Liability Leaders

Say what you like expounding that there is no ‘I’ in team. Insist that collective responsibility is paramount. However, when it comes to the clinch, leaders count. Alex Ferguson’s handover to David Moyes provides a timely reminder of how individuals make a difference.

Speculation is rife that Darling is not up to the job of leading Better together. Poor Darling. From the ‘forces of hell’ unleashed by Gordon Brown’s henchmen to the forlorn vanguard of a campaign that has seen its supposedly impregnable lead wither to a precarious level.

Selecting Darling to lead a campaign that essentially required turning No into a positive always sounded like a long shot to me. Darling is an accomplished politician, but not inspirational. As Pensions Secretary and then Chancellor, he accumulated a wealth of experience in the financial technicality of politics. Fascinating for some but incredibly dour for most, and therein lies the problem. This blog has argued that the independence debate is colourful; thereby rendering grey articulation and presentation insufficient.

Fortunately for the No campaign, their opposing big beast is as much a liability as their own. For many people, Alex Salmond personifies the idea of an independent Scotland and yet, curiously, nobody in the Yes campaign seems to have been able to arrest the more unpleasant traits of the First Minister. None more so than the Salmond snigger: The condescending and dismissive cackle that greets many a question; even those posed by senior broadcasters like Andrew Marr.

Commentators point to Ed Miliband’s awkwardness and lack of authenticity as potential barriers to a Labour victory. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s pint and a fag endear his party to swathes of the electorate. If personalities matter, then perhaps both the yes and no camps could do with a changing of the guard. Neither Darling nor Salmond are doing their respective sides any favours.        

A revealing week in the media

Yesterday the Sunday Herald came out in support of a yes vote; not an endorsement of the SNP but a positive choice for independence. As referendum day looms ever closer, I suspect more of those who possess powerful voices to nail their colours to the mast. The cohort who, like me, remains open-minded also faces the crux of decision. I wrote in my first post that I felt an inclination toward yes; well this week that inclination became slightly stronger. I’ve yet to graze my shins with the macroeconomic analysis but the ideological chasm is beginning to look beyond reconciliation.

French economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is sending political shockwaves into the heart of the establishment. Right-wing commentators are digging in. The idea that extreme inequality is an essential and laudable element of capitalist society is under credible scrutiny for the first time in a generation; and those who benefit from the status quo don’t like it one bit. I managed to engage Daily Telegraph columnist, Allister Heath, into a twitter exchange about Piketty’s theory. Heath uses data showing a steady wage share to justify the equity of capitalism. However, a rising arithmetic mean can mask positively skewed data with the median failing to keep up. Just because the extortionate pay rises of the richest lift the average, it doesn’t follow that the majority are better off. Remember the old adage: Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Coincidently, I stumbled across an article by the same journalist railing against the proposed Lib Dem mansion tax. I am a passionate believer that taxing income more than wealth is disproportionate and stifles social mobility. To read Heath’s article on council tax felt like travelling back in time to the ideological debate over Poll tax. Here is the pertinent and – I think - quite shocking quotation:

One of Alexander’s arguments in favour of his plan is that it is wrong that somebody in a £700,000 home should pay the same council tax as someone living in a house worth £7m or £17m, or even £70m. But why? Houses don’t pay taxes, people do - and the point of council taxes is to finance local services, not to redistribute wealth.

So it follows that it is only right for five people on the minimum wage, sharing an HMO flat in the east end of Glasgow, to pay more than a couple living in a grand villa in leafy G12. Wasn’t it this kind of ultra Thatcherite divisiveness that caused the Poll tax riots?  Regressive taxes – where the poorest pay a greater proportion – are not conducive to an equitable society and to see them exalted in the mainstream media in 2014 is incredibly sad. Depressing but perhaps not surprising; last week a poll found that the Tories lead in the south of England while Labour are ahead in the north.

Ed Miliband told Andrew Marr yesterday that a Labour government could deliver a more just society for the whole of the UK. This is essentially the Labour argument to vote no: That there should be unity among the left to beat the Tories. But should we take the risk given the apparent popularity of the party of vested interests? Call me a cynic, but I’m not surprised that Douglas Alexander and others who stand to gain from high office are so keen to play the Labour solidarity card: Their careers depend on the union.

 

An independent Scotland would set a challenge for any right wing party: A fresh set of ideas that are commensurate with values in Scotland, not the conservative Home Counties. Capitalism can work, but it needs regulation, as the financial disasters over the last century have demonstrated. After the chilling coverage this week, the prospect of a blank canvas for Scotland does sound appealing.