Counting the Beans

I have to confess - my plan to sit down and digest the Budget in full were disrupted somewhat when my LibDem Councillor decided to come round canvassing, and also to attempt to convince me that flattening a beauty spot for the sake of two houses and the neighbours' ability to watch Cash in the Attic is worth the loss of a pleasant green space. He also said that he wasn't bothered about how I voted in a General Election - showing how much (or how little) respect the LibDems have for voters in areas where they can't print out one of those bloody bar charts.

Anyway, before I was rudely interrupted, I have to say that I wasn't expecting much from the Budget but still ended up disappointed.

It didn't help that at PMQs, Gordon Brown protested that the Tories kept going back over past decisions and should talk about the future, only for Alistair Darling to open his speech with a lengthy passage which involved going back over past decisions. Oh dear.

And I noticed that their was a plan to jack up duty on cider and alcopops, as the Treasury had spotted that they weren't making enough money out of it. Think about it: it's not about tackling binge drinking, it's about spotting that cider drinkers are paying less tax than beer or wine drinkers. And fuel duty is still going up, but in stages.

And there was the moment where Tories celebrated the adoption of one of their few ideas - lifting the stamp duty threshold - only for Labour to celebrate when an increase in the stamp duty rate for £1m+ houses.

And of course, the claim that they're helping first time buyers seems hollow when the Government axed the Ownhome shared equity scheme months ago (though at least the ISA threshold is going up).

Meanwhile, with easy credit being the source of the present financial crisis, the Government wants to gain make it easier to lend money. I found myself humming History Repeating by Shirley Bassey at that one. And gloating that the Bank Bonus Tax has netted more than double the Treasury expected to only serves to underline just how much money the banks are still dishing out in bonuses.

Then there was the real laugh: lines about how you can't cut your way out of recession and how making cuts too soon could prove disastrous, only near the end of the speech for Darling to announce that they'd already found cuts to make and that the next Comprehensive Spending Review is going to be ugly.

And at the end, a very lengthy passage about how they'd managed to rub the Tories' oses in Lord Ashcroft's mess.

So basically, the statement was riddled with contradictions and we have no idea of how a Labour Chancellor after the Election would behave. Unfortunately, David Cameron's speech was equally devoid of content - it was basically a rant about how Labour are rubbish and he should be in charge now - so we're left utterly lost. We're told that this election sees us forced to choose between two competing visions, but with just a few weeks until the election, we haven't a clue what those visions are. How dismal.

A Good Day for John Swinney

Well, that's it, with surprisingly little fuss, Scotland has a Budget for 2010-11, with the SNP, Tories, Greens and Margo MacDonald combining to pass the Bill by 66 votes to 45, with 14 abstentions.

Of course, it was a difficult time for Labour - but then, their caught once again in the Opposition Paradox. They've latched on (as any good opposition should) to the Scottish Government decision to withdraw funding for GARL, but have added a little extra hyperbole to paint the Government as having an East Coast bias. Of course, that overlooks the fact that this very same Government baulked at both EARL and the Edinburgh Trams, but had the projects basically foisted upon it by the collective will of the opposition parties. That doesn't sound like a Government with a bias towards the East Coast to me, but there you go.

The problem was, having nailed their trollies to the mast on GARL, Labour couldn't climb down, but couldn't draw up alternative spending plans which included it either, a situation which the LibDems found themselves in last year with their income tax cut demand. This time, the LibDems engaged, and got enough for them not to oppose the Budget. A lesson for Labour.

So today, Labour voted against £20million extra funding for further and higher education, which they continually seek. They voted against the new modern apprenticeships they sought last year. And they opposed the boiler scrappage scheme which their colleagues in Whitehall introduced, and they demanded. Three things which Labour have sought in the past, and all of them good ideas (along with the Greens' eminently reasonable call for the home insulation scheme, also in the Budget opposed by Labour) - and all of them not worthy of Andy Kerr's backing on the grounds that they didn't come with a white elephant railway line on the side.

So when your local Labour MSP campaigns on any of those issues, ask them why they voted against that extra money in today's Budget.

When your local Labour MSP campaigns to save your local post office, ask them why they opposed the Post Office Diversification Fund (and full credit is due to the LibDems for a great idea - I slag them off mercilessly, but they have their moments and this is one of them).

When they brag about how they've made housing a priority, ask why they voted against the extra £31million extra allocated to the housing budget.

When they talk about their green credentials, ask them why they opposed not only the home insulation scheme but also the extra £10million for wave and tidal energy.

When they criticise the Government's support for business, ask them why they opposed the increased threshold for Small Business Rates Relief.

Those are the measures opposed by Labour today. And all because they couldn't keep GARL going and balance the books.

Conversation Conservation?

In my last post, I mentioned an SNP policy which, if I were John Swinney, I'd be looking to draw a line under. Now, it would, I have to say, be categorised as a 'courageous' move, and it would perhaps cost friends. It might even look like I intended to lead a sacred cow to slaughter, but the reality is rather different. One aspect of SNP policy is not working anywhere near as well as it should, and despite being seen as the way forward, is in fact doing nothing to help realise SNP aims.

