Scottish Politics Today: 2000 - 2007

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Scottish Politics Today 2000 – 2007: Scandals and Rainbows

Dewar’s sudden and untimely death left a large void in Scottish politics. The question of who would be able to fill such large shoes now had to be answered. In the immediate term, the Lib Dem Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace took on the role of acting First Minister. Due to the Scotland Act, a new First Minister had to be in place within 28 days of Dewar’s death, requiring an extremely short election period. Labour, being the main governing party, would choose their new leader to become First Minister. No move was made during the first week of Dewar’s death, however, less than 24 hours since his funeral two candidates had announced their leadership ambitions.

The first to declare was the 40-year-old Jack McConnel. The then Finance Minister, McConnel had previously served as both General Sectary for the party as well as once being a Council leader. His campaign focused on social justice, openness and equality. His rival was the 52-year old Henry McLeish, serving as Minister of Enterprise. While serving in a less well-known position than his rival, McLeish had far more political experience having served as an MP for 13 years, including as a shadow spokesman for several departments as well as briefly a Scotland Office Minister, and had also served as a Council leader. Unsurprisingly, therefore, his campaign focused on his experience as a political figure. Following a short 48-hour campaign, a special election was held by the party’s 54 MSP’s as well as the 27 voting members of the Scottish Labour Executive Committee. Henry McLeish was elected as leader with 44 votes to Jack McConnel’s 36. The result was expected, with McLeish often dubbed as Dewar’s Deputy just without the title.

McLeish like his predecessor, however, did not serve as First Minister for very long. While serving as an MP he had sublet part of his offices but never declared the income he received from this when claiming his office expenses from the UK Parliament. When the newspaper’s reported on this, McLeish registered the sublet to the UK Parliament (McLeish was still serving as an MP while also serving as an MSP and First Minister) however the Conservative spokesman on Scottish affairs had written to the Commons Commissioner on standards despite McLeish’s actions. The Commissioner’s involvement however quickly ended as McLeish was no longer an MP having stood down at the 2001 General Election. The story lay quiet for a few months but became prominent again around October. Attempts to control the story failed as it emerged the sublets totalled £36,000 over 14 years. While McLeish never personally benefited from the sublets, he still paid £9,000 worth of expenses back and said he was prepared to pay the remaining £27,000 back. While McLeish retained the support of his own Scottish Labour Party and his coalition partners, the Scottish Liberal Democrats he chose to resign as First Minister on November 8th.

After McLeish’s short term as First Minister and Labour leader, Jim Wallace again served as Deputy First Minister while Labour searched for a new leader. Jack McConnel who had run against McLeish just over a year earlier and was now serving as Education Minister, announced his intentions to run again and this time he ran unopposed. He was then elected as First Minister by Parliament on the 22nd of November. After serving as First Minister for two years, McConnel would lead his party into the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary elections, the second-ever election for the Scottish Parliament. Since the first elections in 1998, the UK Labour Party had won a second landslide election in 2001 continuing their dominance of Scottish MPs, and the SNP had a new leader in John Swinney who replaced Alex Salmond who had led the party for 10 years from 1990 to 2000. Both the Scottish Lib Dems and Scottish Conservatives retained their leader from the 1998 election.

The 2003 election produced the most politically diverse Scottish Parliament ever seen, resulting in political observers referring to it as the “rainbow Parliament.” The Labour Party remained the largest party but lost 6 seats winning 50 seats overall, 15 seats short of a majority. The SNP had a poor night losing 8 seats resulting in just 27 seats overall placing them 23 seats behind Labour and 38 seats short of a majority. The Scottish Conservatives retained their 18 seats and the Lib Dems also retained their 17 seats, with both parties holding the same number of seats as they did in the last Parliament. The big successes and story of the night was the performance of smaller parties and independents. The Scottish Green Party won 7 seats an increase of 6 seats and their best ever result in any UK Parliamentary election. The Scottish Socialist Party won 6 seats an increase of 5 seats and this was also their best ever result. The Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party, which was formed just months before the election saw its leader elected an MSP and three independent MSP’s were also elected.

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Scotland's "rainbow" Parliament. 2003. (Wikipedia image)

Despite the political diversity of this Parliament and the performance of smaller parties, the Labour Party and Lib Dems had won enough seats between them both to re-enter a majority coalition government with each other. After negotiations, the two parties re-entered into a coalition government with Jack McConnel re-elected First Minister and Jim Wallace re-elected as Deputy First Minister. Labour’s main cost to re-enter the coalition was for the Single Transferable Vote System to be used in Scottish local government elections, with the Lib Dems a long campaigner for proportional representation to be used in UK elections.

