Last weekend, I took a breezy walk along the Pentland Ridge and came face to face with a magnificent Highland cow.
She looked so monarch-like, calmly resting in the heather and majestically looking over the city of Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth. I wondered what sort of country she could see ?
Did she see the traffic among the fresh green trees and the oil tankers on the blue river ? Did she notice the ambulances queuing outside hospitals? Did she see the pupils creeping unwillingly to school? Did she see the farmers pouring over their account books looking for a living? Or did she just see her own reflection in the Visit Scotland brochure?
It’s not easy to see “oursels as ithers see us.” For example, you never quite know whether to believe overseas visitors when they say what a wonderful country Scotland is. The Tourism Alliance has been explaining what a crucial summer season this will be, with many businesses under strain from the poor season last year. Visitor numbers were down by 18 per cent and visitor spend by 15 per cent. Hotels and restaurants are also struggling to recruit and retain staff.
Important as it is (5 per cent of the economy) the tourism industry is not the only industry in trouble. The increased cost of fuel and fertiliser is hitting the farming industry hard and the Farmers Union has warned that the falling price of cattle and pigs will push many farming businesses to the edge of collapse.
High Street shops are being crushed by on-line competition and higher local taxes. Even the oil and gas industry is losing jobs faster than the renewables industry is creating them. Overall, the Scottish economy is growing at just 0.5 per cent a year. And as for the public services, they face a “tough outlook” according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates that, without changes, the government faces a £5bn deficit by 2030.
So there are plenty of challenges for the new Scottish government. On Wednesday John Swinney was sworn in as the first minister, following the SNP’s fifth consecutive victory in the elections earlier this month. He’s chosen a slimmed down cabinet of just 9 people, setting an example for his slim-down, or “reform” agenda for the public services. There’s talk of 10,000 jobs being cut over the next five years. It’s difficult to see how Ivan McKee, the public services reform secretary, to give him his official title, can achieve his £1bn efficiency savings without severe cuts in the services provided.
The new finance secretary – and deputy first minister – Jenny Gilruth says she will be running a tight budget and again it’s difficult to see how that can done without cutting the welfare budget which is set to increase from £7.4bn a year to £9.2bn by 2030. I wonder if she will take on the taboo subject of “targeting” – of moving away from universal benefits, to payments made on a needs assessment. The winter fuel payment to pensioners for example was graded from £100-£300 and was subject to income tax.
Another big idea for the first 100 days of the SNP government is to cap the price of milk, bread and other basic food items in the supermarkets. It’s an idea taken up by the UK government as a voluntary scheme, along with reductions in tariffs on imported food items. It’s being presented as one of the solutions to the “cost of living crisis.” But it’s been criticised by the supermarkets as an unworkable gimmick. It’s certainly only a token gesture.
I think it would be much better to regard the cost of living crisis as a “poverty crisis” requiring a targeted shift in state aid to the poorer quarter of the population. Keeping costs down only punishes the farmers and other producers and, in any case, it can only be a temporary measure.
The third big idea of the new government is, of course, independence. It’s been noticed that there is no longer an independence minister. Instead the role will form part of John Swinny’s responsibilities. This can either mean the independence dream is being given more emphasis or it can mean it’s being lost in the general business of day-to-day government. In any case, the SNP will combine with the Greens next week to vote through a demand for a referendum. It’s a demand which has been rudely refused by the UK government several times but it’s a demand that won’t go away.
One more issue facing the new ministers this week is football rowdiness. Following Celtic’s last-minute victory over Hearts in last Saturday’s Premier League final, Celtic supporters invaded the pitch and taunted the Hearts players. Later they gathered in the centre of Glasgow causing mayhem. This is not the sort of behaviour Celtic can tolerate if it’s to live up to its status as an icon of Scotland, like that Highland cow on the Pentland Ridge. Let’s hope the club gets its supporters under control this Saturday, whether or not they beat Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup final.
