Falkirk – an unlikely Falklands

It is part of modern British political mythology than Mrs Thatcher only won the 1983 election because of the resurgence in her popularity which followed the favourable outcome of the Falklands campaign in 1982. For David Cameron to be confident of securing a Conservative government after the 2015 election, he needs something similar (to see the size of his problem put Con 40% Lab 35% and LD 13% into Electoral Calculus). For the moment Cameron is having a good try at hanging the trade unions around Miliband’s neck, particularly after the shenanigans concerning Labour’s candidate for the forthcoming Falkirk [by-election] reselection.

Will it do the trick? At PMQs on 3 July Cameron mentioned the Unite union 8 times and Unite’s General Secretary, Len McCluskey, 6 times. On 10 July it was 8 and 2 times respectively, but by then Miliband had taken appropriate action both tactically with regard to Falkirk and more widely in floating the idea of a new relationship between Labour and the unions.  Miliband also moved onto the offensive at PMQs, asking some pointed questions about Tory funding. Unlike the Falklands, union funding and Falkirk do not seem the sort of issues which move substantial numbers of voters’ minds and, moreover, there is a slight risk that Miliband may come out of it well as a strong reformer and avoid being labelled a weak placeman of the unions.

Anyway the whole thing seems just a bit stagey. Of the four volumes of Alastair Campbell’s Diaries, the first, Prelude to Power 1994-1997, concentrates on the task faced by the Leader of the Opposition as an election approaches. It’s also the one which covers the time before Campbell became a civil servant (of sorts) so presumably its content was determined entirely by his judgement rather than being subject to the official protocol which would have applied to the later three. Pugnacious by nature, Campbell had no hesitation in recording the combative relationship which prevailed most of the time between Blair, Labour’s last permanent Leader of the Opposition, and the PM of the day, John Major. But he also mentions the mysterious occasions when Blair disappeared for discussions with the PM. Either Campbell wasn’t told what these were about, or he didn’t choose to write about them. He reports that on one occasion Major threatened to publish private correspondence between himself and Blair – again we are not told what about (page 380).

Almost certainly that’s the way things have always been done and there are good reasons for such arrangements continuing. For example, recently it was reported that Miliband had attended the National Security Committee (not for the first time) in late June for a discussion on Syria and why not? However, perhaps the lesson to be drawn is that governments and oppositions from time to time make common cause without necessarily telling the public or the media all about it. I can’t help wondering whether in this case the cause might turn out to be that of funding political parties out of taxation – the main ones of course.

McCluskey is an interesting man who seems to like SW France. Described by Rachel Sylvester in The Times (£) on 10 July:

Mr McCluskey — an opera buff, who loves attending Glyndebourne and visiting French vineyards (“St Emilion is my favourite wine and such a beautiful village”, he told me when I interviewed him a couple of years ago),

he is a left-winger but with right bank tastes, and tastes which extend beyond red wine according to the Spectator’s Steerpike on 13 July:

The wine waiters at Claridges are taking a keen interest in the investigation into malpractice in Falkirk. And they’re hoping that Unite will be fully exonerated. Len McCluskey likes to celebrate political victories at the hotel bar with a glass of pink champagne. His most recent visit was in July 2011 after Rupert Murdoch’s ‘humblest day of my life’ admission before a Commons select committee. McCluskey toasted the press mogul’s self-lacerating words by downing a bottle of pink fizz with his old mucker Tom Watson. As they say, nothing’s too good for the workers to subsidise.

(Actually it was “most humble day of my life”.)


UPDATE 13 JULY

A few hours after this was originally posted, a typically elegant article by Matthew Parris for today’s The Times appeared on their website, Guess who’s going to pay for politics? You!  He expands on the theme that “The political parties will ask the taxpayer to pay their bills once unions and tycoons have walked away” and that:

The very notion will be massively unpopular. There will have to be a tacit deal between party leaderships not to break ranks and exploit public indignation.

My notion was that the “tacit deal” is rather nearer than he seems to think. Parris is, of course, much better–informed than I am, just as he is a much better writer.


UPDATE 11 SEPTEMBER

Matthew Taylor was Tony Blair’s Chief Adviser on Political Strategy when he was Prime Minister and then became Chief Executive of the RSA in November 2006. On 9 September he posted on his blog Party funding – the future is out there (no thanks to me). This extract describes a past attempt at a “tacit deal”:

Back in 2006, working for Tony Blair and having previously written a think tank pamphlet on party funding, I was asked to explore a new funding settlement. The precipitating factor was the cash of honours allegations which led to several Labour advisors being arrested and placed on police bail.  

Although the negotiations were behind the scenes, agreeing a basic package with the Conservatives (newly led by David Cameron who was keen to show his statesman-like credentials) proved relatively straightforward. Although historically the Tories have relied much more than Labour on high value donations, Cameron knew how toxic this issue had been for his own Party and how dangerous it could one day become again.  

… The deal we had careful put together was sabotaged by anti-Blair elements in Labour’s ranks. There is little doubt that they did so on the instruction of those around Gordon Brown – who was at the time keen to grasp any stick with which to beat the Prime Minister.

UK Trident at a Sovereign Faslane?

