A LITANY OF WRONGHEADED PRIORITIES
The SNP government is not prioritising the cost of living crisis
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Being in government means you get to choose. What problems do you prioritise tackling? Which issues do you give legislative and resource primacy to? Listening to the First Minister, one might be forgiven for wondering if her government is exercising this responsibility correctly.
It has been revealed that despite a cost of living crisis squeezing millions of households budgets hard, the incumbent Scottish Government is dedicating itself to questionable budgetary and policy priorities.
We all know that inflation is outstripping worker wage increases. In three months to Feb 2022, average weekly earnings for total pay in UK grew by 5.4%, and regular pay grew by 4%, when compared with same period in 2020. Yet in same month, the inflation rate for the Consumer Price Index was 6.2%. So it is clear that while wages are rising in our economy, they are being outpaced by price increases.
So it is with not a little curiosity that I discover the SNP government has chosen to spend taxpayer dimes on an army of spin and communication staff in our nations health boards. The Herald reports that “at least” £6.6m has been spent on Scottish Health Boards1.
Even more concerning is that the £6.6m figure is likely not going to be the final total
“The £6.6m total is likely to be an under-estimate as it does not take account of staff on high levels within their pay bandings as well as vacant roles.”2
So, as food insecurity rises and child poverty increases and SNP-run Glasgow city council withdraws hot evening meals from the destitute homeless, Nicola Sturgeon is presiding over an exorbitant expansion of spin staff for health boards.
Mind you, if I were responsible for the mediocre record in our healthcare system, I would probably desire and army of spinners too. After all it has been revealed that “five Scottish health boards have a budget on communications and spin in excess of £500,000 - while NHS24, which has faced criticism for long waiting times and abandoned calls, has spent as least £430,000 on its 11 staff and three vacancies”
Add to this bleak picture the fact that accident and emergency waiting times targets have not been met since mid 2017 and one begins to understand why there might be so much work for spin staff. Someone has to explain away all the missed targets, long waiting times and ignored calls. I suppose spending £6.6m on spin doctors is probably easier than actually fixing the problems causing all of this.
But it isn’t just Health Boards, SNP Ministers are also getting in on the act. The Times has reported Scottish Government Ministers acquiring large armies of spin doctors
“Earlier this year it emerged that SNP ministers had amassed a growing information army of spin doctors, with numbers up by over 50 per cent since 2018 and costing taxpayers about £9 million a year.”3
£9m since 2018 spent on ensuring SNP politicians in high office look good, paid for by all of the taxpayers currently being hit hard by inflation and the cost of living crisis.
BUT it isn’t just the exorbitant amounts of money being spent on spin doctors and public relations staff that illustrate this government’s wrong-headed priorities. We also know that it persists in allocating resources on the maintenance and expansion of a proto-embassy network across the globe.
A Freedom of Information Request has revealed that the current administration at Holyrood is spending £9,064,0004 on ‘Overseas Scottish Government offices’.
But wait, surely this cannot simply be foreign policy spending? After all, foreign affairs is a competency reserved to Westminster. Well, according to the Scottish Government’s own website, these Overseas Government offices job is to…well…engage in diplomacy
“We also have a network of eight offices worldwide who work to promote Scottish interests overseas and strenthen (sic) our relationships with countries and continents.”5
So, while foreign affairs is a reserved competency, that does not seem to stop the SNP government spending more than £9m on pretend embassies ‘Overseas Government offices’. In fact, if we look at where these are all located, it sort of gives the game away:
Beijing - £567,000
Berlin - £572,000
Brussels - £2,467,000
Copenhagen - £598,000
Dublin - £593,000
Washington - £794,000
Ottawa - £634,000
Paris - £659,000
London - £2,180,0006
They are all capital cities, with Brussels getting the lions share of our taxpayers money - which coincidentally is where the EU is centred…along with all of those politicians from all of those EU member states. Additionally, I would really love to know why London is listed as home to a Scottish Government ‘Overseas Government office’. Last I checked London was still our capital city, we are not independent just yet.
And amid all of this largesse spending on pretend embassies, did you know that prior the pandemic the majority of the working-age population in relative poverty lived in working households in Scotland? 59% in 2014-17 compared to 48% in 1996-997
But never mind that sort of thing (which has no doubt got worse, not better amid the pandemic, brexit and inflation spikes). The working poor can feel pride by knowing the saltire is flying in Brussels and Beijing.
Speaking of Beijing, this brings up another more historic example of misguided priorities from the incumbent government. Nicola Sturgeon succeeded in getting caught up in corruption scandals in China thanks in large part to the pretend embassy agenda. The SNP government operates an ‘Innovation and Development Hub’ in Beijing which ended up getting the Scottish Government embroiled in a scandal over ties to firms accused of corruption. (I won’t bother highlighting the obvious linked point that Beijing has a huge interest in disrupting or breaking up one of the key pillars of the western alliance).