I am talking, I'm afraid, about the National Conversation.

Now, of course, the Unionist parties want it scrapped because it dares to refer to the 'I' word, and decry the use of taxpayers' money to meet SNP aspirations. To me, this is an odd criticism: I thought it was the idea that governments used the powers they had to put their principles into practice, and that this was the point of, you know, standing for election in the first place. Of course, the SNP finds this somewhat easier than the other mainstream parties as it actually has ideas, aims and beliefs that go beyond winning an election, but there you go. And that's not why I'm suggesting that it be brought to an end.

Rather, I believe that it's not advancing SNP aims at all.

Of course, the official story behind the Conversation is that it's a consultation on the future of Scotland and the constitution, and that other options can be discussed as a part of it. So far, only one alternative has come forward and it's emerged from a different process. The Referendum Bill 2010 is still on course to be tabled after Christmas, the timing of the vote - should the Bill pass - is already known, and we can assume that we know what the question is. No changes or alternatives have emerged from the Conversation, and any other proposals will only get discussed at Stages 2 and/or 3 of the Bill, which that renders any further discussion academic: unless one of the other parties stages the mother of all turnarounds, it'll get killed at Stage 1. So frankly, the Conversation isn't delivering.

So what else is it about?

Getting the meat and drink of independence discussed? Papers are coming out, ideas about what an independent Scotland are coming forward, but they're getting swallowed. The press will occasionally run with a proposal, with a view to taking it to pieces. Seeing as the press is generally anti-independence, this is to be expected and should really cause no surprise or alarm. To get a clear message across, independence supporters require an actual referendum campaign: this pre-referendum approach isn't working, as readers opening their copy of the Scotsman and seeing Mike Russell's proposals for a post-independence foreign policy being derided by the copywriters can surely testify. The quick headlines are getting printed, but the actual mechanics aren't getting through.

Getting a suitable platform for Ministers to put the case across to members of the public? This could be done without the National Conversation brand: it is the policy of the Government to advocate Scottish independence. Therefore, Ministers doing that are carrying out Government policy, whether they have a National Conversation banner behind them or not. Putting the banner there is akin to the McLeish Executive adding the slogan "Making it Work Together". What, precisely, did that achieve?

Persuading people of the merits of independence? On this yardstick, the Conversation can't rank as anything other than a dismal failure. In only one poll (carried out last year) since the Conversation's inauguration has even a plurality of respondents favoured independence, and that was 42%:40% - nowhere near the high watermark of 2006 where there was an actual majority of poll respondents in favour. If the opinion polls are a barometer of the National Conversation's efficacy, then the signs are poor.

Forcing the hand of the other parties, to put forward viable proposals for a stronger Holyrood, which would serve as a suitable milestone on the road to independence? We have, of course, had the Calman Commission, but it's doubtful whether this required the actual framework of the National Conversation for it to be established. Rather, it was simply an attempt to spike the SNP's guns. In terms of viability, it seems to have dropped of Labour's radar altogether, the Tories (unsurprisingly) appear decidedly cool on the proposals and the LibDems in Scotland are banging their head against a brick wall trying to get it moving forward, even though it stops short of their own Constitution policy. Ironically, it's the Scottish Government who is the keenest to get it (or at least, parts of it) implemented right now. And as a measure of the seriousness of the Calman proposals, an SNP offer to include them as an option in the referendum has been spurned by opposition parties. The Calman process presently appears to have been an even bigger waste of time, money and effort than the National Conversation, and it's a process which could just as easily have taken place without the Conversation being there.

So on five different measures of success, the National Conversation falls short on all five. Now, for me, this is frustrating: I want independence and I want the real consultation and conversation that comes with a referendum on the matter (I also want to know why asking the electorate a direct, formal question and then taking the answer on board is showing contempt for public opinion, but I don't see me getting an answer to that one).

In short, the National Conversation's failure to achieve any of those objectives and so move the SNP and the Scottish Government closer to their policy is nothing short of exasperating. We need to draw a line under it right now, and we need to find a better way of getting the idea across.

A Dagger in the Heart?

Much has already been written about the proposal to take the Glasgow Airport Rail Link off the table, as made in John Swinney's initial budget announcement.

Now, in many ways, it's hard to blame Stephen Purcell's cry that this is 'a dagger in the heart for Glasgow'. Well, it's somewhat hyperbolic (the correct term is 'slap in the face'), but otherwise, he's doing what you'd expect any Council Leader to do when they've just found out that a major project in their area has just been cancelled. He's supposed to complain bitterly, he's supposed to try and get the project back on track (no pun intended), and he's supposed to get himself in the papers demanding that it be re-instated. And with Glasgow punching above its weight in terms of its representation in the Labour group at Holyrood (17% of Labour MSPs, when the city comprises 11% of the total Scottish electorate), it's no wonder that they would be in favour of the project. However, for those who see some anti-Glasgow bias at work in the Government, consider this: the last Executive axed bridge tolls on the West Coast but not on the East - was that anti-Fife bias?

(And why are the Greens complaining? I'd have thought that given their hostility to air travel, far from making it easier to get to Glasgow Airport, they'd be campaigning for it to become the most inaccessible place in Scotland!)

