INSIDE TRACK: We need to talk about an industrial strategy

The Scottish economy is in danger of becoming over politicised in the wake of the 2014 referendum. It is becoming difficult to tell whether Scotland is an economic basket case or whether we are at the threshold of some Nirvana discernible only in the event of independence.

Is the glass that holds the fate of future generations half-empty or halffull? This past week saw the final end to Longannet, once Europe’s biggest coal-fired power station and soon to become a reminder of our dirty carbon-burning past. When the last Scottish coal mine closed amid talk of Longannet being a “clean coal” burner, it became part of a privatised power business that was soon importing the cheapest available fuel from markets like Australia and Poland.

There was brighter news for the remaining steel workers at Dalzell and Clydesdale in Lanarkshire, mothballed by Tata Steel and now in the hands of Liberty House. This rescue depended on the intervention of the Scottish Government, behaving like a Labour governments of the 1970s, not with similar results, it is to be hoped.

None of this amounts to Scotland having what we might call an “industrial policy”, unless metaphorical sticking plasters count. Such “policy” in the UK since the 1980s has amounted to insisting that private knows best and basically allowing the financial services sector to do what it liked.

What makes the Longannet and Dalzell/Clydesdale stories so remarkable is that either industry actually survived into 21st century Scotland, given the fervour with which neo-liberal UK governments of the past four decades killed off coal and steel.

It feels almost quaint for the left-wing think tank Common Weal to publish Towards an Industrial Policy for Scotland last week. Common Weal is independence leaning, taking care to emphasise that a few more radical initiatives might be attempted by the Scottish Government in any case.

Common Weal looks to the Nordic model, and wants us to develop “sector associations”, essentially better collaboration chains in key industries. We should look for Scotland’s strengths and build on them, it argues, citing north-east Italy, where small and medium businesses seem to flourish by working together. We do need a serious conversation about this. The independence campaign witnessed hyperbole about industries such as renewables that has not yet been matched by reality. The SNP claimed oil revenues would simply be a “bonus” to the Scottish exchequer, such would be our economic buoyancy, when plainly this was not the case.

Today we have the bizarre playground response of other parties crowing about a collapse in oil prices that threatens thousands of jobs. This leaves a hole where the SNP imagines an independent economy might be but it also harms a UK still in massive debt and unlikely to achieve the futile Tory aim of balanced books by 2020.

The time is right for a grown-up discussion about our economy. Prosperity comes mainly from the private sector. But we need a public sector that understands how to help that happen in a way that ensures growth benefits the many, not the few.

‘‘ Is the glass that holds the fate of future generations half-empty or half-full? This past week saw the final end to Longannet