[A-List] UK state: Scottish devolution struggles

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The rapid decline of Henry McLeish, and the suspicious circumstances
surrounding it, have been covered here before:

see http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w43/msg00002.htm

Senior BBC journalist Brian Taylor has written a book about Scottish
devolution. It seems to be a much more refined version of the sort of
nonsense peddled with virtuoso vulgarity by Andrew Rawnsley. However amid
the gossip there are a few potentially fruitful lines of inquiry, not least
the nature of the London-Edinburgh relationship and the constraints still
placed upon a formally autonomous "region" of the "United" Kingdom. Totally
unmentioned, however, is the Scottish Labour Party's internal dynamic and
its links to "outside" parties like Beattie Media.

-----

Revealed: London's bid to block McLeish elderly care

By James Hamilton
The Sunday Herald, 24 November 2002

THE Treasury threatened to tear up Scotland's share of UK funds last year in
an attempt to block Henry McLeish's plans to introduce free care for the
elderly which it claimed proved too much money was going north of the
Border.

The claim is made in an explosive new book on the first four years of
devolution in which McLeish, who resigned as First Minister a year ago in a
self-confessed muddle over his Central Fife constituency office expenses, is
savaged by former political colleagues.

An excerpt from the book, Scotland's Parliament: Triumph And Disaster, by
Brian Taylor, BBC Scotland's political editor, is published in today's
Sunday Herald.

Taylor's book claims:

l McLeish was unable to address controversy or close down difficult issues,
giving the impression that he agreed or sympathised with whichever person he
was last talking to. The result was confusion, with ministers and officials
uncertain what had been decided and what line to pursue.

'Henry tended to bear the imprint of the last backside that sat upon him,' a
source is quoted as saying.

l Wendy Alexander 'effectively accused him of lying' at a Cabinet meeting
and the row between her and McLeish continued into March last year when it
was announced that he was giving her responsibility for water board reform,
which she refused. That was seen by colleagues as 'the beginning of the end
for Henry. He had lost credibility and shown himself to be weak'.

l Fellow ministers accused McLeish of regularly leaking to the press and
being 'congenitally incapable' of keeping things to himself.

Taylor's book also details the efforts made by Chancellor Gordon Brown to
block Jack McConnell's election as First Minister, and Donald Dewar's doubts
about both of the men who would succeed him.

It is claimed McConnell is rarely in touch with Brown and has been snubbed
by the Prime Minister, but that he is reconciled to that, allowing him
freedom to pursue his own choices in Scottish government.

McLeish became First Minister following the death of Donald Dewar in October
2000 and remained there until he tripped himself up in what he called a
'muddle, not a fiddle' over his Glenrothes office expenses. A police
investigation into those expenses is still unresolved .

McLeish announced this autumn that he would not be seeking re- election. His
replacement as Labour candidate is to be chosen next month, with one of two
main names in the frame being David Whitton, the former media spokesman for
Donald Dewar.

------

McLeish: The Inside Story

Before Officegate ended his tenure as First Minister, Henry McLeish had
determined to leave his mark with free care for the elderly. In a chapter
from his new book, Brian Taylor looks at the machinations behind his bid to
make history
The Sunday Herald, 24 November 2002

DONALD Dewar's death slowed and quietened the nation. For Scotland's
Cabinet, the impact was more immediate, more direct. Driven by the
relentless momentum of government, they were obliged to meet on the day the
First Minister died, Wednesday, October 11, 2000. They gathered in St
Andrew's House, mute, emotionally exhausted, mourning. Mumbled words,
clasped hands. Equally, though, they knew they had to confirm Jim Wallace's
deputising role, and they knew the law provided just 28 days in which to
elect a new First Minister. So, inevitably, insidiously, one or two
meandering thoughts of the succession drifted into the distraught tumulus of
grief.

Did Donald Dewar have a chosen successor in mind? From my own impressions
and from speaking to a number of insiders, I think not. More than one source
suggested to me that Dewar really wanted to skip a generation, to look for a
leader from Jackie Baillie or Wendy Alexander or Susan Deacon or Angus
Mackay or lain Gray. I think that analysis is accurate but, of course,
tragic circumstance dictated that Dewar never had the time to groom a
potential successor. Quite probably, he did not want to. Few leaders welcome
the prospect of considering seriously their own departure from the scene.