All the same, cut Purcell and Labour some slack - they're doing what's expected of them. Nothing more, nothing less.

All the same, is it a project worth saving?

The truth is, I'm not sure. I do know that it can't really be a dagger in Glasgow's heart: like all of these projects, it's only of benefit to those who'll actually use it, and would have had noting in place beforehand. So you'd actually have to get to the railway station - and get to the right one at that (I know well the ridiculousness inherent in tearing around Glasgow City Centre as you cart your luggage between Central Station and Queen Street). The reality is that for most Glaswegians, GARL would make little or no difference to their daily lives. Things like the Council Tax freeze, however, do have an impact.

That said, the Commonwealth Games arrive in 2014 and GARL was a part of the successful bid for them. But again, it's only of real use if it connects the Airport directly with the Athletes' village and the East End, where the event's focus will be.

My point is this: these big projects are never as big or as fantastic as they look. On taking office as Finance Secretary, John Swinney looked at the plans for the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link and was horrified by what he saw, and as for the trams? Well, even when they get up and running (estimated time of completion: approximately the date when the Sun is reduced to a dark chunk of coal the size of my forehead), they're only going to benefit certain parts of the city - and, dare I say it, the some of the better heeled ones at that. The initial proposals called for three lines: one to Victoria Quay, one to the Airport, and one passing the Royal Infirmary. When the congestion charge plans were rejected, it was the third line - to the hospital - that got the axe. Think about it: a line to the airport (when there was also the EARL plan on the drawing board) and the well-to-do West of the City got the nod; the line for Civil Servants and the upwardly mobile Waterfront got the nod; the line serving hospital patients and the less affluent South East of the City got the chop. Wow, what a boost for the City of Edinburgh!

As for Edinburgh, so for Glasgow. Let's be clear: there's only a finite pot of money and in the eyes of the Finance Secretary, it's shrinking. We have to look at some of the fripperies and with the exception of a couple of weeks in 2014, GARL is basically a frippery. Something has to give - and later, I'll be looking at something that maybe ought to give on the SNP side.

In any case, the scrapping of GARL is merely a proposal - not a fait accompli. There is time for it to be saved in future revisions, particularly as the Budget Bill wends its way through Parliament, and particularly with the Glasgow North East By-Election due later in the year.

That's another thought: announcing the end of a major scheme in Glasgow in the run-up to a By-Election in the City surely blows out of the water any further accusations of the SNP chickening out of tough decisions in favour of naked populism. But still, we'll hear moans about that.

It might be possible - though whether it's desirable is another matter - to save the scheme. But we have to wise up to the possibility that it might not. And neither Stephen Purcell nor John Swinney deserve too many pelters on this one: the former is kicking up a fuss for his City when it needs him to; the latter is taking the tough decisions required of a Finance Secretary during a recession. Both are doing what they're supposed to.

Here's £33 billion, buy yourself something nice!

At last! We have a Budget!

For the SNP, it's a relieving moment: to follow the first ever failure of a Holyrood Budget with a set of proposals which achieved almost unanimous support is surely a good thing. Moreover, once deals had clearly been achieved with the LibDems, the Government could have simply pulled the ladder up and ditched any negotiations with Labour and the Greens. Wiser heads prevailed, at least so far as discussions with Labour are concerned. That's precisely as it should be.

And it help that wind was in the SNP's sails: a poll carried out in the aftermath of the Budget suggested that the Opposition had the most to lose (denting conventional wisdom somewhat) in blocking the first attempt and that the only party leader to have a net approval rating (as opposed to a net disapproval rating) was a certain Mr. A. Salmond.

The lesson here is not to trust conventional wisdom: we've had three long, dull months of commentators waxing lyrical about the end of the honeymoon period, that the sheen was off the Government, and the failed Budget was part of that. Well, if the honeymoon is over, then so much the better for the SNP: it would show that the Government's ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat when you least expect it is, in fact, permanent. That it should be John Swinney displaying that particular skill might seem somewhat ironic to the casual observer - during his spell at the top of the Party, he was not noted for his miraculous strokes of good fortune. But his current role suits him, which helps.

Labour have something to cheer about too: 7,800 new apprenticeships. That's got to be good news, especially for the 7,800 apprentices. And it shows that engagement actually pays off: they could have stayed in a huff, but they'd have got nothing. Instead, they got something good, along with the possibility of a further 7,800 in 2010-11.

Of course, that possibility - it's not a promise by any means - is a double-edged sword: if the SNP deliver, then Labour at last have a theme (the party of apprenticeships and everything that follows from that), and will (reasonably) attempt to claim the credit for demanding it. On the other hand, the SNP will (equally reasonably) claim the credit for actually delivering them, and it binds Labour hands: how could they not support the 2010 Budget, if it includes such a long-standing policy? Conversely, if the policy isn't in next year, then Labour have a clear attack point and total justification for opposing the Budget outright on account of their aims being known for twelve whole months, but Parliamentary arithmetic could see them being sidestepped anyway, and even if the Budget (No. 4) Bill falls, this week suggests that public opinion could easily punish them instead of the Government.

