Inver-Mess

Readers in the North will have heard a strange noise today. I suspect it would have sounded something like this:

PPPPTTTTTHHHHHHHRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHFFFFFFFFFPP!!!!

It was, it transpires, the sound of the administration on Highland Council deflating, as the SNP Members walked out. I recall the Aviemore SNP Conference, when the Independent Councillors who turned up to welcome the Party to their balliwick painted a rosy picture, with the two sides working together and enjoying it.

Turns out it wasn't like that. The SNP were frustrated that the Independents were too independently-minded and would just ignore collective lines if they disagreed. Meanwhile, the Independents weren't overly keen on following SNP policy.

The final row came when Isobel McCallum suggested that the SNP's Pauline Munro wasn't the best possible representative of Highland agricultural interests in Europe. The SNP felt that this wasn't a polite way for their Coalition partners to talk about their Deputy Leader. They wanted McCallum out of the picture. The Independents decided to make her their Group Leader. That was that.

So what went wrong? Well, remember that before 2007, there wasn't really an administration in the sense of the word that most political followers south of the Highlands would understand. Committees and consensus were the order of the day, with most Councillors being independent, the idea of there being an administration and opposition, of fixed, disciplined political groups wasn't really valid. But in May 2007, the Independents lost their majority and there were now only 35 out of 80.

So the Independents started talking, and did a deal with the SNP, forming a Coalition that would run the show. Thing was, this wasn't how they did things. An administration requires a cohesive group, and an element of party discipline. This is the exact opposite of 'Independent'. So a Coalition administration, which is what the Highland Councillors were attempting, was always going to struggle. Either the Independents had to be less independent, or they had to stick to the old system and find a way to allow party politics into it. Neither was going to work very well. (Though, having said that, in 2007 Independents lost their majority in Argyll & Bute and Moray, and formed administrations which haven't yet collapsed - so are they vulnerable to or is this just a Highland thing? Time will tell.)

But to expect an organised political group of any party hue to let them behave like a rag-tag band of individuals is far too much to ask. The Independents weren't a group and didn't work out positions as a group - hence the SNP exasperation.

Having said that, were SNP expectations too high? Did SNP Councillors not suspect that turning a group of independent thinkers into a disciplined political fraction ready to support their administration through thick and thin was not going to be easy? Did it not occur to someone in the group that Independents are called that for a reason?

No, I think both sides didn't get the task. The Independents weren't ready for a modern, partisan administration, yet wanted to retain control so went with a formula they weren't familiar with. Conversely, the SNP assumed that a group of Independent Councillors could act like a group of SNP Councillors, or Labour Councillors, or LibDem Councillors, or Tory Councillors. Realism on both sides somehow went out the window.

So where does the Council go now?

There are 34 Indies, 21 LibDems, 17 SNP Councillors, 7 Labour and one non-aligned member, so as things stand, it's a minority Independent administration. They could always stick with this, and make deals with parties on an issue-by-issue basis: a deal with any one party could carry them over the line and get their policy through. But they'd have to act as a group, something which just isn't happening now.

They could attempt to form another Coalition, with one of the other parties. But again, the group discipline issue comes up, and why would either the LibDems or Labour want to touch them with a ten-foot pole knowing what they'll be up against? And why would they want to take part in administration which is already committed to a four-year policy slate which involves a rival party's policies and not theirs?

They could try to ditch the administration altogether, and go back to the old ways. But how do they deal with the fact that partisanship is the way of the majority of Councillors? When you're used to consensus based on free-thinking, how do you fit three organised groups with a planned set of policies and a central structure into that?

Or the LibDems, SNP and Labour could get together, and oust the Independents. But the four-year policies are still in place. And you have to get the three parties working together until 2011, so what happens when the Westminster election comes about, and a LibDem Council Leader stands alongside LibDem MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, while he's attacking SNP Council Group Leader John Finnie, the Party's candidate for that seat? And besides, as I argued in a previous post, with LibDems taking flak in Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City and Edinburgh, why would any group, other than the SNP in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and the Aberdeenshire Tories (they're tied in to agreements), want to support LibDem Councillors right now?

So there are four possible outcomes off the top of my head. And none of them work.

Mev Brown does it again

A few weeks ago I considered the future of NHSFirst, the party led by Mev Brown. Brown was the Tory candidate in Edinburgh East in the 2005 Westminster Election, an Independent in the Livingston By-Election a few months later, the UKIP candidate in Edinburgh Council's Murrayfield By-Election a few months after that, and the NHSFirst candidate in the Moray By-Election following that. Now it transpires that in Central Scotland, NHSFirst will stand on a joint ticket with Scottish Voice, the Party Political equivalent of Seinfeld (the show about nothing).

Meanwhile, while we're on the subject, Julie McAnulty revealed on my other blog, Scotland Decides, that she won't be standing on the Central Scotland Regional List after all: she'll be concentrating on the Constituency Vote in Coatbridge & Chryston. Also, the BBC report that retiring surgeon David Smith will be standing as an Independent health campaigner in Glasgow Cathcart. Oh, and I haven't heard what, if anything, Jean Turner thinks of NHSFirst.

