Scottish Parliament Election 2016: manifestos and manifesto launches

With just over a week to go before election day, all the parties have now launched their manifestos, apart from Scottish Labour, which is leaving it tantalisingly close to 5 May before doing so.

Both the differences and similarities between the manifestos – thus far – are notable, and not just in the actual size, from the placemat proportions of the SNP’s and the Greens’ to the Lib Dems’ more pocket-friendly offer and the more mainstream A4-sized Scottish Conservative publication.

The launches themselves were varied: a townhouse with accordion player for UKIP, a friendly hall with bacon rolls for the Greens, the Glasgow Science Centre for RISE, a secret location only announced a couple of hours before – which turned out to be a very crowded City Halls in Glasgow – for the Conservatives, a kids’ soft play area for the Lib Dems and a US-style mass rally at the EICC for the SNP.

The SNP’s manifesto is unequivocally sold on the popularity of Nicola Sturgeon herself. The poster-sized document simply has a photo of Sturgeon’s face and the word ‘re-elect’. It’s as if she’s standing in every seat in the country. And in a sense, she is.

In her speech at the SNP’s launch, Sturgeon said the manifesto was her “job application”.

“I am asking the people of Scotland to give me a personal mandate to implement these policies and make our country even better. I am asking you to elect me as your first minister,” she said. The party is selling an idea and a popular figurehead as much as any particular policies.

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The tone of the SNP’s manifesto launch was a call for the party to be given more time to continue the work they have been doing and achieve more with the “most ambitious programme for government” the party has ever produced.

The SNP’s document is, categorically, a manifesto for government. And what is unusual about the others is that some are not.

Breaking from the normal election convention of presenting a manifesto as commitments for a party that is intending to lead the country, no matter how unlikely that might be, some manifestos have implicitly or explicitly outlined policies that the party would ideally like to achieve rather than firm commitments. 

The Scottish Greens’ manifesto, for example, contains words like ‘campaign’, ‘push for’, ‘fight for’ and ‘support’, while the Scottish Conservatives are even more explicit that theirs is a manifesto for ‘a stronger opposition’.

“It is clear that the SNP are on course to win the Scottish election,” says Ruth Davidson in the foreword. “Instead, I’m applying for another job. Because there’s an important vacancy in Scottish public life that I, along with my team, are best placed to fill. And that vacancy is for a strong opposition.”

Meanwhile, RISE excused the apparent inconsistency in their two manifesto policies of a 60p tax rate on income over £150,000 and a maximum pay cap of £100,000 a year with the reasoning that they were intended more as general campaigns rather than parliamentary commitments.

“These are campaigning policies. This gets into the crystallisation of what we’re about. Yes, we want to have a foothold in the parliament but our campaign around the workers and the labour movement doesn’t end and begin at the parliament. It’s linked into to our overall strategy,” said Radical Independence Campaign co-founder, Jonathon Shafi.

Obviously parties standing only or mainly in the regional lists can’t statistically gain overall control even if they win every seat they are contesting, but it is normal to pretend. And the possibility of a coalition, while not looking likely, must still be considered.

In this unusual campaign, the electorate is being offered two options as well as two votes.

In addition to, or perhaps as a result of, tactical voting issues around whether it is worth voting other than SNP in many constituencies, and worth voting SNP as a second vote in any regional list, there is a sense of each-way betting in this election.

The electorate is being given the chance to pick not only the winner but the second place.

It’s an electoral pick and mix where you can go for the party you most agree with and perhaps another one which has a few other policies you like as well.

The choice being presented on that front is whether to go for the ‘strong’ opposition of the Conservatives and, we might guess, Labour or the softer, more collegiate approach of the Lib eral Democrats and the Greens.

The Conservatives promise a ‘stronger opposition’, the Greens a ‘bolder Holyrood’, the Lib Dems say they will ‘make Scotland the best again’, RISE offer the possibility of ‘another Scotland’ and UKIP promise to ‘shake up’ the Scottish Parliament.