And indeed, they have been just as fortunate as the SNP with events: had the process collapsed, it's clear that they would have lost out, and could have been bounced into an election they didn't want with grim results. Further, there is gossip suggesting that Labour were trying to assemble a new coalition involving the LibDems and the Greens (which couldn't have worked, for reasons I'll explain later) and we know that George Foulkes was trying to use this as an excuse to oust the Government and abandon the Budget process altogether, giving credence to my initial suspicion that the main point of contention regarding the Budget was that it was being delivered by John Swinney rather than Andy Kerr. Luckily for them, wiser heads prevailed, who realised that the contents of a Budget are more important than who presents it. All the same, a clip on tonight's Reporting Scotland showed the applause that Labour offered when the Budget passed: it was half-hearted at best. Now, no one likes being in Opposition, but you'd think that having voted for the thing, and having secured those apprenticeships, a couple of the frontbenchers would have at least smiled. Sadly, one of them - I think it was John Park but I couldn't tell - applauded whilst apparently attempting to hide under his desk. Things like that are just plain embarrassing: they can do better than that.

And what of the Tories? Well, we knew they were more likely than not to support the Budget, and it's not a stretch to imagine that they'll be willing to back the 2010 Budget as well (the 2011 Budget, which will follow a CSR, is another matter entirely). But Annabel Goldie's approach at FMQs was telling:

For Iain Gray and the Scottish Labour Party, this was not about addressing Labour's recession; instead, it was about trying to stage some bloodless debating chamber coup to ensconce him as First Minister. Let me make it clear: I shall have no truck with such antics.

This begs the question: if it had come down to a confidence vote, would the Tories have voted with the Government? Because it looks like it there! Is this the start of a verbal confidence-and-supply agreement? Not necessarily:

Does the First Minister agree that Scotland is already badly served by one Labour Government and that we certainly do not need two?

That's the key: Goldie and the Tories have one eye on Westminster. Whether the General Election is this Spring or next year, we are heading into the concluding part of a Westminster election cycle, in which Labour and the Tories are in a state of direct clash over which one forms the UK Government. Their campaign to eject Labour from office at Westminster would become far more difficult and far less effective were the Scottish Tories to install Labour in office at Holyrood. The SNP and Tories don't necessarily share common policies and viewpoints, but they do share a common adversary.

And what of the LibDems? I wasn't a fan of the tax cut proposal - the talk of a stimulus is all well and good, but with people losing their jobs, there's less taxable income anyway so less money coming into public coffers and more people needing help that only the Government can afford to provide: while tax cuts might provide a stimulus for those who are just about holding on, keeping tax levels as they are maintains the present safety net for those who need it - but I'm intrigued by what the LibDems have got in this negotiation.

Firstly, the letter to the Calman Commission. Now, a letter from the Government stating the obvious (of course the Government wants borrowing powers - it wants every power the UK Government has!) might not seem like much, but as the SNP have been aloof from the Commission (no wonder really, when its terms of reference effectively freeze a pro-independence party out anyway), getting the Government to engage with it on any level is something of a coup. Of course, the LibDems haven't been getting the best return from Calman, so this might steer things in their direction or might serve to alienate them further. Even that may not be a bad thing: it would provide them with an out when the signposts suggest that Calman might not be all that close to what the LibDems want to see. Obviously, there's the joke that the LibDem position has shifted for the price of a stamp, but that stamp yet turn out to be significant.

The public spending review is another odd beast, and may prove less fruitful for the LibDems. Firstly, it sounds like it's going to be little more than a consultation with shoulder-pads, and consultations don't always deliver. And if it's carried out by the Parliament (which would make more sense) the likely people to do so would be the Finance Committee, where an SNP/Tory combination could freeze the LibDems out. So the LibDems should prepare for disappointment here. Even though they both want to travel in the same direction - a reduction in spending - the SNP are aiming for efficiency savings in preparation for a cut in the available budget, while the LibDems are looking for tax cuts.

Further, the LibDems want greater roles for the Council of Economic Advisers (an SNP creation) and Financial Services Advisory Board (of which SNP Ministers have been members for eighteen months), the latter with a view to protecting jobs in the financial services sector - an issue where the two parties are once again on the same page.

Lastly, the LibDems want to see movement on the Scottish Futures Trust - a brainchild of the SNP. That isn't surprising either, since neither party is all too enamoured with PPP/PFI.

That's the thing with the LibDems: there's a massive overlap between what they want and what the SNP want, but the two parties just don't seem to be speaking the same language at all. Are the underlying beliefs of the two parties so irreconcilable, or is it just a holdover from the Lab/LibDem Coalition?

Finally, the Greens. I feel sad for them, in a way, in that they seemed to be the fairest of the parties to vote against the Budget, while a lot of the vitriol that went their way following last week's vote was unfair: they were one of three parties to oppose the Budget, yet seemed to get a larger share of the blame despite being genuinely unhappy with proposals after negotiation when the LibDems didn't even try to get a viable deal and Labour were, it seems, looking at opportunities for intrigue. A deal with them would have made the most sense.

