Stop blaming Brexit and get us out of growth slow lane, Ruth tells SNP
SCOTLAND’S economy is ‘trapped in the SNP slow lane’, Ruth Davidson warned yesterday as she attacked Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘cluttered’ approach to growth.
The Scottish Conservative leader pointed to a report by the respected Fraser of Allander Institute think-tank which condemned the SNP’s multi-strategy approach to boosting the economy.
At First Minister’s Questions, Miss Davidson said: ‘If strategies and press releases were enough to grow the Scottish economy, we’d be steaming ahead. As it is, we are trapped in a Scottish National Party slow lane.
‘Not only is growth for Scotland running at a third of the rate of that of the UK but small business confidence in Scotland is at minus 18 – in the rest of the UK it is at plus six.
‘The First Minister blames Brexit for everything. Is it conceivably possible our problems lie slightly closer to home?’
Miss Davidson listed a number of Nationalist economic strategies, adding: ‘Those are overseen by nine government agencies and 32 local authorities. In turn, they are informed by at least 18 further advisory boards.
‘Let us look at what the Fraser of Allander institute says: “Back in 2007, the Scottish Government promised a streamlined and effective policy landscape for the economy. Ten years later it may be time to look at this again”.’
Miss Sturgeon replied: ‘It is the Tories taking us out of the EU and as long as that is the case they have no credibility to talk about economic growth.
‘Scotland’s economy is strong and we are determined to make it stronger.
‘Ruth Davidson – particularly today, which marks a year to go until her party drags us out of the EU against our will – has no credibility on the economy for as long as she supports a hard Brexit.
‘She can’t lecture others on economic growth when she is supporting a policy that all of the experts say will hit growth in this country by more than £2,000 per person. So Ruth Davidson’s credibility on the economy is zero.’
THE 1980s was a mixed bag as decades go. There was Depeche Mode, shoulder pads and glorious cat fights on Dynasty. Alas, there was also Phil Collins, Swatch watches and Hi-de-Hi!
But the most egregious sin of the Eighties – worse even than mullets or Arthur Scargill – was management-speak, that soulless jargon of boardroom charlatans who faffed about squaring circles and running things up flagpoles.
It was swiftly adopted by politicians who grasped that ‘blue-sky thinking’ was a nifty substitute for the earth-based doing of stuff.
As a First Minister who has elevated inaction to an art form, Nicola Sturgeon is unsurprisingly a fan of ‘reviews’, ‘consultations’ and, most of all, ‘strategies’.
Ruth Davidson took a gulp of air and read Holyrood a list of all the strategies the SNP currently has on the go: ‘There is an economic growth strategy, a digital strategy, an energy strategy, a circular economy strategy, a climate change plan, a trade and investment strategy, a labour market strategy, a social enterprise strategy and a hydro nation strategy.
‘There is a strategy action plan for women in enterprise, a science, technology, engineering and mathematics strategy, a manufacturing action plan, a youth employment strategy, an innovation action plan, a national islands plan, an agenda for cities and, finally, an Arctic strategy.’
Somehow the Tory boss got through it on a single breath. Jackson Carlaw was another tenpoint-plan away from sudden promotion.
The best Miss Sturgeon could muster was: ‘Ruth Davidson mentioned the Arctic... Scotland is going cold on the Tories.’ The opposition groaned and even her own MSPs were hushed. If they were allowed to make sounds without prior permission, they would have groaned too.
Despite all these strategies, Miss Davidson noted, the Scottish economy was growing at a third of the UK rate. A think-tank had suggested a more ‘streamlined and effective policy landscape’. ‘They’re just being polite, aren’t they?’ the Tory leader jabbed.
Ruth Davidson had a rare time ridiculing the First Minister yesterday. ‘If strategies and press releases were enough to grow the economy, we would be steaming ahead by now.’
The Tories had no right talking about the economy, Miss Stur- geon riposted, when the UK Tories were ‘dragging us out of the EU against our will’. Imagine a hapless minority government wanting to drag Scotland out of a successful political and economic union.
The rest of FMQs was taken up by the impact of Brexit on fruitpicking in Angus and the revelation that Highland gamekeepers shoot hares. I thought they spent their days at PETA protests and ramblers’ rights rallies.
WITH a tremor in her voice, the Greens’ Alison Johnstone told the chamber the culling of the Scottish mountain hare was beastly and the under-fire bunnies ‘iconic’. Iconic, and delicious jugged.
At least we can be grateful she didn’t blame Brexit. There seems to be almost nothing wrong in Scotland that isn’t the fault of our departure from the EU, something which doesn’t happen for another year.
Much of FMQs is now taken up with gripes passing as questions and softballs pitched from the SNP backbenches which the First Minister deftly catches on her ascension to her soapbox.
FMQs used to last 30 minutes and even then it was testing. Didn’t these people have some helpless local business to be imposing themselves on for a photo op? The idea behind extending question time by 15 minutes was to give MSPs more opportunity to scrutinise government ministers and Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have been held thoroughly to account ever since. SNP ministers... not so much.
The Presiding Officer should cut FMQs back to a half-hour and create a new fixture, the Weekly Whinge. Fifteen minutes for Nationalists to moan about Brexit and ask Nicola Sturgeon why the BBC edits out her halo on Reporting Scotland.