The best of pals 2

A bar in Hamilton

exemplifies the cronyism

of Scottish public life

Walter Humes

When I was a young man looking for my first teaching post, I was told that the thing to do was to go to a particular bar in Hamilton and send up drinks to the Labour councillors who conducted business there. Needless to say, Lanarkshire County Council (as it then was) was immediately struck off my list of potential employers.
     At that time (the early 1970s) petty corruption in Scottish local government was regarded as commonplace and some towns acquired a particularly bad reputation, with Dundee probably coming out the winner in a closely-fought contest: in 1980 two leading Dundee councillors were jailed for using undue influence in the award of a construction contract. When the SNP finally ousted Labour from control of the city in 2009, one of its early acts was to produce an anti-fraud and anti-corruption policy. Time will tell how successful it has been in improving the political culture of the city.
     When we think of corruption in political life, we normally imagine such things as false claims for expenses, backhanders to ensure that planning applications go through, favouritism shown to relatives or co-religionists in appointments and promotions, and unfair priority given in the allocation of housing. Such cases are difficult to investigate and prove, and the frailties of human nature mean that they will never be eliminated completely. But there are other forms of corruption, in some respects more sinister and disturbing.
     I was reminded of this on reading Gerry Hassan's recent article (SR, 9 March). He questions whether Scotland is a social democracy in any meaningful sense, given the continuation of poverty, inequality and exclusion afflicting large sections of the population. He says: 'We are a society where the forces of caution and institutional voice, around professional interest groups, have learned how to talk the people's talk – and pretend they are the champions of centre-left values'.
     Another way of putting this would be to say that for decades Scottish public discourse, as articulated by the political classes, professionals and major institutions, has perpetrated a fraud on the Scottish people by invoking a rhetoric that is seriously at odds with their own practices. There has, if you like, been a form of intellectual corruption in the way issues are presented and debated, and the way they are reflected in policy decisions. Let me give some examples of what I mean.
     Centre-left politicians in Scotland, and the professional policy communities with whom they engage, regularly talk the language of care and compassion, of equality and social justice, but have helped to maintain the gap between rich and poor by protecting not only their own perks and privileges but also the salary differentials of senior people – some of them appointed through the patronage system – in the public sector.

     SR has exposed the high level of rewards received by members of health boards, as well as the cosy and self-serving bonus system enjoyed by hospital consultants. Again, the excellent 'Health Watch Scotland' bulletins produced by John Bannon and John Womersley have shown that many of the claims made by hospital managers are little more than public relations flannel, designed to give the illusion that patient concerns are being treated seriously.
     In education, the teacher unions employ a discourse that invokes high standards and quality of provision, but when it comes to the crunch salaries and conditions of service are more significant drivers of policy: fortunately many of their members have a different order of priority, putting the children first.
     Bodies such as the General Teaching Council for Scotland are powerful agents of conservatism, protecting existing vested interests, even while claiming that they are advancing a 'progressive' agenda. At university level, principals make statements about their commitment to access and opportunity while ensuring that they (and the ever-increasing army of senior managers who support them) are paid at levels that seem difficult to justify. And, as university places are squeezed, it is safe to predict that the offspring of the middle classes will suffer fewer consequences than those 'non-traditional' students everyone claims to be concerned about.
     In local government, there is now a growing recognition that the financial packages enjoyed in recent years by chief executives and service directors are excessive. Is it too cynical to suspect a degree of collusion between officials and elected members in allowing a situation to develop in which both do quite nicely by adopting a policy of selective blindness to each other’s privileges?      Meanwhile, in large sections of the country electors are treated as voting fodder, expected to retain their traditional tribal loyalties and keep returning the 'radical' politicians who constantly promise – and constantly fail – to make their lives better. It is hard to see a way out of this impasse since the tribal lines are firmly drawn: a few more genuinely independent councillors would help, but would not be sufficient to challenge the poverty of thinking highlighted by Gerry Hassan. What is needed is a fresh ideological assault on the orthodoxies of centre-left politics, revealing the dishonest sub-text that lies beneath the surface of soothing rhetoric.
     There are other challenges that need to be made. The fashion for 'networking', an instrument through which those already given a voice are enabled to be heard more loudly in the arenas that matter – and so marginalise the disadvantaged still further – is ripe for attack. A few years ago I wrote an article entitled 'Workers and networkers', in which I argued that many of those who devoted a large amount of time to networking often did little real work: indeed they were parasites on those colleagues who got on with the job and tried to make a difference to the people whom they were supposed to serve.      Later I learned that copies of my article had been posted on staffroom notice boards in several schools in Lanarkshire – until members of senior management decided they should be removed. Maybe that decision had been taken at a bar in Hamilton.