Raging Against The Westminster Machine

The Westminster Machine has long been a figure within SNP campaigns, and going on Alex Salmond’s speech today, it looks like we’ll be raging against it this year. Maybe not the best slogan to launch a campaign on given Rage Against The Machine’s foul-mouthed, hard left (although generally extremely good) material, but the SNP have about as much claim to it as Labour do in this day and age. Still, it does work for the party – after all, the SNP played a big part in the initial efforts to get expenses released under Freedom of Information and in the attempt to impeach Tony Blair while being one of the few groups in Parliament to voice opinion against the war in Iraq. No doubt we’ll be hearing more about those as the election goes on.

The meat of the campaign sounds like it could be quite convincing for those outside the party. Following on from previous campaigns focused on “Scotland’s Voice”, the emphasis this year is on Local Champions representing the people. Given the tendency amongst Labour and the Tories to parachute in candidates from outside local areas and anointing the favoured candidates, it could resonate well with a Scotland which is dissatisfied with the way in which politics has been working at Westminster.

The Local Champions theme also looks at returning a voice to the people in a constituency. Having never lived in a constituency with an SNP MP, I can’t comment directly on how much interaction there is between SNP parliamentarians and their constituents, but a number of SNP MSPs do go out of their way to keep in touch with constituents. As I wrote recently, I believe that MPs should be doing more to represent their constituents, not blindly following the party whip. I believe the SNP, which is a broad kirk, is in a position to do this, although I suspect that many hardened voters will fail to look past party lines.

The remainder of the speech deals mostly with economic issues and the idea of “More Nats, Less Cuts”. This is a great way to campaign about Scotland specifically without using issues which are explicitly the preserve of Holyrood, because no matter who becomes First Minister in 2011, they are going to be facing the worst cuts Scotland has seen in generations, possibly coupled with a second, worse recession. The proposed Tory ‘Age of Austerity’ could well see the UK end up in a similar position to Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. It’s the job of the SNP (and all of the Scottish parties) to ensure that doesn’t happen and that we rebuild the economy on a solid foundation before we deal with the deficit, or if not that, at least remind George Osbourne and Alastair Darling to have a glance over the works of J. M. Keynes.

This is an excellent start to the SNP’s election campaign. With Labour and Tory efforts already flagging in Scotland, it shouldn’t be hard to gain the momentum and keep it going until May 6th. Keeping the Rage Against the Machine theme going, 2010 is the year when we’re going to be taking the power back.