SNP has to put spending pledges into practice after historic win

6 May 11
A landslide victory in the Scottish Parliament election has left Alex Salmond and his new Scottish National Party administration facing the daunting challenge of meeting its ambitious programme of public spending promises

By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh

6 May 2011

A landslide victory in the Scottish Parliament election has left Alex Salmond and his new Scottish National Party administration facing the daunting challenge of meeting its ambitious programme of public spending promises.

As dawn broke, it was clear that the SNP had won over disenchanted voters from all other parties, especially the Liberal Democrats, to deliver a seismic change in Scottish politics. Labour has been tossed aside in heartlands such as Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Ayrshire that had been impregnable for generations.

Just before 2.30 pm today, with 108 of the 129 results declared, the SNP passed the 65-seat barrier to win the overall majority long been assumed all-but impossible under Holyrood’s Additional Member System (AMS).  It is now the dominant political force in all the major conurbations and much of rural Scotland.

But the sheer scale of victory also leaves the SNP with scant hiding places if it cannot deliver on its public finance commitments across a five-year term  – when budgetary pressure from the UK Treasury is certain to remain intense. Former SNP MP Margo MacDonald, now an Independent, today predicted ‘the Parliament from hell’.

During the closing stages of the election campaign, a growing rumble of scepticism about the financial viability of the SNP’s programme was heard from think-tanks, academics, local authorities and trade unions. The main promises in question are: no compulsory redundancies in the public sector; continuing the council tax freeze for the full five years; no university tuition fees; an expanded Modern Apprenticeship programme; universal free NHS prescriptions; and free personal care for elderly people.

Professor David Bell of Stirling University, for example, puts the cost of funding the council tax freeze at almost twice the SNP’s figure, while university principals have estimated the tuition fee funding gap at £200m–£360m, against the SNP’s working figure of £93m.

In reply, the SNP can now point to voter endorsement of its record in the four years of the past Scottish Parliament as a disciplined and competent minority government that did meet most of these commitments through the onset of recession.

It will also be helped by facing what will be, at least in the early days of the new parliament, a woefully inexperienced Opposition, especially once, as seems inevitable, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray steps down.

Unlike other parties, Labour has used the AMS regional lists to blood new talent rather than provide a safety net for senior figures who might lose their seats. Thursday’s rout of Labour constituency fiefdoms replaced ex-ministers and potential leaders such as Andy Kerr, David Whitton and Tom McCabe with virtual unknowns.

Results as at 2.30 pm, Friday 6 May

Seats declared:108 (out of 129)

SNP                            65

Labour                       29

Conservatives          9

Lib Dems                   4

Greens                       1

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