“We stand ready to serve, ready to take the fight to the SNP, ready to hold future Scottish governments to account and ready to be the strong opposition that our country so desperately needs,” said Ruth Davidson at the Conservative manifesto launch.

“We’ve shown that where we’ve got a constructive approach we can work with others and get change but we’re also a strong opposition where required,” said Willie Rennie. “Greens will be progressive champions holding the bigger parties to account,” said Alison Johnstone.

It can make a difference which party proposes a policy, though, as the baby box proposal demonstrates.

The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto contains a policy of piloting a Finnish-style baby box to improve infant health and no one paid any heed, but when the SNP announced the same policy a couple of days later and presented it in their manifesto the following week, it was headline stuff.

The SNP led with it at their manifesto launch; the Lib Dems’ may now be kicking themselves for not promoting it more heavily.

Labour announced it would implement all of  the Scottish Government poverty adviser’s recommendations, then the SNP committed to do the same in its manifesto.

As in the campaign so far, education, taxation and health dominate the manifesto launches, with education coming near the top of most parties’ flagship policies.

Taxation is, perhaps, the key area where the parties most diverge and which will feed down on their ability to enact other policies.

The SNP’s tax policies remain close to the current UK ones. They will leave the basic rates and additional rates of income tax at their present level, while raising the threshold for higher rate by inflation. The Conservatives, meanwhile, would stick with the UK system in its entirety.

The Lib Dems and Labour would put a penny on all tax bands, UKIP proposes creating an intermediate rate of 30 per cent on income between £45,300 and £55,000 and raising the higher rate threshold to £55,000, while RISE would have a new 45p upper rate band on income between £50,000 and £150,000 and a 60p band on income over £150,000.

The Greens would split the lower rate into two bands, 18 per cent and 22 per cent, tax income above £43,000 at 43 per cent and raise the additional rate to 60 per cent.

On local taxation, the Conservatives and the SNP would retain council tax with moderate amendments, while RISE, Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems offer more radical reforms.

A second independence referendum is another issue where the parties diverge, with RISE promising another referendum in the next parliament – although interestingly, for a movement born out of the last referendum, it managed to get the date wrong.

Meanwhile, the SNP is only proposing one if there is evidence that a majority of people in Scotland want it, the Greens if a million people sign a petition for one, while the Conservatives have made it a key campaign point to oppose another referendum under any circumstances and the Lib Dems’ Willie Rennie suggests we stop talking about referendums and get on with the matters at hand.

Kezia Dugdale has still to spell out her manifesto position, although up to now that has been ‘flexible’, to say the least, with her previously promising that her manifesto would guarantee no second referendum, then appearing to contradict that in various interviews.

There is considerable agreement between the parties on some of the biggest issues.

The SNP, Lib Dems and Conservatives all propose increasing early years childcare. They also promise to put more money into the NHS, although the Lib Dems are particularly strong on mental health. There is cross-party agreement on reducing the educational attainment gap, although different priorities for how to achieve that.

All parties except UKIP propose increasing benefits for carers. All have targets for building more affordable housing.

It is the smaller issues where the interesting, but still significant, divergences occur. The Conservatives and UKIP strongly oppose named person legislation. Both would bring back university tuition fees.

The Conservatives would bring back prescription charges and invest the money saved in new medicines. UKIP would reinstate grammar and technical schools, repeal recent land reforms, and airgun licensing, raise the drink driving limit and reintroduce smoking in pubs.

The Greens would crowdsource a bill of rights, impose a levy on marketing of unhealthy foods, allow councils to buy land at present-use value and give a ‘Scottish Guarantee’ of work, training or education for every school leaver.

The Lib Dems would legalise cannabis and treat drugs as a health rather than a justice issue. The Greens put a strong emphasis on equalities while the Lib Dems put it on civil liberties, both also prioritise localism.

As with any election, there is a smörgåsbord of overlapping and opposing policy options to choose from. 

But with the SNP looking likely to win another outright majority, the question of which party will be best placed to push for the other policy priorities the public want to see in the next parliament, whether opposing the SNP proposals or pushing them to go further, is perhaps the most interesting outcome.