Saturday 11 March 2017

Give us a break Nicola.

This week's headlines featured the latest depressing pronouncement from Nicola Sturgeon. According to the SNP supremo, the "common sense" time for another independence referendum is Autumn 2018. Whether this is what she has really decided to do, or whether it is more hyperbole for her troops in advance of their Spring conference remains to be seen.


I find this depressing because of the continuing instability it creates for business in Scotland. I can't be alone in thinking that business deserves a bit of stability. Some relief from the restlessness and unease that political uncertainty creates in those thinking of investment. Isn't that common sense? Unless you follow the school of thought that these awful business types, who must of course be evil Tories (etc), have had it good for too long?


Too good for too long? Chance would be a fine thing and not exactly as it's felt at the coal face.


Ms Sturgeon's Autumn 2018 date will fall a decade since we started to feel the impact of the global financial crisis. Unease had been spreading since 2007 when the term "subprime mortgages" started to appear in news reporting. But things really started to bite in 2008. The crisis became full blown on 15th September 2008 with the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank. What followed was a frightening period for everyone, almost regardless of the profession you were engaged in (other than insolvency practitioners.........).


Everyone in business will have their own recollection of how the crash impacted upon them. For myself, as a consulting engineer, the effects of the crash first manifested with contracts being put on
hold. For a period, I was scared to answer the phone in case it was another client looking to halt or cancel a project completely. It all happened very quickly; over a period of a few months, my forward fee forecast evaporated, almost in front of my eyes.


No one knew how long it was going to last, but fairly quickly, my team of engineers and technicians had to be shrunk. Some were short-term contract staff who we had to let go, and some were moved into a different section of the business. Our company was actually luckier than many because part of our workload was in the brewing and distilling industry. Our whisky clients were ramping up production and storage capacity in order to lay down stock for expanding overseas markets. So the jobs of some of the people who had been working with me on the rapidly disappearing residential and commercial property development market, were saved by redeployment. My running joke in the face of adversity was that strong alcohol was getting us through the recession; gallows humour I think that is called. It was part of a facade though, during a very upsetting and worrying period.


2009 and 2010 didn't prove much respite. In fact, they got worse. For many years we had undertaken the engineering design work for Applecross Properties, the Edinburgh based, high-end, residential developer. At the height of the recession in 2009, the rug was pulled from their feet by the Bank of Scotland. Shortly after, the same fate befell Kenmore Properties, another of my clients. So projects that had initially been put on hold were gone completely. It was no longer a case of holding on until things got better.


The next couple of years were tough and it was really into 2012 before we started to feel a degree of confidence returning. Whilst not necessarily expanding, businesses like ours were stabilising and life "normalising" again. This respite was to prove short-lived however. The excessively long lead in to
the Scottish independence referendum was quickly upon us, bringing with it new threats anduncertainty.


Surely Scotland's most joyous and civic of referendums was great for business I hear you say? Maybe if you were a supplier of flags and aluminium lapel badges perhaps. But for many trying to make a pound otherwise, it just wasn't what we needed in the aftermath of the worst recession in living memory. The independence referendum brought fresh uncertainty for the business community. In my industry, risk averse investors became anxious and the closer to the vote we got, the more decisions
were postponed. There were several examples of deals and contracts which involved "referendum
clauses" whereby transactions could be cancelled had Scots decided to leave the UK. It really wasn't funny.


From my perspective, the result of the 2014 referendum was a welcome one. Others were hugely disappointed but the result was decisive. Uncertainty was over; we knew where we were going, now we could really get back to business right? Well, kind of, for a bit, until we got the EU referendum out of the way. That was to be a formality of course, obviously we'd vote to stay and the good times would be within touching distance again.


I don't think I need say too much about what actually happened next; memories are recent and vivid. As it happens I'm not convinced Brexit will be the disaster that some predict and some want (yes, you there at the back Ms Sturgeon).  But the whole episode has been yet another unsettling and unpredictable one for Scottish (and indeed UK) business. We are where we are however. We are leaving the EU and now the decision is taken, we have to knuckle down and get on with it.


