Who to vote for?

In a couple of weeks, Scotland goes to the polls for the third set of elections for the Scottish parliament, and while I have become extremely disillusioned with the whole concept of devolution it remains my intention to vote. Not because I hold the view that it is somehow my democratic duty (I hold the contrary view that if you can't explain why you're voting a particular way, you have no business voting at all), but rather because for the first time I'm in the novel position of having a vote that actually matters a damn (one of the dubious benefits of living in a Labour stronghold until now is that it never actually mattered before).

But, who to vote for?

This election appears to be a two-horse race between the centre-right Labour party and the left-wing Scottish National Party. We also have a centre-right Tory candidate, of course, and the Lib-Dems are in there, set to continue their roles as kingmakers in Scotland. Plus, there are a bunch of minor parties to consider.

The election around here has been particularly vicious, with the Labour people writing to me to deplore the socialist actions of the SNP-run local council, the SNP writing to me to curry my support for independence, and both teams employing crack teams of ninja to take down the other side's posters, and put up posters of their own. It's all very exciting.

My voting history is also relevant, so here it is: In 1997, I voted Labour, and regretted it. The promised new dawn didn't really materialise. I then voted in favour of Devolution, and for the Scottish Parliament to have tax-raising powers, and have come to regret that also. In the first elections to the Scottish parliament, I voted for an ex-Labour Independent, and Lib Dem for proportional representation. Since then, I have always voted Lib-Dem in every election. (As noted, I lived in a Labour stronghold, so this had the advantage of not actually mattering a damn.)

But, what of this time?

Well, let's look at the minor parties first. Probably the most relevant to me is this new Christian Party that has cropped up. But I discard them right away, because it is actually my strongest-held political belief that a government has to govern for all the people, not merely those people who believe as I do, and so I don't feel there is actually a place for a Christian party any more than there is for a Muslim party, an Atheist party, or anything else. (Plus, of course, there is the key question: are they really a Christian party, or are they just claiming to be? I don't actually care to find out, for the reason given above.)

Then there are the raft of socialist parties. Once upon a time, we had the Scottish Socialist Party, who actually had the distinction of properly believing in the principles they claimed. Then, they set about a nasty bout of in-fighting, shattered into lots of smaller parties, and ended any dream of socialism without independence in Scotland.

Which is irrelevant, since I was never going to vote for them anyway, for two reasons. The first is that the second most recognisable in the then SSP engaged in a childish publicity stunt when taking her oath of alleigance after the previous set of elections. Frankly, she should have been barred from the chamber after that until such time as she was willing to take the oath seriously. I have no respect for that sort of thing, and so they won't get my vote.

But the second is that I don't actually think socialism really works. Its great in principle, but it suffers in practice because too many people are simply lazy, and too many people are simply corrupt. It only takes a fairly small number of people to play on the system, and it falls apart.

Then there's the Green Party. They're a 'maybe'. The problem with their agenda is that I don't believe a single thing we've been told about climate change (on any side of the debate), which leads me to believe it's either being used as a cyncical vote-winner by the big parties or, more likely, we don't really know what's going on and are taking our 'best guess'... which is a really bad thing to base policy on. The other major problem with green policy is the same problem faced by socialist policy, but on a global scale - the things we would need to do to actually combat Global Warming are fairly radical, and unless the big powers in the world (the US, China and India being the most important) anything we do is a drop in the bucket. Worse still, unless every country implements the rescue package together and equally, those who do implement the policy will be at a crippling disadvantage compared to those who don't.

In short: the planet is doomed.

Which brings us to the main players: the Tories, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP.

I'm going to discard the Tories from consideration. Ironically, when one looks at their stated principles, the Tory party is probably the closest to my own views. Unfortunately for them, I disagree with every single one of their actual policies, and don't trust a single one of the individuals involved. So, they're out.