Compared to the first Parliamentary term of the Scottish Parliament which saw three First Ministers in the space of four years, this Parliament was relatively dull. There were no major scandals or majorly controversial decisions. Perhaps the most controversial and consequential act passed by this Scottish Parliament was the smoking ban. The Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005 made it a criminal offence to smoke in any enclosed public space in Scotland baring a few exceptions, and it was the first such ban on smoking in public places in any part of the UK.

Party politics, however, would prove more interesting with three party leaders resigning during this Parliamentary term. The Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie was, in many ways, ironically ousted as leader due to a financial scandal despite his own involvement in ending Henry McLeish’s career. He resigned in 2005 after claiming £11,500 in expenses for taxi fares, the most of any MSP. He claimed the expenses for many trips he made between Holyrood (location of the Scottish Parliament) and a legal firm he worked at, as well as trips between Holyrood and party fundraisers. Because it appeared that he used the taxi’s for party business as opposed to constituent business, it was questioned if he should have claimed the taxi fares as expenses. While McLetchie argued that he only ever claimed on constituent business and that he conducted constituent business at the legal firm he worked at, he resigned as leader facing strong pressure because of the scandal. His Deputy Annabel Goldie became acting leader and launched her candidacy for leader two days after he resigned. After running unopposed she was elected leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the first woman to hold the post.

The Lib Dem leader in Scotland and Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace also resigned in 2005 shortly after the 2005 UK General Election, despite his party winning an additional two seats and being the second largest party representing Scotland in the UK Parliament. Stephen Nicol, the then Transport Minister announced his candidacy to be the next leader and faced the backbench MSP Mike Rumbles. Nicol won the leadership contest handily with 76.6% of the vote and after becoming leader he was elected as Deputy First Minister in June 2005.

Likely the far more important leadership election to occur during that Parliamentary term took place a year earlier in 2004. The SNP’s John Swinney survived as leader despite poor showings in both the 2001 UK General Election and then the 2003 Scottish Parliament Election. These results however significantly weakened his position with the media often commenting on his ability as leader and he even faced a leadership challenge shortly after the 2003 election, which he defeated by a comfortable margin. The 2004 European Parliamentary Elections would, however, end Swinney’s career as leader. Despite the party retaining its two seats it was widely seen as another poor showing for the party and facing pressure, Swinney resigned as leader just ten days later. Three prominent figures within the SNP, Roseanna Cunningham, Mike Russell and Nicola Sturgeon all launched candidacy’s to replace Swinney and the prominent “fundamentalist” (a viewpoint within the SNP which contrasts with the “gradualist” viewpoint, Swinney is a “gradualist”) Alex Neil who ran against Swinney in 2000 also strongly considered mounting another bid for leadership but did not, arguing that Alex Salmond, the former leader had “vetoed” his candidacy by allegedly refusing to work with him if elected. Salmond was the SNP leader at Westminster at the time.

Following this, much speculation surrounded the former leader, despite saying he would not run even famously saying that “If nominated I'll decline. If drafted I'll defer. And if elected I'll resign.” A month later and Salmond had changed his tune with him launching a candidacy to lead the SNP for a second time and his candidacy would dramatically change the race. He ran on a joint ticket with Nicola Sturgeon who ended her own leadership bid and instead ran for Deputy leader, and Kenny MacAskill, another prominent “fundamentalist” dropped his own Deputy leadership bid and endorsed the Salmond/Sturgeon ticket. The Salmond and Sturgeon proved to be a success and both candidates won their respective race with ease on the first round. Salmond won a massive 75.8% of the leadership ballot and Sturgeon won 53.9% of the Deputy leadership ballot. Both said that they intended to win the next Scottish Parliamentary election in 2007 with Salmond making clear that he would run to re-enter the Scottish Parliament and become First Minister, while Sturgeon would become leader of the SNP group within the Scottish Parliament until Salmond became an MSP.

Politics would continue through the remainder of that Parliamentary term setting up a showdown in 2007. Labour and the Lib Dems had been in government in Scotland for 8 years and Labour had been in power for 10 years in the UK. Labour now had to run on their record and ask voters for another 4 years. The SNP had been reinvigorated under their new leader and had started to build some momentum behind them. 2007 was looking to be a competitive election and in the end, it would prove to be, one of the most consequential elections held in Scotland in recent times.
 
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