Back in 2016 Nicola Sturgeon’s government decided to do get involved in an investment agreement with a company owned by a firm which was blacklisted by Norway's oil fund. Why? Because there was an “unacceptable risk that the company is involved in gross corruption”.
Norway’s council of ethics for its sovereign wealth fund recommended in 2014 that an investment in China Railway Group Limited (CRG), (the owner of CR3, which the SNP government did business with) be dropped due “to an unacceptable risk of the company being responsible for gross corruption”8
Back then Ola Mestad, former chairman of the Council of Ethics which advises Norway’s £600 billion oil fund, and Professor at Oslo University highlighted the corruption issues…
“We really investigated this company. It came up because we wanted to look at the where the biggest corruption issues were within the fund portfolio. It was really fact-checked.”
“I was surprised [by the Scottish deal]. I don’t think I can comment on what the Scottish Government should do, but they should read our recommendations, definitely.”9
Naturally the SNP never listened. And today the Scottish Government persists with its ‘Overseas Government office’ as part of its ‘innovation and development’ cover story.
Pity about the food insecurity, rising in work poverty and surging food bank dependency…the current SNP administration is too busy presiding over scandals such as dealing with a blacklisted Chinese firm. Nothing can get in the way of the SNP operating this bizarre foreign spending. All those children suffering under the blight of rising child poverty just need to go whistle, the SNP think it’s vital taxpayers pay £2,467,000 for 18 staff to swan about Brussels tasked with “improving Scotland’s international profile”10
Ultimately none of this is new, I myself wrote about this misguided policy agenda by the SNP government last year in a piece for Think Scotland. Back then I highlighted the SNP spending £44m on foreign adventures, and if anything the situation is even worse now.
Being in government is about deciding on priorities, exercising judgement on where limited taxpayer resources are most needed. It is a pity for all of us that our government in Holyrood is so focused on spending money on spin doctors, public relations staff and pretendy embassies. If only all or most of the resources squandered on replicating UK government reserved competences were spent on fighting against poverty and hunger.
But is Scotland actually quite comfortable with the SNP running matters in this way? They have just secured re-election last year and enjoyed good local elections this year.
Joseph de Maistre, a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, writer, and philosopher during the 18th and early 19th centuries, wrote that every nation gets the government it deserves…but I find myself unsure.
The hungry kids in our schools, desperate families at foodbanks and disregarded homeless do not deserve this government. If anything it is inflicted upon them by a minority of the electorate obsessed with independence ahead of any other consideration. Pity the poorest who suffer as middle class Scots virtue signal their progressive credentials by voting SNP (the fashionable in-thing since 2007), and maintain they’re social democrats (despite the SNP’s record of upper class welfarism).
But Scotland always has been a nation of hypocrisies. ‘Progressive Scotland’ that likes to pretend the evils of empire is all England’s fault. The ‘best wee nation’, despite it being unable to feed its children. ‘Scottish exceptionalism’ amid a disintegrating education system.
Scotland the brave? No, we’re a nation of timorous wee things clinging to pretensions as we insist on seeing no evil, speaking no evil and hearing no evil. Let’s all pretend the SNP aren’t squandering our resources on foolish wrongheaded priorities.
If nobody says the emperor is naked…then he must be clothed…right?
Bol, David (2022, May 16), ‘SNP Government criticised for 'appalling' £6.6m spend on NHS spin doctors’, The Herald, https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/20142044.snp-government-criticised-appalling-6-6m-spend-nhs-spin-doctors/?ref=twtrec
Ibid
Boothman, John (2022 May 15), ‘Pressure to cull Scottish civil service’, The Times, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/74b4c58a-d3c4-11ec-b39a-dd0cbc8c6f6d?shareToken=55463bd9bf2f78512d79526438bcafb2
Scottish Government (2022, May 9), ‘Overseas Scottish Government offices intend to open during the 2022-23 financial year: FOI release’, https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202200289688/
Scottish Government International Relations Policy, External Affairs Directorate, Part of Constitution and democracy, Economy, International, https://www.gov.scot/policies/international-relations/
Scottish Government (2022, May 9), ‘Overseas Scottish Government offices intend to open during the 2022-23 financial year: FOI release’, https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202200289688/
Scottish Government (2019, Feb 1) ‘Working poverty analysis 2019’, https://www.gov.scot/publications/working-poverty/
Scotsman (2016, April 5), ‘Firm in Scottish Government's China deal faces corruption claims’, Newsroom, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/firm-scottish-governments-china-deal-faces-corruption-claims-622703
Gordon, Tom (2016, April 10) ‘Corruption report author "surprised" at Scottish Government deal with blacklisted Chinese firm’, The Herald, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14417171.corruption-report-author-surprised-scottish-government-deal-blacklisted-chinese-firm/
Scottish Government (2022, Feb 15), ‘Publication - FOI/EIR release Scottish Government overseas offices: FOI release’, https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202200273525/