I also have to discard the SNP. I like a lot of what they've said they're going to do. Smaller class sizes is long overdue, and the NHS badly needs more money. And I'm not fundamentally against a moderate tax-rise to pay for it... except they've claimed they're actually going to cut taxes, which leads me to the conclusion that they've got their sums badly wrong. In 1998, Gordon Brown claimed that there were huge efficiency savings that could allow more money to go into services in schools, hositals and the like without raising taxes, simply by cutting red tape, but that failed. The reason it failed was that the very people who would need to do the work cutting that red tape were the same people whose jobs existed because of that red tape. Only an idiot or an idealist will work himself out of a job.

The other SNP policy that bugs me is their idea of a local income tax to replace Council Tax. As a relatively high earner, I'm in the group of people who would actually pay more under that system. As a single man with no children, I'm also in the group who gain least from council services - I get garbage pickup and water supplies.

But, the principle is that those who earn more, and so are most able to pay, probably should pay more. And it's a principle I actually do agree with - it just sucks being in precisely the wrong group.

So, the SNP's economic policy must be wrong. But, actually, I might vote for them despite that, except for one inescapable point where my position fundamentally differs from theirs: independence.

If the SNP gain power, it is their intention to hold a referendum on independence. It is my expectation that they would win such a referendum. It is also my contention that that would be an absolute disaster for Scotland. Our economy, even if we get all of the North Sea Oil, just isn't self-sustaining. We have a tourism industry, and we export quality graduates.

But it's not even that issue that leads me to oppose independence. There's also the matter that an independent Scotland in Europe really won't amount to anything. As part of the UK, we actually have some presence on the world stage, especially with so many Scots in important roles in the current government. (I do think the UK should be a lot more involved in European matters, rather than generally standing on the sides and frequently complaining, but that's another topic for another day.)

But that's still not the reason why I oppose independence. In fact, it's a combination of two things: in terms of identity, I'm a Scotsman, but I'm also a Briton, and I don't want that to change. Plus, there's the bond of family, which is extremely important. (And which would have gone without saying, and hence would have remained unsaid, except that several members of my family read this, and would have been rightly offended at its omission.)

(I'd best note at this point that I'm also not going to vote a particular way to prevent a particular party gaining power. I really hate that approach. I'll vote for someone I do want, or I'll not vote at all. I won't be scared into voting Labour because otherwise the SNP might win.)

Which leaves Labour and the Lib-Dems. But I don't like current Labour policy at all, and I especially don't like the fact that they get so many votes from people who have always voted Labour and will always vote Labour, despite that Labour now does not stand for the things it stood for when I was at school. (I also noted, on my way back from the opticians this morning, that Labour have now stooped to bald-faced lies in their campaigning. They have a poster on the way into Falkirk that claims that the SNP will cost the average family an extra £5,000 per year. The average household income is £28k, so this represents a tax increase of 17.8%, which is utterly absurd. Even if the SNP sums are wrong, and even if the Labour calculation for the SNP promises is what they claim, the SNP wouldn't impose such a burden - they'd back off on their other policies first, not being totally insane.

And that brings me back to the Lib-Dems. Where, tragically, I run into a major problem. It is likely that this election will again lead to no party having an outright majority, which means we'll get another coalition. And, since Labour and the SNP will never form a coalition, and neither will ally themselves with the Tories, this means we'll get either a Lib-Lab coalition again or an SNP-Liberal coalition.

This would be ideal, especially the latter, and especially if the Lib-Dems were able to persuade the SNP that they should have at least a full term in office before moving to the referendum on devolution. That would be ideal. Sadly, the SNP have stated they're not interested in a coalition under those terms (and, to a certain extent, I say good on them for sticking with their principles). And the Lib-Dems have stated they won't enter a coalition unless the referendum is binned.

And that means the only coalition is a Lib-Lab one, and it means that any vote for the Lib Dems is effectively a vote for Labour.

And that brings me back to where I started? Who do I vote for? Or do I not vote at all?