Brown must restore the best of British
BRITISHNESS is the theme that Gordon Brown has chosen to develop over the last two years. Now he has suddenly brought it to the top of his agenda, for reasons that are not difficult to discern. As in so many instances in recent weeks, the catalyst is David Cameron.
We owe the slightly incongruous spectacle of Gordon wrapping himself in the Union flag to the almost chemical reaction that Cameron has triggered in Britain's political culture. Brown was addressing the topic of Britishness before Cameron came on the scene: his motive then was to persuade Home Counties voters that their Prime Minister-in-waiting shared a common identity with them. The advent of Cameron has lent fresh urgency to that endeavour. Hence the Chancellor's suggestion of establishing a special day to celebrate "Britishness".
This came as part of a package of proposals, including a community service scheme for young people shamelessly filched from a recent suggestion by Cameron, and an old proposal for more reform of the House of Lords. If this is Brown's bid for prime ministerial office in a Labour fourth term, it does not look too inspiring.
The instinctive reaction of most people will be that talking too much about Britishness is, in itself, un-British. His suggestion of a British Day, along the lines of Independence Day in America, is too contrived to have appeal. His proposal that it might be combined with Remembrance Sunday has already annoyed veterans: that is a day for reflection, not for celebration.
But Brown deserves some credit for addressing the issue of national identity. His patriotic credentials are good in more than one respect: he kept Britain out of the European single currency when Blair's instinct was to embrace it. Blair contaminated the brand, in his early Cool Britannia phase. Now his would-be successor has to restore some gravitas to Labour's interface with the national identity.
Our advice to the Chancellor is: do not try to manufacture tradition - it has to evolve naturally, in response to events, as both the Fourth of July in the US and Remembrance Day here did. But it would do us no harm to reflect on the concept of being British and what it means. In Scotland, a generation ago, most people thought of themselves as British, with a strongly Scottish complementary identity: today it is more often the other way round.
But the encouraging fact is, the upsurge in Scottish consciousness that began with North Sea oil in the early 1970s has not led to electoral support for separatism or to the cultural disintegration of our British identity. It is true that someone in Sutherland will feel that identity in a radically different way from a resident of Surbiton; but the common gravitational pull is the same. Many of us are perfectly relaxed with feeling both Scottish and British.
The characteristics of a common British identity may be summarised as a love of freedom, both constitutional and personal, under law; a well developed sense of tolerance and an antipathy to any kind of zealotry; a dislike of parading our patriotism, except when we decide to let our hair down for some national celebration, combined with a calm acceptance of sacrifice when our country is under threat, as in two world wars.
In the same way that we have no written constitution - but enjoy greater stability than most nations that do - our patriotism is understated but runs deep. What we need from Brown, if he becomes prime minister, is not a contrived national festival, but a return to respect for traditional liberties and legal guarantees and to government from the benches of the House of Commons, rather than the sofa in Number 10. There is a worthwhile British way of doing things and it will be Brown's responsibility to rediscover it. If he fails, Cameron will be happy to oblige.
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=68142006Typical forelock tugging pish from the Hootsmon stable – Bring it on. The more of this garbage they try and force down our collective throat, the more we might be inclined to spit it right back at ‘em. – JOEPolitics moves on while SNP fight old battles
CHRIS DEERIN
THERE are, at a rough estimate, three ways in which political careers come to a close. The rarest of these - possibly due to it being the most sensible - is the Planned Departure. Here, an individual announces in advance their intention of giving up, allowing family, colleagues and the nation to prepare. This also buys the politician time to tie up any loose ends (such as, say, withdrawing British troops from Iraq and establishing a domestic "legacy") and to search for a lucrative post-parliamentary earner.
Then there is the Self-Inflicted Death Wound. This, ostensibly the least attractive of options, is in fact highly popular. It is currently being practised by George Galloway, shadow-boxing and mewling his way to unassailable indignity in the Celebrity Big Brother house, and Sir Menzies Campbell, who is making an impressive fist of sabotaging a lifelong ambition to lead the Liberals.
