".....Even so, the SNP is nowhere near learning how to deploy the class argument in Scotland's Labour strongholds. Its social-democratic credentials place it further to the left than New Labour, which means the SNP is potentially more attractive for the non-demoralised poor than Labour, whose policies, in government, are basically Thatcherite. The SNP has failed to communicate this new reality to the Scottish punters, who do not as yet know that in today's political context the SNP is a party of the left and New Labour is a party of the right. Could it be that the SNP has a problem in trumpeting its modern left credentials in the central belt lest it antagonise zealous supporters in the north whose nationalism has a bourgeois tinge? The SNP cannot win Scotland without winning the lowlands. That's the arithmetic of Scottish politics. The SNP and the SSP have got to be in there with the punters and the demoralised poor, between elections, helping them fight back on issues that impinge on their everyday life......"

Just an observation but is he not maybe underestimating the intelligence of the non-demoralised "Scottish punters"? I think most people must surely realise by now what Blair is all about but there has been no huge backlash against it. Why? Well maybe it is worth noting that all across the western developed world social-democratic parties have moved to the right into a so called "third way" as the old class struggle politics just don't work the way they used to as most people no longer see things through a class struggle paradigm as socialism has basically died as a coherant ideology in the face of globalisation and consumerism. The Conservatives were able to maintain power for 18 years as the opposition to them in England was divided between relatively strong social-democratic and liberal left centrist. This happened as Labour lost a sizeable chunk of its voter base by being stuck too much in the politics of the 1970s. In Scotland the SNP and the vagaries of the FPTP electoral system made the situation more complex but I see no reason to believe that Scotland is somehow a last bastion of unreconstructed socialism in global terms. The Tories were removed when Labour lurched to a position to the right of the Lib Dems. They did it on a pragmatic basis because they wanted to win pure and simple and the punters in Anniesland do not appear to be too put out about it yet with the next Westminster general election just around the corner by all accounts.

I think people need to try to move beyond a 1970's political mindset. Yesterday's Canadian election may provide a useful comparison. It was basically between a party with slightly left of centre liberal centrist traditions and social values {who won :-)} and a decidedly right of centre party called the Alliance that grew out of a protest movement called Reform against the traditional moderate right of centre party, the Progressive Conservatives which was perceived particularly in Western Canada as being too liberal. Up until 10 years or so ago the protest vehicle against the Liberal vs PC Ottawa establishment tended to be the traditional left wing trade union linked social-democratic party, the NDP, but they limped in with 8% of the popular vote this time. All parties here obtain support from people from all socioeconomic backgrounds but Liberal and NDP support is skewed more to people with lower incomes while the Alliance and PC has more support amongst the wealthy. If the SNP wants to gauge how to position itself ideologically to take on a pair of right of centre parties (Labour and Tories as opposed to PCs and Alliance) and a traditionalist leftie fringe (SSP as opposed to the NDP)in the central belt in Scotland then the moderate fiscally responsible liberal centrist social consensus politics of the Liberal Party of Canada are maybe not a bad place to look rather than trying to look wistfully backwards towards an era when a class confrontation way of doing things actually worked. Traditional social-democratic politics are becoming decidedly dated in global terms IMO and I would be amazed if Scotland were to avoid becoming part of that general global social and political trend.

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