Liberal Landslide

As a voluntary sector Lobbyist, I find myself in the position of having to attend each of the party conferences north of the border. As the Scottish Political Village is quite small this does not actually entail the colossal exercise in loin girding and talisman toting that the external observer might expect. This weekend I was at the mercy of the nationalists and to be fair they were all pretty cordial with me, given my well known party affiliation. Needless to say, tails were up all round and much patting on the back was had by the legions of bekilted Nat activists. It goes without saying that following protracted exposure to wall to wall nationalism, my evenings were spent in the darkened corner of a bar surrounded by the warm blanket of unionism made up of a phalanx of lobbyists from various anti- independence political persuasions.

The SNP conference was, as we have come to expect, characterised by lavish and populist spending commitments, (much to the chagrin of the Presiding Officer who will now be well within his rights to deny them the platform to make the same announcements in the chamber.) including the abolition of prescription charges.

Now I have spoken with a number of non partisan friends and colleagues who have expressed dismay at this.  They pointed out that they didn’t in fact mind paying the £6 for a prescription but were more concerned about having to wait 6 months for an operation. Their sentiment is basically that which is shared by many: that if there is available money in the health service budget then let’s tackle the issues that really matter, such as free prescriptions for the poor the old or those with chronic conditions such as CF, or tackle our shortage of dentists, but lets not give free prescriptions to those who don’t really need them. Given that the press is full of reports of the hard winter we can expect in terms of expenditure following the comprehensive spending review, it’s time for prudence to begin and cheap (or rather expensive) populism to end.