Most careers, though, finish in less dramatic fashion: in what we might call the Boiled Frog method. This is something which happens to politicians, rather than being chosen by them. It is best characterised as a sudden, almost imperceptible, slip into obsolescence; one moment alive to the possibility of political advancement, the next politically dead. Over the last few years its main victims have been Labour MPs, many of whom saw themselves as coming men and women, and who are only now realising they will never receive the belly-tightening call from Number 10 asking them to serve. In the recent Tory leadership contest both Kenneth Clarke, a 64-year-old who thought his best days were ahead of him, and the fanatically ambitious Sir Malcolm Rifkind found that they too, without noticing, had become boiled frogs.
Back in 2001, Alex Salmond appeared to have settled on a Planned Departure. Though he did not give up politics, his resignation as SNP leader at Holyrood and return to Westminster was to all intents and purposes a retirement. Holyrood was the SNP's weapon of choice, and Salmond was sloping off to the Mother parliament for a relaxing denouement to a glittering career.
But then, 18 months ago, with the SNP in an electoral funk and facing something of an existential crisis, he was persuaded to take on the leadership mantle once again. Salmond has said he will return to Edinburgh next year - the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union - at the third Holyrood general election.
Now, perhaps he will achieve his stated intention and arrive as an all-conquering First Minister, having routed Labour and established the SNP as the parliament's largest party. Last November he predicted that Scotland will have broken away from the rest of Britain within six years: that is, by 2011. To this end, he has opened negotiations with the Greens, with a view to establishing the basis for a governing coalition.
But this return to the frontline also opens up the possibility that Salmond's career will not now end with gilded reputation intact, and at a time and place of his choosing. As a gambler, the SNP leader will be aware he is once more exposing his hide to the dangers of self-inflicted disaster or - and for a risk-taker this may well be worse - an ignominious slip into obsolescence.
At the time Salmond announced his decision to return, I wrote that he "cares enough to drag himself from semi-retirement and risk his hard-won reputation, so he'd better get it right... it will not be enough to pick up where he left off... any momentum from his re-entry into the Scottish political atmosphere will be quickly lost unless he brings with him fresh ideas and an engaging narrative".
And here, I fear, lies his problem. There has been no evidence in the intervening period that Salmond has adapted his thinking to the changed political climate of the 21st century. His most recent forays into battle have centred around decisions taken by the British government 30 years ago. He is still, after all these years, shouting at "the British", still fighting the 30 Year War over oil, and the 300 Year War over identity, and still using the same, tired tactics. I find the SNP's lack of intellectual and strategic development in the last decade - especially given the increase in its elected representation, and consequently in its resources - quite staggering.
They will, ultimately, suffer for it. There is, quite clearly, a changing of the guard occurring in British politics. The impact of David Cameron's election as Tory leader is now working its way through the other main parties. Tony Blair talks openly of David Miliband and Douglas Alexander as the future of the Labour Party. The Charles Kennedy regime has been deposed by a new generation of Liberal Democrats. Despite their differing party allegiances, this new breed share centrist instincts and a world view substantially different to that of the generation which preceded them.
Scotland cannot isolate itself from this trend - nor should it. In fact, the Scottish Liberal Democrats led the way last year by installing the youthful team of Nicol Stephen and Tavish Scott at the top. Both men are among the few at Holyrood willing to address modern issues free from the diktats of anti-modern ideology. It is not enough to shout at Jack McConnell or stick to your dogma, pleasurable though these things may be. To win you must offer something better in tune with the voters' instincts. Cameron's pragmatism, for example, will win him Downing Street.
The arguments have changed, the ground has shifted and people have moved on since Salmond's salad days of the 80s and 90s. To be successful he must recognise this. If he does not, he risks resembling poor, old, obsolete George Galloway, shadow-boxing an opponent that only he can see. That is not worth coming back for.
Politics moves on while SNP fight old battles