The formal campaign, when it came, lasted less than three days. Dewar's
funeral was on Wednesday, October 18. Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell
declared they were standing the following day. The vote was on Saturday,
October 21. McLeish won by 44 votes to 36, a majority of eight.

McLeish had the backing of Scottish ministers, but it scarcely amounted to a
complete, personal endorsement. He had firm, committed adherents, but he
also had declared support from those who wanted to stop McConnell and those
who simply wanted to back the likely winner. This was practical politics,
not adulation. At the same time, the numbers indicated that the back benches
of the parliamentary party contained a phalanx of McConnell supporters. That
factor, brought into the open by the election, was to prove a standing
problem for McLeish: Scottish Labour had now acquired a new king and a crown
prince in the same ballot.

McLeish's period as First Minister may be remembered for the battle over
free personal care for the elderly. It may be remembered for his verbal
mishaps, the McLeishZs lampooned by the press. It may be remembered for his
determination to secure a higher profile for Scotland, within the UK and
internationally. For myself, I picture a First Minister who palpably lacked
confidence in the job.

The First Minister doubted, intrinsically, that he was up to the task. I
well recall a slightly surreal conversation with McLeish, not long after he
became First Minister. He was weighed down with the challenge of succeeding
Donald Dewar, a mega-bright politician of huge standing. He bemoaned the
fact that he was surrounded by highly intellectual civil servants such as
Muir Russell and Robert Gordon, each with a string of academic and
professional qualifications.

Rather diffidently, I attempted to assuage the blues which had evidently
gripped the First Minister that night. I argued that Jim Callaghan had felt
no such insecurity, surrounded as he was by Whitehall mandarins of the
highest intellect . The boss was the boss and nothing else mattered. The
First Minister would not be swayed. He felt -- there is no other word --
inferior. He felt he was out of his depth.

His colleagues, with some exceptions, are privately blunt in their
assessment of McLeish. One told me: 'He simply wasn't up to the number one
job -- and it showed.' Another said: 'He was promoted one rung too high.'
Indeed, that is a view widely shared. Another said that they had expected
McLeish to 'smile and open the factories' while the rest of the Cabinet got
on with the work. In the event, this source said, the First Minister's grasp
of the job was 'atrocious'.

McLeish readily concedes that the opening period of his tenure as First
Minister was poor, marred by unnecessary conflicts such as the silly row
over whether Labour backbenchers would have access to civil servants.
McLeish had suggested they might but this was later 'clarified' -- or, in
other words, completely overturned -- to stress that paid public servants
worked for the Executive, not the party.

He believes, however, he was not given a fair run by the press nor by
colleagues at Westminster, including those who resented devolution. The
McLeish view is that he sought an ambitiously high profile for the
parliament and the Executive, and that he was slapped down as a consequence.

There is, certainly, some evidence to support that. On January 9, 2001, at a
media briefing in St Andrew's House, Tom McCabe hinted that the Executive
might prefer to be known in future as 'the government'. It was only a hint
but it emerged later that it had the firm backing of the First Minister. The
Westminster response was vitriolic. Residual bile, previously choked back,
poured out from politicians who made plain there was only one 'government'.

Others poured scorn upon McLeish personally. In one comment given to the
press, he was said to be 'thick and friendless'. Not surprisingly, McLeish
found that comment particularly hurtful. Given his own self-doubts, he
needed external defence and bolstering. He got exactly the opposite.

After three days, McLeish ended the row over nomenclature by declaring in
the chamber: 'We are a government.' Note that indefinite article, 'a' not
'the'. He told MSPs he had discussed the controversy with the Prime
Minister, who was decidedly relaxed about the issue. A year later, Jack
McConnell spoke of his 'government' without the faintest blush or fuss.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this row was part of Holyrood's maturing process.

McLeish's loyalty was to the 'project', to the new institution. He was a
post-devolution First Minister. He sought to make devolution work in the
interests of Scotland and believed, with some justification, that it was
necessary to challenge Westminster and Whitehall power to achieve that aim.