Getting to my point (you may be glad to hear), I really do believe that we have been through enough instability and uncertainty. Having been put through the mill since 2008, the thought of having another independence referendum in Scotland seems an extraordinary act of self harm. This week, Andrew Wilson, leader of the SNP's own Growth Commission has admitted the economic prospectus presented to us in the run up to 2014 was false. Only the most fevered of cybernat would now deny that the economic circumstances an independent Scotland would face would be, at best, difficult. At   the end of the day, we Scots are not fools and given  another "opportunity to reduce our standard of living", I expect a result broadly in line with that of 2014 would be forthcoming. Ms Sturgeon is no fool and must surely realise this too. On that basis, why on earth does she feel the need to put us through more uncertainty and instability? Eight years of turmoil are not enough perhaps, she wants to go for the "ten in a row" maybe?


While this may well read as a tale of woe, most business people are naturally positive and resilient. I like to think that I am too. "We get knocked down but we get up again" as the song goes. But it isn't easy and after a while people could be forgiven for starting to wonder if there is really any point. The anxiety around this lack of stability may become too much for some. Coupled with the fact Scotland is now the highest taxed part of the UK there has to come a point when entrepreneurs/ business people think its just too hard here and not worth the effort.


I haven't written this seeking sympathy. No, not sympathy, but some understanding perhaps and a plea for business to be considered and heard by our political masters. Think on the years between the financial crash and Ms Sturgeon's "common sense" timing for another divisive referendum:

  • Lehman Brothers collapse - September 2008
  • The depression, following the financial crash - 2009 to 2012
  • Scottish independence referendum - September 2014
  • UK Government Elections - May 2015
  • Scottish Government Elections - May 2016
  • EU referendum - June 2016
  • Scottish independence referendum Mark II - September 2018?


That's a decade of uncertainty. A quarter of a career.


I wonder why the SNP cannot see that we've been through enough already. If only they could see that Scotland's fortunes would be best served by entrepreneurs and the wider business community being given political stability. If only they understood that it is this which will create the chance of growth, jobs and an increased tax take; that could reduce our deficit and go some way to help fund our failing education and health services. That's what is needed to start driving up our standard of living. The polls suggest that there is limited appetite for another referendum amongst ordinary Scots. It seems that the general population and business communities are of the same mind. A second referendum really is the very last think we want or need.


If you are listening Ms Sturgeon, will ye no' haud yer wheesht an' gie us a break?






Sunday 5 March 2017

What happened to the wise, principled Scot?


As the never ending noise of Scotland's constitutional argument drones on, I've been wondering where the wise, principled Scot has gone.

Politics used to be defined on the left/ right scale. Small state, free market capitalists at one end and large state, nationalising socialists at the other. (This is a sweeping generalisation but you know what I mean!). The debates were straightforward. You could think about how you felt about each of the issues; about how your own attitudes, experiences and values would position you on that scale.

There were always those on the wild, outer fringes at either end of the scale. But the vast majority held the views they did because they thought they were likely to create the best economic and social results for their countrymen. Political debates and battles were grounded in the solid belief that your version of left or right was just and measured. They were debates and battles that could define our standards of living and, crucially, how we thought they could be improved. If not about that, what else is politics for?

Barring those from the outer fringes, we rubbed along pretty well. Right balanced left and left balanced right. For me, that was/ is part of the great success story that is the UK. Ours is a moderate, liberal and tolerant democracy. It has meant that whilst that political pendulum has swung over the decades, the consensus generally fell around the centre. That's what keeps the UK so stable and such a safe, desirable place for the many immigrants who have chosen to make ours, their home also.