Instead, they got less Government funding for insulation - £15 million instead of £22 million - and more from other sources - £15 million instead of £11 million - though not enough to make the £33 million the Greens wanted. Moreover, if the Government finds at least £11 million of that extra outside cash, then Patrick Harvie will be made to look like a total chump: John Swinney said they'd get it and if he's proven right, then Harvie's opposition to the last Budget was for nothing. And even if Harvie is proven right instead, then there would still have been more money available to the project in the first version of the Budget, so his vindication would cost the scheme £7 million. I think Patrick Harvie realised this at the end, and the two Greens looked like rather forlorn figures today.

Moreover, the rumours are that Labour was making doe eyes at them. Now, it would be strange for the Greens to want to back a pro-Nuclear, pro-Trident, anti-Referendum party, when they are the exact inverse of all of those things and so are the SNP but there's something more practical standing in the way - the Greens' signature against this:

Therefore, the Scottish Green Party is committed to supporting the Scottish National Party in the votes for First Minister and Ministerial appointments. For their part, the Scottish National Party agrees to consult Scottish Green Party MSPs in advance regarding the broad shape of each year’s legislative and policy programme (together with any key measures announced in-year), and in relation to the substance of the budget process. The Scottish National Party also agrees to nominate a Green Party MSP as Convenor of a subject committee for which the SNP is the nominating Party.

Now, the SNP met their end of the deal: they consulted with the Greens - "consult" does not mean "agree with", remember - and Patrick Harvie is still Convener of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, so with the letter of the agreement still in play, for the Greens to vote to replace Alex Salmond with Iain Gray and SNP Ministers with Labour and LibDem Ministers before an election would be a massive tactical error: they would be the first party in Holyrood to tear up an agreement. They would be going back on their word and Iain Gray would be wise to bear that in mind. If he does, they're totally frozen out: the Scottish LibDems were frozen out in 2007 through intransigence, the Welsh LibDems through indecision. The Greens would be the first to be isolated for not sticking to an agreement and while that might not have any impact outwith the Holyrood village, a total lack of influence on proceedings definitely would (people did at least notice and think about the Greens this week) and it wouldn't be a positive one. If they have been thinking about a deal with Labour, they might want to think about the deal they already have with the SNP as well.

But then, the important thing tonight is that we have a Budget. And 123 MSPs (plus the three who were AWOL) have something to smile about from it.

How did we get here?

Well, we're Budget-less. I could go on about what now won't happen as a result of this, but there's no point. The debate has been held, the vote has been taken and there is currently no Budget, and no financial plan for next year.

Bugger.

Anyway, what can we say about the parties tonight?

The SNP is, in fact, in a similar position to where it was last year - it's the other parties whose positions hae changed and in a far more aggressive direction. Nevertheless, that does necessitate a change in approach from the Government. Some might say it needs to adopt a consensual approach so as to secure deals with other parties. Others might say that deals are probably less likely than they were a year ago, so it falls to the Government to be more robust, and meet attack with attack. I'm not comfortable with either: the former approach relies on the goodwill of the opposition parties - which is not available at this time - while the latter doesn't generate the goodwill needed to get things done. Catch-22.

That said, where we did goof was with the Greens. A deal could have been done, but the approach we took was familiar to all Rangers fans. A smaller SPL club, say, Kilmarnock, has a star striker who is absolutely fantastic. Rangers want to buy him. Killie expect a seven-figure sum for him. Martin Bain tables the Gers' offer: 50p and a refillable lighter. John Swinney managed to find £22 million, then a further £11 million. When it became apparent that a deal with Labour wasn't possible, surely there could have been a further £67 million from offers to them that could have come into play? The Greens still wouldn't have supported it while we were planning to build roads that would at least get Scotland's cars moving faster rather than being stuck in queues belching out emissions at traffic jam hotspots, but they could have abstained, letting the Budget through. That was our miscalculation: £67 million and two votes.

Labour's position is odd. Firstly, it's a reversal of last year, where they basically sulked through the Budget, went on about how terrible it was and how they didn't want any part in it, only to abstain at Stage 3. This year they engaged, had negotiations, put their point across and, most importantly, gave us an idea of Labour's priorities only to vote the Budget down. Last year's approach was barmy, and this year's? Well, I can't begrudge it. After all, Oppositions oppose - it's what they do. If they don't like what's in the Budget, then in theory, it stands to reason that they can't vote for it.

However. The basic tenet of the Labour opposition has been that the SNP Government isn't doing enough to combat the recession. However, today we learned that Scotland has managed to avoid recession this quarter. Of course, this means that there's a likely six months to the beginning of the recession and it's going to be an utter bastard, but SNP policy clearly has some merit if it's staved the real troubles off for six months longer than Gordon Brown could achieve. Also, if it's in the Scottish Government's power to fight recession, then that inadvertantly damns both Iain Gray and Andy Kerr: Scotland's last recession was in 2002, when Gray became Enterprise Minister and Kerr was Finance Minister - the two economic portfolios. If it's down to the SNP to deal with the recession now, they were at fault then, and Gordon Brown is at fault for the wider UK recession at this time. If they can't admit responsibility for those then their reasons for opposing the Budget are bogus, and so I'm left with the feeling that their main beef with the Budget wasn't what was in it, but who was presenting it.

