that to make th Pari iam nt succe d th L bour party inS otland must break with the old S ottish Labour tradition nd mbra ea mor op n, pluralistic and radical politics. Not only the 'W t Lothian Qu tion' but th 'W st of S otland Labour Question' must b dddr d. Und r hall ng fromth SNP, Labourmu td v lop an nomou S otti h tr t gy. O'-rnm ne b L1am B rn . bi n Pamphl t 586