Scotland's Voice

In order that 'Scotland's voice shall be heard' we Scots have decided to change our traditionally successful tactic.

Hitherto we have sent to London representatives of UK-wide political parties who could and did take a disproportionate share of the great offices of state.  Two recent Prime Ministers, three chancellors, foreign, home and defence secretaries,  the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury and numerous other ministers have been Scots.

For some reason the English, Welsh and Northern Irish used to be content to allow Scots to run the country. But that wasn't enough for us, so we have now sent to London 56 members of a purely Scottish party who, with no significant allies at Westminster, cannot hope to hold any UK office of state at all. Scotland's voice will no longer be heard in the cabinet room or in senior departments as it has been up to now.

Perhaps someone will explain to me how having our representatives shouting from outside the cabinet room is more likely to ensure that Scotland's voice is heard than having several of the most crucial seats inside was.

Confined to opposition, it will be tempting for Scotland's representatives to become shrill and peevish. We have no-one but ourselves to blame for this loss of influence. Since austerity is the current UK government's policy and the SNP demands an end to it, we can hardly be surprised if we are told we have leave to spend more money in Scotland provided it is all raised in Scottish taxes.

Scottish Referendum:Currency Plan B (for Broke?)

This is the text of my letter,  published in The Falkirk Herald last Thursday:

"It's Scotland's pound and we're keeping it," they say. We are still being treated like children who do not understand economics.

The pound is the currency of the union. It is not Scotland's pound, nor is it England's, Wales' or Northern Ireland's pound. Scotland proposes leaving the union. You cannot divorce and expect to retain the joint account. When you're single again you must establish your own account and pay your own way.

It's no good repeatedly telling your ex-partners that it's somehow in their interest to continue underwriting your debts; after the 2008 crisis they won't believe you.

If Scotland used the pound unilaterally we would have to accumulate pounds by trade, since our government could not create for itself an increased supply of a foreign currency. Failure to generate a trade surplus would thus preclude the blithely promised fairer society. You might want it, but you can't have it if you can't pay for it.

Without a central bank, borrowing would become more expensive, especially if the Scottish government followed through on its reckless threat to throw over responsibility for its share of the UK National Debt. Remember a Scottish Chancellor under a Scottish Prime Minister recently increased that debt to rescue The Royal Bank of Scotland. No-one lends cheaply to those perceived as defaulters.

Loss of financial sector jobs could easily run into tens of thousands, reducing tax revenues, increasing the Scottish government's need to borrow and raising interest rates still further.

Using sterling without agreement has costs. It's not just a matter of thumbing our noses at the rest of the UK and saying we'll do as we like.

More Thoughts on Democracy

Hardly anyone in the West can be found to argue against democracy; indeed, it is considered a truism that democracy is the best form of government. Countries moving towards democracy are regarded as making political progress, whilst those with other systems are trapped in political backwardness. When applied to systems of government, the word ‘undemocratic’ has become almost a synonym for ‘bad’.

You would certainly be excused for thinking that we believe ourselves and most of our immediate neighbours to possess democratic systems. Yet can we even define the concept? One hears elected politicians, who presumably ought to know what they are doing, regularly make a simplistic equation between democracy and majority rule.

If democracy were indeed the same thing as majority rule then of course it would be far from the best possible system of government. It is not hard to show examples of what J S Mill called the tyranny of the majority. Suppose a society to be divided upon ethnic, religious or economic grounds, such that one section was always outvoted. Would it be democratic for the majority to rob, persecute, or enslave that minority? If not, then democracy must imply limits to what the majority may do. These limits are usually understood to be human and civil rights.

Even more crudely, the doctrine of the ‘mandate’ is nowadays widely taken to mean that an elected government is empowered to put into practice any element of the manifesto upon which it stood. The voters who supported a government are held to have endorsed everything that it proposed, despite the fact that, except for the occasional referendum, there exists no mechanism by which the electorate may disagree.

Democracy means rule by the people, not the dominion of the majority, not the dominion of the largest minority (which was the UK norm between 1945 and 2010), and certainly not the dominion of the professional political class.