And of course, as Brown himself said today, the worst thing we can do to fight the recession is nothing. That is precisely what they voted for tonight.

The Tories are still playing the game: talking to the Government and winning concessions. They got something they could be happy with today and so stand apart as the only opposition party able to do that. And they didn't do it through temper tantrums. The only other political force capable of doing that was Margo MacDonald.

The LibDems? They've showed themselves up in fine style, haven't they? Remember their demand for a 2% cut in income tax, and sending the Chief Whip to negotiations instead of the Finance Spokesman, coupled with the inevitable flounce-out when everyone - even the Tories who normally jump on tax cuts - went pale at the thought of an £800 million black hole in the Budget, a black hole which the LibDems themselves offered no methods of filling? Well, it's now a bit rich for Liberal Democrat bloggers to accuse the SNP of arrogance, and blame the Government for the felled Budget. I'm willing to accept that miscalculations were made, but the idea that a party that made only one demand and refused to talk to anyone until it was met (a re-hash of their approach to Coalition negotiations in 2007) can sit on a high horse and damn others for their arrogance is little short of rank hypocrisy, particularly when they accuse the SNP of not negotiating, despite the fact that the LibDems were the only party not to enter into serious discussions. The LibDems increasingly remind me of the annoying little snotbag that everyone knew at Primary School, who would run around hitting people then whining, "Why are you hitting yourself?". That should be the title of the next LibDem manifesto.

This is what I don't get about them: they made a massive demand that they surely couldn't expect to be funded - they'd have had some ideas about where the money would have come from if they were serious enough to actually think about it - they refused to negotiate, they made no other suggestions and yet are still surprised and offended when they come away with nothing.

As for the Greens, they feel aggrieved and have every right to: they made a constructive suggestion, a weaker-than-acceptable alternative was put forward. What else could they do?

So the Government made one single error, and it was in the treatment of the Greens. The Tories and Margo got what they came for and supported it. Of those in opposition to the Budget: the Greens opposed the Budget out of principle. Labour opposed it out of politics. And the LibDems opposed it out of petulance. They're fit only for the playground, not for Parliament.

Does a failed Budget mean a new Election?

Much has been made of the SNP stating that, if its Budget is rejected, it will resign. Opponents are deriding this as grand-standing.

But here's the thing: whether it's grand-standing or not, it's the right thing to do.

The Budget is the Government's proposals to spend the money allocated to it for the coming year. That money is, therefore, used to discharge Government policy. If a Parliament rejects the Budget, it rejects the Government's policies completely. If a Parliament does that, it's saying that it no longer wants that Government in office. A Stage 1 rejection would rule out any co-operation with the Government under any circumstances. A Stage 2 rejection is highly unlikely - the worst-case scenario would be all five Opposition members of the Finance Committee ganging up to amend it to death, and that won't happen: Derek Brownlee will probably win a few bonus concessions and vote for the amended package, meaning that with Andrew Welsh's casting vote, it's going through. Labour might win a few points - we shall see - but Jeremy Purvis will walk in looking angry (it doesn't suit him, and neither does the facial hair), demand a 2% cut in income tax that everyone including the Tories - the natural tax-cutting party - are baulking at, and go in a huff when they vote him down, by seven to one. A Stage 3 rejection isn't impossible, however, and would show that despite the best efforts of the Parliament and the Government, members and Ministers just aren't on the same page.

At that point, any Government has to go. If Iain Gray reckons he can do any better, then let him: even with a pact with the LibDems, he'd still come up short of a majority, putting him in a similarly risky position when his Government were to table its spending plans.

And what about forcing an election?

A First Ministerial resignation on its own can't force an Election. Parliament can vote to dissolve itself, but that requires a two-thirds majority. That means any party with 43 members can block an Election. In the current Parliament, the SNP and Labour share control of this mechanism: there can only be an election held this way if they both agree to it, and if they do, it's guaranteed to happen.

But there's another way: the "28 days later" scenario. Parliament would have four weeks to replace the First Minister. It would therefore be down to the Parliamentary Bureau to schedule an election. The Bureau consists of representatives from any Party with five seats or more in the Parliament: Bruce Crawford for the SNP, Michael McMahon for Labour, David McLetchie for the Tories and Mike Rumbles for the LibDems. They each have a voting strength equal to the number of seats their respective parties have in the chamber: Crawford carries 47 votes, McMahon 46, McLetchie and Rumbles 16 each. As they plan the Business of the Parliament, they determine when a vote for a First Minister is held. Control over the continuation of Parliament, and the timing of a new Election would, in effect, pass from the SNP and Labour in the Chamber, to the Bureau.

And in the Bureau, there is no two-thirds majority rule. Further, with the Greens and Margo MacDonald out of the equation, there are a total of 125 votes available, with 63 needed for a majority: the SNP and one other party - any other party. If the SNP can secure Tory (or, less likely, LibDem) support for a new election, it can be triggered by a combination of the First Minister's resignation, with Messrs. Crawford and McLetchie voting to let time run out.

Of course, it's plausible that the Tories could vote to have the vacant First Ministership filled in those circumstances, but then they would face an odd choice: vote to re-instate the Government whose Budget just fell, or vote for Iain Gray as First Minister, with likely LibDem support. Not a choice any Tory would fancy, I'd imagine.

