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January 11th, 2012
02:00 pm - More on Salmond
Michael White's piece in the Guardian today makes the case I sketched out yesterday, but in more detail. I believe that Alex Salmond is very clever, and actually I think he has left-wing values, so no complaints there. Any clever person in his shoes would be playing his cards in the way that he is. I don't think it's insulting him to say that a wily politician is behaving as a wily politician. The SNP vote is a consolidation of a very wide range of different opinions, and they only hang together for as long as they have the move towards independence as a goal.
The current boost to the SNP has come from the collapse of the right wing vote in Scotland, while the Labour vote has remained more or less stable, making Salmond's current voting bloc even more diverse than it was before. That is: SNP used to attract progressive left wing voters, who are still there, but now it also relies on an increased bloc of less left wing voters, redirected from parties to the right of centre which have lost votes. Therefore it is in his interests, and probably in his view the interests of progress to a more equitable society, to play the game exactly as he is doing, which is to be 'flexible'. In a way, that's what clever means, accommodation to circumstances. On independence the divisions will of necessity come out, and have to be accommodated by a political landscape with a range of choices.
In other words, he is neither the messiah or a very naughty boy, but a wily chap playing a nippy game in a shifting world. Or perhaps he's actually become more right wing in his convictions, but either way the effect is the same.
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