Unfortunately, Scottish politics has been diverted off this path. Most external observers would look in on us and recognise what defines our politics now: identity. We rarely seem to have intellectual discourse on which approach to economic policy would derive the best results for Scots citizens. Scotland's politicians are elected according to whether they support the UK remaining intact or whether it should be broken up. The economic reality isn't the meat of the debate. Rather, it's whether you are Scottish or British, and Scottish nationalism has decreed that you cannot be both; they are mutually exclusive. You don't have to look much further that former First Minister, Alex Salmond for evidence of this. Last weekend he embarrassed himself ranting on a television interview about the "Yoon media". Yoon being an intended derogatory term for non SNP aligned individuals and the "Yoon media" being any newspaper or broadcaster with the temerity to report something unflattering about the SNP. The inference to supporters, of course, being that information prepared by such parties is always wrong, simply because it has been produced by "Yoons". It was quite a spectacle.




The rise of nationalism in Scotland has nurtured and developed identity to become the defining issue of our politics. On occasions when economics or social policy matters are introduced into the debate, they are spun beyond any reasonable reality. Black is argued as white, in order to support the identity argument. Even when presented in logical, clinical fashion (I am thinking about some of the excellent analysis by, amongst others, Kevin Hague, Neil Lovatt and Fraser Whyte) it is quickly rubbished, often as a sleight to Scotland; "talking Scotland down". Mostly the response to reasoned argument moves straight to ad hominem attacks from the nationalist "intelligentsia" led by the likes of Stuart Campbell (Wings over Scotland) and his faithful followers. Some of those followers, of course, include SNP MPs and MSPs.

But our politics used to involve interrogating such analysis, presenting alternative assessment and debating how a situation might be improved. That involved applying policy from either side of the centre but with an intent to improve our people's standard of living.

Today though, that doesn't happen. All debate seems to revert to identity. If that isn't the case, how can Brian Souter and Tommy Sheridan possibly have common cause? Maybe they are bad examples, coming as they do, from the wilder, outer fringes of traditional left/ right politics. But examples they are, of what nationalism has done to our politics. It has degenerated our debate. It is no longer about the great principles and ideas of how our standard of life might be improved. It is about whether you have identity X or identity Y. It's about your allegiance to one flag or another.

As others have said before me, you can't eat flags.

This depressing, backwards step in our politics is even manifesting at local level. As we approach May's council elections, I find constitutional politics interfering even in my own thinking with that. I don't want SNP councillors. Doubtless there might be some good community orientated people I am discounting, but discount them I will. I do so because by standing as an SNP candidate, and passing their Party's vetting system, I know that their over-riding political principles are about identity. I can't trust them to make decisions based on what is best for constituents because that is not what motivates their political position. Their identity as a Scot, or perhaps more simply, not British, is their defining political characteristic and driver. If not the case, why would they be an SNP candidate? They will vote/ act in every matter according to the party line, as defined by what best promotes their identity politics. At a local level, I don't see how that best serves our communities.

I don't want to have to think this way. I'd like all UK citizens to live productive lives with increasing standards of living. But that can only happen for us here in Scotland if we, and particularly our politicians, start concentrating on the right things. No matter which side of the traditional political centre you see yourself, the things that wont improve our economic fortunes and standard of living are flags and identity politics.

This shift from policy based politics to identity has, of course, worked superbly well for the SNP. Their members care about identity above all else. As Nicola Sturgeon herself said, "independence transcends everything else". There's an obvious reason this has worked so well. A majority of Scots who care about real politics and issues affecting our standard of life still vote on the left/right spectrum. Thus the Scots who don't see identity as the defining political raison d'ĂȘtre are largely split across Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat. The wise, principled Scottish vote (in my view) is therefore split according to the kind of economic and social policies they believe could improve our standard of living.  For the moment, the proponents of identity politics have the whip hand and, as a result, are beneficiaries of that oldest of tactics - divide and conquer.

I say "for the moment" because there is hope that we might find a way back from all of this. The SNP have had a decade of power. During those ten years of identity driven politics and policy, we must ask ourselves if education, health and other devolved matters have improved or declined. All but the most partisan of observer will be stretched to think the former is the case. As the inherent wisdom and principles of Scots begin to re-surface through the fug of populism and identity politics, and they will, I hope we will again progress.