Slouching Towards Westminster

The Economist article, "Slouching Towards Westminster: Devolved Scotland Goes its own way," published March 4th, discusses the decline in the Scottish National Party and the reasons why this decline has not led to growth of the conservative party. The reasons for the loss of SNP seats recently are immediately evident. The current SNP administration has been rocked with controversy. The Prime Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, was caught auctioning lunches in the Scottish Parliament in return for campaign contributions. A terrorist who was released from prison out of mercy because he was predicted to only have 3 months left to live is still very much alive more than 3 months later. Ofcom (similar to the US SCC) is investigating the government sponsorship of programs on the television station STV to determine whether such contributions undermine the impartiality of the news.

Given all these events, its no surprise that the Scottish National Party is losing support. What is surprising to British political analysts is that the conservative parties isn't picking any of those seats up. Predictions and polls in the UK all seemed to point towards the current financial crisis as a "winning card" the conservatives could play against labour and the SNP. The lack of conservative support might go back to the Thatcher years, where her anti-union policy hurt Scotland especially bad. There might be a much simpler explanation, however. While conservatives have seen little growth in support, the Labour party is benefiting significantly off the SNP's decline. John Curtice, a professor of politics, argues that, while conservatives are the main alternative to Labour in England and Wales, the SNP is Labour's main opponent.

This article touches on a number of concepts we've studied this year. The recent scandals the SNP has been involved with seems to be leading to a change in government. The article also relates to civil society. Parties and interest groups are an important part of civil society. Here we see realignment with different parties as one loses popularity.

Picture courtesy of The Economist

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