So if a Budget isn't possible, it's absolutely right that the Government should quit, and it's fair enough for Ministers to flag up the possibility: this wasn't an issue before May 2007, now with no guaranteed majority, there is the possibility of a Budget being rejected and it's right for Ministers to spell out what will happen as a result of that. And anyone thinking that a failed Budget won't cause a new election is wrong: it takes only a few easy steps - the Budget fails, the FM resigns, the Bureau fails to schedule a new vote, the 28-day time limit expires and bingo.

Remember: the Bureau holds the veto.

Cashing In

Scotland's Government now has a Budget, having been passed by 64 votes to one with 60 abstentions.

The SNP have the most to celebrate: this is the Party's first Budget, and it is now ready to be put into practice. Alex Salmond's threat to resign as First Minister, and set the 28-day timer on a very early election no longer needs to be carried out. The accusation has been made that the First Minister did not need to make the threat, that the deal was already done. But why make it, if that was the case? If success is guaranteed, or even highly probable, why admit in public that failure is a possibility? Why discuss failure at all? No, failure was a possibility, and the First Minister was making clear what failure would mean. If the Government could not pass its own spending plans, how could it govern?

Hot on the heels of the SNP are the Tories: they gain concessions from the Government and therefore have had a real impact on how taxpayers' money will be spent. This is the first time that Conservatives could say that at any level higher than a local Council since 1997. It loks like they are starting to strengthen, and even gain influence. The last time the Tories could be described as an electoral threat in Scotland - despite a net gain in 1992 - was arguably the 1983 Westminster Election. With momentum building, could the Tories once again be an electoral threat in Scotland for the first time in a quarter of a century? I'm not sure how to answer that, but now is the time to start thinking about the question. The SNP especially need to work this one out: of the Party's six Westminster constituencies, the Tories are second in four, there's only one of those four that could be considered safe, and the candidate who has made it safe (a certain Mr. A.E.A. Salmond) will no longer be a candidate.

I'm tempted to say that Margo flexed her muscles, but events have disproven that at Stage 3, given the number of abstentions. But it could have been very different, and Margo MacDonald, whose many absences and excessive use of the 'abstain' button are reffered to time and again in my Sunday Whip feature. She is a formidable woman (and I have first-hand, trouser-soilingly terrifying experience of that), but we rarely see evidence of that these days. Today she showed just why she has the potential to be important.

The Greens I am bemused by. After announcing that they voted 'yes' or 'no', they abstained. I don't get what's happened to them: despite the electoral reverse, they had a deal with the SNP, they had the Committee Convenership, they seemed to have influence and now they seem to have wussed out of the whole political process. When I saw that the result was 64 to 1, I initially (and wrongly) assumed that the Greens had opted to hedge their bets, and have one voting for the Budget and the other voting against. Then they would, at least, be voting 'yes' or 'no'. (in fact, they would be voting 'yes' AND 'no'! Instead they went back on their position and abstained. What is going on?

But the Labour and LibDem position bemuses me. Why spend so much time attacking the Budget, only to abstain at the end? Was it simply because of the amendment, with SNP support, that there should be a review of skills provision. Was that, on its own, enough to stop them opposing it? I'll come back to Labour. But the LibDems abstained on the amendment, and attacked the Budget all the way until the end. Why speak against it, until, faced with a motion they claimed not to like, with an amendment to which they were either indifferent or ambivalent, they chose to abstain? Again, what is going on?

Now I come to Labour: they secured their amendment, but still decried the Budget as one that would fail vulnerable people. They still were hostile, and opposed the principle of there even being a Budget at Stage 1. Now, they had second thoughts.

Was the amendment enough to satisfy their concerns? On the one hand, moves like this might at the very least mean that they couldn't oppose it. But on the other, if this was the deal-breaker, and they secured it, couldn't they have supported it? And if the rest of the package put them off from doing so, why does the possibility of a further series of statements - which are not the same as action, and the call for Ministers to issue those statements is not necessarily binding - change the Labour position from 'No!' to 'Ummm...'?

Was this a vote for stability? Was there an idea that any Budget is better than no Budget, and that they would acquiesce so as to ensure that political life in Scotland could continue? After all, Labour MSPs did abstain on the motion proposing SNP Ministers, so guaranteeing their appointment. But if that were the case, why vote against the Budget at Stage 1, on the general principles of the Bill? Why try to kill the Budget at that early stage, when it could potentially still be changed in their favour, only to accept the need a for a Budget - any Budget - to pass in the end?

Was this a reaction to Alex Salmond's threat to resign? Did they brick it at the possibility of an early election, given the turmoil facing their leader Wendy Alexander? Now, Iain Gray's speech today suggested that he saw through the FM, that the 'resignation' threat was just a ruse, and the First Minister knew that a deal was done. I disagree with that, and if it was a genuine Labour calculation, then the abstention still makes no sense: they disagree with the Budget, the Budget will pass, there will be no election whatever they do, they may as well oppose the thing. On that basis, I have to call into question not just whether their calculation was on the mark, but whether or not even they believed it. Therefore, I find myself once again expecting the worst of the Labour Group: they took a look not at the sums, but at their seats, and the turkeys decided not to vote for an early Christmas. Now, of course, someone could argue that Labour are optimistic about their prospects in any poll, that they believe they could overtake the SNP and return to power with Wendy Alexander as First Minister. I would simply point out that they had an opportunity to put that belief to the test tonight, and chose not to take it.

