Brown forgets Scotland and HBOS in conference speech

Given that this guy is an ultra unionist this is a damning indictment of Gordon Brown's relevance to Scotland:

Brown has forgotten his Scottish roots

by Angus Macleod, Scottish Political Editor (Times)

Anyone in Glenrothes watching Gordon Brown's big speech yesterday might have been excused for wondering what it had to do with them. Granted there were touches of the well-worn pulpit-thumping Brown style familiar to all Scots, but equally there were large swaths of the speech, on crime and health policy for example, which, because of devolution, had absolutely no relevance to the good citizens of the Fife town or anywhere else north of the Border.

Free universal check-ups for the over-40s? Extension of nursery places? No prescription charges for cancer patients? A commissioner for victims of crime? More children connected to the internet? All England and Wales only, I'm afraid.

It was a speech that underlined just how wide the domestic policy divide between Scotland and England is nowadays, especially when the party in charge in Edinburgh is different from the government in London.

Whereas Scots already have cheaper prescriptions for all, England gets free prescriptions for cancer patients in a year's time. While Scotland already has free personal care of the elderly, England, the Prime Minister pledged, is to get more financial protection for the vulnerable elderly.

The only policy initiatives mentioned by Brown yesterday that could truly be said to be UK-wide was his promised future restoration of the link between state pensions and earnings and his never-ending fight against child poverty.

On flexible opening of GPs' surgeries and new targets for curbing carbon emissions, Brown is actually catching up with the SNP administration at Holyrood.

Indeed, this very Scottish Prime Minister, apart from one glancing reference, hardly mentioned Scotland at all. He also completely ignored Alex Salmond and the SNP as if they didn't exist. Unfortunately for him, they do - and right now only the most optimistic Labour fan of Brown would bet against the Nationalists inflicting another crushing and possibly politically terminal by-election defeat on both him and Labour in a Scottish by-election in a few weeks' time.

Having said that, there were many in Labour in Scotland who will feel uplifted by Brown's rhetoric and his sermon on “fairness”. It could hardly be otherwise, perhaps. Morale in Labour north of the Border is on the floor. But the “new settlement for new times” theme of the speech will be a difficult message to sell in Glenrothes after 11 years of a Labour Government dominated by Brown and Blair, when the big issues remain food and fuel bills.

These Labour troops in Scotland will have been thrilled as much as activists in England by Brown's assault on David Cameron and the Tories. The trouble is that north of the Border, Cameron's Tories are little more than also-rans.

Nor was there any specific mention of the travails of HBOS, a strange miss given that Brown, by at last ditching his dithering last week and taking decisive action to override competition rules, could make a fair case for having saved the day for the bank. Maybe he's keeping that for a rainy day in Glenrothes. Of course, that's if he decides to go there and campaign, as an increasing number in his party in Scotland believe he must.

A failure to do so would be seen not only by his own party but also by the wider Scottish public as a complete failure of leadership from a Prime Minister who only yesterday told us that he was the right person to lead Britain through the present economic jungle. It would be a Godsend for the Nationalists who could start contemplating the size of their majority. Prime ministerial convention that the office-holder does not get his hands dirty in a by-election campaign is one thing. Prime ministerial survival is quite another. Absence will not make the hearts of Glenrothes voters grow fonder of Brown.

SHAREHOLDERS CAN STILL SAVE OUR BANK

Listening to the podcast of the exchanges in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday (18/09) it was obvious that there was wide spread shock and dismay across all parties at the possible final elimination of Bank of Scotland as an independent bank.

This process began of course with the merger with Halifax to create HBOS but the Bank had survived that and despite dubious financial speculation by some it remained a powerful player.

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have been at pains to deny any efforts to save Scottish jobs, not that this was ever in doubt. Personally I believe that Mr Brown welcomes the demise of Bank of Scotland, in fact he believes he deserves substantial credit for engineering the takeover! This shows a certain mindset where the Union Jack is all important and Scottish interests are subsumed to the 'greater good' of the British economy.

The rules have been changed to stop 'short selling' but it is too little to late and one wonders why it was not felt necessary to do so before this potential disaster for the Scottish economy had happened.

The Bank of England are also seemingly happy with the deal but any shareholder or employee of the Company must be deeply disappointed, not to mention HBOS's millions of depositors!

Mr Brown has inadvertently illustrated the urgent need for Scottish independence. An independent Government might not have saved this national bank but they would certainly have tried to do so, rather than cheering this disastrous deal.

Luckily the Bank can still save itself. If only 25% of their shareholders hold their nerve and reject this insulting offer then HBOS will survive as a separate entity.

If they do then the long term prognosis is good despite the panic and hypocrisy of the Bank of England and the British Government who appear to believe this well funded well capitalised bank was on the brink of collapse even though their own Financial Services Authority completely disagreed!

IMPORTANT NOTICE: INDEPENDENCE FIRST DEBATE

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Independence First are organising an important debate about the case for and against Scottish independence with MSP speakers from the SNP, Greens and Labour and leading Scottish academics. The debate will be held at the STUC premises, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow on Saturday the 13th of September, 1pm - 4pm (registration 12.30pm onwards). Contact Carol Walker for more information.