Now, think about this: the independent health campaigners include Jean Turner, a former GP, Julie McAnulty, who I'm pretty sure is in effect a carer for her parents, and David Smith, a retiring surgeon. The NHSFirst candidate include a serial candidate and outgoing Labour member of Glasgow City Council Gaille McCann, and they now have backing from a former Tory donor. In short, NHSFirst is attracting political types, while those who have a link to health and/or the NHS stay as independents. What does that tell you?

State of Independents

I thought I'd take a look today at a few of the Independent candidates making a plea for your vote in May. We know about Campbell Martin (and you know what I think about him), and Margo MacDonald, and Jean Turner has announced that she'll be seeking in Strathkelvin and Bearsden. There are a couple of others I want to consider.

The first is Mev Brown, founder of the NHSFirst Party. This is his latest political affiliation: he was the Tory Candidate in Edinburgh East in 2005, he stood in the Livingston By-Election as an Independent, he stood in the Murrayfield By-Election for Edinburgh Council as the UKIP Candidate, and then formed NHSFirst in time for the Moray By-Election, where he stood. He is looking for your vote on the Lothian Regional List.

Now he has the benefit that his name might ring a bell to voters in Edinburgh East, Livingston and Murrayfield (if he's lucky), and by standing on an NHS banner he's ostensibly campaigning on an issue that evokes strong feelings. He's also building a presence in the 'Comments' section of the Scotsman website.

The downside is that in Edinburgh East, Livingston, Murrayfield and Moray, he wasn't particularly successful. He took fourth place and 10.3% of the vote in Edinburgh East as a Tory. As an Independent, he came eighth with 0.2% of the vote (55 people voted for him) in Livingston. In Murrayfield, he again came eighth with 0.2% of the vote, but with only four people voting for him. In Moray, he came fifth and took 1.8% of the vote, with 493 people supporting his campaign. So we have someone who is, let's be honest here, not exactly Mr. Popular. His standing certainly isn't helped by the fact that he has had four different affiliations in the last two years. Meanwhile, his comments on the Scotsman website usually involve lambasting politicians, which given his serial candidate status (and the fact that he's willing to defect to any party that will have him. or failing that, set up his own), surely means that he's criticising himself. This probably won't be his last throw of the dice either, but how ever many times he rolls it, he's going to keep rolling snake eyes...

Next I want to look at Duncan Thorp. Duncan will also be on the Lothian Regional Vote, and is campaigning against politicians. Clearly the experience of working for the Liberal Democrats has soured his attitude towards the political classes. Scottish Political News has noticed him, and isn't all that impressed. There seems to be some scepticism that the campaign will catch on with the public, and Duncan himself disagrees.

The main point he raises about the tribalism of party politics and the detachment that people seem to feel does have some resonance. Certainly I have to agree that the negative campaigning that many parties indulge in isn't helping. Personally, I believe that campaigns work: if you say, 'Here are great reasons to vote for us', people will go along with that and they'll vote for you. If you say, 'Here are great reasons not to vote for that nasty other party', then there's a good chance that people will go along with that too, and not vote for them. But they won't vote for you either as they'll have had no good reason to. Instead they'll stay at home. So Duncan's campaign has a good point, and one that's worth making.

But is it worth voting for? Well, he's had expressions of support but I don't think they'll make it to the ballot box. When you look at successful independents, they have one of two things going for them: they're either standing for a major, emotive issue, or they already have a high profile.

In the first camp, John Swinburne won the SSCUP's List seat by forming a political party based around greater support for the elderly. Jean Turner stood and won on a 'Save Stobhill Hospital' ticket. The Green Party won one seat, then added six to that tally, by campaigning on the environment (and having Robin Harper in the Parliament helped to raise his and the Party's profile in 2003). On the other side, you have Dennis Canavan, who had been a Constituency MP for more than 20 years before he went his own way and won Falkirk West by a landslide. Margo MacDonald had been an MSP for four years, and a fairly notable and controversial one at that (I speak as someone who has been pinned ot a bar by her), before she won a seat in her own right in 2003. Tommy Sheridan had gained notoriety in Glasgow as an anti-Poll Tax campaigner before his SSP won a seat in 1999, and the wider platform that gave him meant that five more SSP Candidates were returned to Holyrood with him in 2003.

And Duncan? Well, the issue of the struggle against politicians doesn't exactly set the heather alight. I find that people vote on the issues that are close to them, on the things that will affect them, on the things that interest them. People that don't like politicians tend not to even bother going to vote in the first instance, so he has to convince them to do that, and then to convince them to vote for him. Many of the cynical voters that Duncan seems out to attract tend to think that one vote makes very little difference, and he has to convince them that one MSP can make a difference. He also has to get them to stop being cynical for just a few minutes, enough for them to believe that he can make an impact and to support him at the vote. It's a big ask.

He's not helped by the fact that he hasn't got much of a profile: thanks to his website, I've found out a little about him, but then I've only been aware of his existence for a couple of weeks. That's not a good thing. Especially when Margo MacDonald, the most unspinnable woman in the universe, is on the same ballot paper as him, campaigning as he does against party hackery, only with eight years in Holyrood behind her and a huge profile.

I wish him luck, really, I do. But his problem is that he's going to need a LOT of luck. And I just don't see where it's going to come from.