He is also a decent man. Born in Methil, Fife, in 1948, he played
professional football with East Fife and briefly at Leeds United. He then
went to Heriot-Watt University, qualifying to work as a local authority
planning officer. His political career followed the classic path of talent
and ambition: councillor, council leader, MP, minister. In 1999 he was one
of the Westminster team who opted for Holyrood, joining Dewar's Cabinet.

However, he struggled as First Minister. One sympathetic Scottish minister
told me that Cabinet colleagues had let McLeish down. They should have seen
his isolation, the challenge he was facing, and rallied round much more
supportively. Instead, the Cabinet was focused upon inter-departmental
policy rows and factional conflict.

Others are much less forgiving. They say that McLeish undermined any claim
for support by regularly leaking to the press, as enterprise minister and as
First Minister. More seriously, several senior sources say that McLeish was
unwilling to address controversy, to close issues down. He would give the
impression that he agreed or sympathised with the person to whom he was
talking at the time. The result was confusion, with the Cabinet and civil
servants uncertain what had been decided, what line to pursue. 'Henry tended
to bear the imprint of the last backside that sat upon him,' one source told
me.

Several point to the episode in March 2001 when McLeish had to reshuffle his
Cabinet team after Sam Galbraith stood down. He had wanted to transfer
responsibility for the politically sensitive water industry to Wendy
Alexander. Indeed, McLeish apparently thought that the deal was done. He
authorised his press spokesman Peter McMahon to inform journalists of this
decision at the daily briefing for the media held in the Government Room
above the chamber on the Mound.

Wendy Alexander, however, had a different take on events. She did not accept
she had agreed to take the new portfolio. She thought she had enough in her
ministerial briefcase. According to one minister, she 'went ballistic,
phoning everybody in protest, including the Chancellor'.

McLeish gave in, considerably undermining his authority, according to
McMahon in a series of press articles he later wrote. One minister told me:
'That episode was the beginning of the end for Henry, he had lost
credibility and shown himself to be weak.'

Politics and controversy are permanent companions -- and Henry McLeish's
year as First Minister was no exception. There was the foot-and-mouth
outbreak, the dispute over fisheries, the 'cull' of quangos, the efforts to
prevent further problems with school exams, measures to contain
sectarianism, and much more. It was the year, above all, of the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. It was the year of the
UK general election and a second, successive landslide victory for Tony
Blair. All this had significant consequences for Scotland and for McLeish's
governance.

However, the policy issue linked most firmly with McLeish is smaller in
scale than such UK and global events -- the issue of free personal care for
the elderly. The expert committee chaired by Sir Stewart (now Lord)
Sutherland, then principal of Edinburgh University, had suggested in March
1999 that frail elderly people should not have to pay if they needed help
with personal tasks such as washing themselves. Such assistance should be
equated with nursing care. It should be provided free, regardless of income
or savings, in the interests of dignity and equity.

The Sutherland Committee reported to Westminster, but devolution meant that
responsibility for this issue in Scotland rested with the Scottish Executive
and parliament. North and south of the Border, however, the initial response
was comparable. Free personal care could not be afforded.

Enter Henry McLeish. Virtually upon taking office as First Minister in
October 2000, McLeish indicated that he was minded to think again. One
colleague, speculating about McLeish's motivation, told me: 'Cherchez la
femme.' I was invited to conclude the First Minister was heavily influenced
by his wife Julie, a senior social worker specialising in the care of the
elderly.

Certainly, Henry McLeish adores, idolises and trusts his wife, however, I
also believe that McLeish instinctively felt free personal care to be right,
to be humane. Further, I am sure he was tempted at least in part by the
notion of developing a distinctive policy. He wanted to do something that
Westminster would not do, that Donald Dewar had not done. He wanted to make
his mark.

McLeish can be an instinctive politician. Look at his 'gut feeling' bid for
Scotland to host golf's Ryder Cup. Look at his stance, too, on Euro 2008.
Had McLeish still been First Minister, Scotland would have been bidding for
the football tournament alone, not in partnership with Ireland. That does
not make his style better or worse: it makes it different.