I remain completely open to the possibility that I am doing Labour MSPs a dis-service. If so, I apologise: perhaps the amendment was enough to secure acquiescence, despite the previous hostility to the rest of the package and the lack of any firm, binding commitments on the SNP's part to what Labour wanted; perhaps Labour did seek stability over partisanship, despite the party's attempt to strangle the Budget at birth; and perhaps Labour had decided that further opposition was futile, despite the fact that abstention is a fundamentally futile stance at the best of times. But nevertheless, I look at the doubts over shadowing all of those possibilities and sadly, I take the view that the only calculations done by Labour MSPs involved their own majorities.

So Labour are in a bad light right now. But they at least had the amendment to call matters into question, which is why I took so long to consider their motives and why I come to the conclusion I reach only by finding fault with the others and viewing that the 'self-interest' case is the least imperfect.

The LibDems, however, offered no alternatives whatever (Labour did), carped about the whole thing all the way until the vote, only to chicken out of everything. But they at least avoided actually stating that they were going to oppose the Budget. Indeed, many corrrctly assumed that the LibDems would abstain, though I confess that I was not one of them: I assumed that Labour would oppose and the LibDems would do what Labour did - so I got the LibDem principle right, just not the action coming from that.

The Greens, though, stated very clearly that they would take a position and come off the fence. They did not take a position; they stayed on the fence. They cracked under pressure, and out of all the parties in the Chamber, they come off the poorest tonight.

On Money and Time

Well, the Budget announcement has been and gone - for me, the high point was the announcement of a freeze on Council Tax; the low came with the lack of action on student debt. This, however, is the situation we all find ourselves in: we came to expect that the election would be on a knife-edge, but that a stable Coalition would emerge. We expected that the Comprehensive Spending Review would be far leaner than in previous years, but nothing too drastic.

Instead, we got a minority government and a meagre 0.5% increase in the available cash. So John Swinney now finds that getting a Budget, any Budget, through Parliament is going to be far harder for him than it was for his predecessors Jack McConnell, Angus MacKay, Andy Kerr and Tom McCabe who all had a Coalition and so a majority to rely on, and that if and when he does, there's less money available in it to dish out. Ordinarily, I'd argue that an attempt to get policy through, even if it ends in failure, is better than nothing as it demonstrates the willingness of a minority government to carry out things that were promised. A Budget, however, can't end in failure. It is simply too important for that. Things - like trams - have to be added, and other things - like student debt - have to be dropped for the time being. Even if the money saved by not adding the former would pay for the latter for well over a decade. Last week, in Sri Lanka, we saw the upside of the new politics, this week came the downside.

Opposition politicians are, predictably, claiming that the SNP would never have intended to deliver on promises made, that the manifesto was more an exercise in winning votes than in explaining what you could reasonably expect from an SNP Government. This conveniently ignores the fact that the SNP, like the other parties, had, and took, the chance to talk with the Civil Service before the election about the workability of their proposals. So either the Civil Service thought that what the SNP wanted could be delivered, or the Party simply didn't care. The former is more likely, for one simple reason: Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney et al. are many things, but they are not naive. They are surely aware that promising things they knew they couldn't keep in 2007 would cost them dear in 2011.

(And on the manifesto, remember that it has to last four years: when the Government is criticised for not doing X yet, ask yourself what they would do for the remaining three and a half years of the Parliament, if they had done everything in that manifesto by now.)

However, there is another variable in play. The CSR at Westminster has detailed spending for 2008-09 to 2010-11. A CSR will therefore be due in late 2010 to detail spending from 2011-12 onwards, and as the financial year runs from April to April, one of the last things discussed in Session 3 of the Scottish Parliament will be the Budget for 2011-12, which will take effect just as Parliament is dissolved.

Given that, if - and it's a big if, as there will most likely be a Westminster Election before the next CSR - Labour are still in office at Westminster in three years time, expect a bonanza to land in the Scottish Government's coffers: Labour will want every advantage they can get, and Wendy Alexander will be able to go around the country talking about Labour's generosity to Scotland. And the extra money will be described as the "Union Dividend".

On that basis, if - and again, it's a big if, as the SNP Government is in a minority so the support of the Parliament can never be taken for granted - the SNP are still in office at Holyrood then, expect the Government to be very liberal with that increased pot: the SNP will be the ones who allocated the money once it arrives. That means the Party will be free to go to the country following that Budget, talking about the extra investment being ploughed into Scotland's public services.

So I'm not unduly perturbed - at least, not yet - by any conspicuous absences in the Budget. There are three more Budgets and one Comprehensive Spending Review to come during the lifetime of this Scottish Parliament. Absences may be conspicuous to many, and no doubt disappointing to some, but I doubt that they will be permanent.