Lamont pushes Scottish Labour rightwards

Submitted by Matthew on 3 October, 2012 - 12:22

Poor old Mrs McDonald starved to death in a cash-strapped NHS hospital last week because your dad has a free bus pass and your daughter gets a free university education. That was Scottish Labour Party leader Johann Lamont’s message to Scottish voters in a heavily trailed policy speech last week.

Like Scottish Labour’s policy on the 2014 referendum, there had been no prior discussion with the party membership or affiliated unions about this “new” policy initiative.

Lamont argued:

“The idea that Scotland is a land where everything is free is a lie. Someone always pays for it in the end ... Scotland cannot be the only something-for-nothing country in the world.”

In fact, most people in Scotland would probably agree that children should be able to get a free education without having to clean chimneys to pay for it.

In a throwback to the Blairite tradition of equating “real” leadership with making unpopular decisions, Lamont boasted of her readiness to make the supposedly necessary tough decisions.

And like a parrot on George Osborne’s shoulder Lamont endorsed the Tories’ claims that cuts have to be made because there simply isn’t enough money to go round:

“There is, and there is going to be, less money around. We are in a new age with less money and more demands. We need to say... what we can realistically afford. (We are) in a time of scarce resources.”

In fact, there is plenty of money around. The problem is that it is “around” very unequally and more and more unequally, it is “around” in the wrong people’s pockets.

The rhetorical core of Lamont’s speech was that the SNP is ducking out of addressing “the big questions” by its single-minded focus on the 2014 referendum and pursuing populist policies which are either paid for by cuts elsewhere or simply unaffordable:

There is, Lamont said, nothing progressive about the SNP’s policies: “What is progressive about a chief executive on more than £100,000 a year not paying for his prescriptions while a pensioner needing care has their care help cut?”

But Lamont’s only specific commitment was to the creation of a “joint economic group” involving MPs, MSPs and academics which would deliver a “costed analysis of available policy options at this time of financial austerity.”

The sub-text of the speech is unmistakable.

Lamont is attacking the principle of “universality” (i.e. that benefits should not be means-tested).

But “universality” should be defended by socialists (and not just by socialists) because it guarantees the highest take-up of available benefits (i.e. not just welfare benefits). Means-testing is more costly (because it needs an army of administrators) and inefficient (because those most in need of them fall foul of the paperwork generated by means-testing). Moreover, once the principle of universality is ditched, where does one draw the line? Should tuition fees be paid for anyone with parents on an income of more than £100,000? Or £80,000? Or £60,000?

The politics of Lamont’s speech amount to a capitulation to social inequality and the Tory political agenda. She does not even hint that what is needed is a redistribution of wealth. Nowhere does she advocate a labour movement fightback against the Con-Dem coalition.

And nowhere does she attack the nature of capitalism itself as the root cause of poverty, inequality and falling living standards in Scotland. Instead, “the fundamental problems (faced by) any Scottish finance minister” are due to the Tories cutting “too far and too fast”, the economic rise of China and India, and people living longer.

Labour activists and affiliated unions — especially Unite — need to challenge the “new” political agenda which Lamont is now unrolling.

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