The positive side of such an approach is an ability to look beyond the
balance sheet, to seize the moment. Earlier, as minister for enterprise and
lifelong earning, he sliced through the endless numerical haggling to cut a
deal with the Liberal Democrats over the abolition of up-front tuition fees
and the reform of student finance.

There is, however, a negative side to intuitive politics, and it came
sharply to the fore in the Cabinet's bitter internal debate over free
personal care. First, critics say McLeish was inclined to slide over the
problems, to decline to confront the cost implications of the policy.
Second, it is said that -- in pursuit of his aims -- he was not always
entirely open with colleagues, that his stance varied.

Few in McLeish's Cabinet backed free personal care. These were, after all,
virtually the same ministers who had backed Dewar's line that the policy
could not be afforded. Even the LibDems -- who supported free care -- had
resigned themselves to sidelining the policy, at least in the interim.

For Labour Ministers there were two objections. There were those who thought
that it would be impossible to quantify the costs, that demand might
increase exponentially, that the Cabinet might be signing a sizeable blank
cheque. Frankly, some still hold that view, even now that the deal is done.

Second, there was a more fundamental issue. Personal care was previously
means tested. That is, it was free to those of very limited means while
those with earnings or savings above a certain level were obliged to pay. By
definition, that meant that extending free personal care to all was helping
those who were already relatively -- I stress, relatively -- well off. For
those on the left, it seemed like an unwarranted subsidy for the middle
class.

In Cabinet, the health minister Susan Deacon was opposed to McLeish's
policy. She could see the appeal of the case which had been made by the
Sutherland Committee and she acknowledged that, in ideal circumstances, such
care should be freely available. She agreed to review the position, but she
believed that McLeish's policy was not a prudent use of limited resources.
Indeed, all the Labour ministers shared her reservations to varying degrees.
At the same time, there was almost complete hostility to the move from
Westminster and Whitehall.

McLeish came under persistent pressure from the Treasury and from Alistair
Darling at social security to back down. Supporters of the First Minister
say this opposition derived from two motives: one, that London was worried
it would be obliged to follow suit, facing the expense of providing free
personal care for England; and, two, that there was still a residual feeling
in Whitehall that Scotland had a cheek devising its own policies. One source
told me that, when McLeish persisted, the Treasury threatened to re-examine
the extent of the funding available to Scotland. If the Executive could even
contemplate free personal care, it plainly had too much disposable cash.

The pressure on McLeish, then, was enormous, but he stood his ground,
courageously or foolishly, according to your view of the policy. He had one
ace -- and it was the same factor which had featured in the earlier debate
over tuition fees.

The Liberal Democrats backed free personal care. So did the Nationalists. So
did the Scottish Tories -- contrary to the position taken by the party in
England. There was, in short, a majority for free personal care in the
Scottish parliament, even without Labour. It could be argued that Labour
could either implement free personal care voluntarily and take what credit
was going or have the policy foisted upon the party by the votes of others.
Provoking such an outcome would have infuriated the Labour group and left
McLeish politically isolated in his own party. However, it was the unstated,
underlying reality. Labour was potentially outvoted.

Labour ministers didn't think they were getting the full picture. I was told
that, on one occasion in Cabinet, Wendy Alexander effectively accused the
First Minister of lying as she confronted him over the care question. Others
felt he dithered, that he was 'watery' as to the detailed content and
implementation of the policy. During the row the LibDems began to take
detailed notes of what was being said on both sides. They apparently thought
the coalition might break, and wanted to have evidence ready to present
their side of the story.

But the free personal care debate came to a head shortly after the testing,
if ludicrous, row over whether the Executive might call itself a government.
McLeish needed a victory, and he saw that victory in helping Scotland's
elderly.

In the end, it came down to hard political reality. McLeish was determined
to implement free personal care. He had only been in office for three
months: a new First Minister was unthinkable. Therefore, his Cabinet critics
could either live with the policy or resign. Understandably, they chose to
stay, for nobody disputed that free personal care was, intrinsically, a good
thing if it could be achieved without problems elsewhere. Cabinet ministers
do not generally resign in protest at intrinsically good things. Such
gestures are inevitably a little difficult to explain to the voters.