Posts here last year speculated as to whether the Trident base at Faslane in Scotland might be relocated to the South West of England and how much such a transfer might cost. The first post touched on one way the issue could be avoided:

So, if the SNP secured a majority for independence and entered into negotiations, they might at least offer some form of transitional period for Whitehall to make other arrangements. But the RN remaining permanently would require the SNP to offer HMNB Clyde a status akin to the Cyprus Sovereign Base Areas … and the question arises as to whether an independent Scotland might one day change its mind and renege on an agreement made back in 2015. Such a prospect might lead Whitehall to conclude that a new Trident base within 10 years was an unavoidable consequence of Scottish independence.

Not having come across anything about Sovereign Base Areas since, today’s Guardian lead story by their chief political correspondent, Nicholas Watt, MoD fears for Trident base if Scotland says yes to independence Whitehall looking at plan to designate home of nuclear fleet as sovereign United Kingdom territory, came as a surprise:

The British government is examining plans to designate the Scottish military base that houses the Trident nuclear deterrent as sovereign United Kingdom territory if the people of Scotland vote for independence in next year's referendum. In a move that sparked an angry reaction from the SNP, which vowed to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons as quickly as possible after a yes vote, the government is looking at ensuring that the Faslane base on Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute could have the same status as the British sovereign military bases in Cyprus.  

… The Ministry of Defence is officially working on only one option for the Faslane base ahead of next year's Scottish independence referendum – a defeat for the SNP, thereby guaranteeing the survival of the base that has housed the nuclear deterrent since the Polaris era in the 1960s. An MoD spokesperson said: "We are confident that the Scottish people will vote to remain a part of the United Kingdom." But MoD officials are starting to examine a two-stage process to ensure that Britain could continue to station the Vanguard submarines at the deep-water Faslane base and store the nuclear warheads at the nearby Coulport base on Loch Long.  

The British government would first tell the Scottish government after a yes vote that it would cost tens of billions of pounds over many years to decommission the Faslane base and to establish a new base in England or Wales to house the nuclear fleet. These costs would have to be factored into severance payments negotiated with the Scottish government before full independence is declared around two years after the referendum.

Watt has since run a follow-up story on the Guardian website, No 10: MoD sovereign territory plans for Trident base not credible MoD proposal to designate Faslane as UK sovereign military base if Scots vote for independence sparks Whitehall row:

Downing Street has dismissed as not "credible or sensible" a proposal to designate the Faslane base, which hosts Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent, as sovereign United Kingdom territory if the people of Scotland vote for independence in next year's referendum. No 10's dismissal of the idea followed an overnight row in Whitehall after the Guardian reported that the government was examining plans to ensure that the Faslane base on Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute could have the same status as the British sovereign military bases in Cyprus in the event of a yes vote.

The likelihood of a Whitehall row being substantiated by:

… a defence source said that the idea of designating Faslane as sovereign UK territory in the event of an SNP victory was being taken seriously. The source said: "It would cost a huge amount of money, running into tens of billions of pounds, to decommission Faslane. Those costs would be factored into any negotiations on an independence settlement. The sovereign base area is an option. It is an interesting idea because the costs of moving out of Faslane are eyewateringly high." A version of this was emailed to the BBC, which ran a story on its website overnight with the headline: "Faslane Trident base could be in UK after Scottish independence". The MoD emailed the BBC to say: "The sovereign base area is an option. It is an interesting idea."

As far as the cost of relocation is concerned, the Guardian’s Richard Norton-Taylor has a companion piece, The uncomfortable costs of moving Trident Relocating the Trident base to another port could cost at least £20bn and take 20 years to build:

Whitehall planners and independent thinktanks alike have contemplated the prospect of having to move the Trident base to Devonport in Plymouth, or Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. However, moving the base to another port could cost at least £20bn, Professor Trevor Taylor, of the Royal United Services Institute, recently told the defence committee.

Rather higher than Admiral West’s £2.5 billion figure which I thought reasonable. Here is the relevant part of the evidence given to the House of Commons Defence Committee, chaired by James Arbuthnot, MP on 18 June:

Q228 Mr Holloway: …. Clearly, they [the SNP] plan to get rid of Faslane and Coulport. What would the costs be, apart from the obvious ones? Aren’t there some enormous costs regarding concrete cradles and things? Can you tell us a bit more about that?  

Professor Taylor: I haven’t been to Coulport-it’s too sensitive for me. However, from what I understand about what goes on there, the cost of moving those nuclear installations to a new site would be very extensive. It is the weapons storage and then the submarine docking. There is some evidence on what the docks at Devonport for the Trident submarine cost to build.  

Chair: I was in charge. It was horrendous.  

Mr Holloway: Is that because they have to be able to withstand an earthquake or something?  

Chair: Yes.  

Professor Taylor: And accidents of various descriptions. And obviously the weapons storage-  

Mr Brazier: What of various descriptions?  

Professor Taylor: Accidents of various descriptions-leaks. The safety arrangements-the Chairman could speak better on those than me. I find it difficult; if I were to give you a rough figure, I would say the starting figure would be £20 billion, but that is really just an absolute guess. It would be that order of amount that we would have to find, I think. There are various efforts under way. I don’t think anybody has come up with a satisfactory answer about precisely where you might move the facilities to. I don’t have an answer on that- ...

Anyway, £20 billion sounds like a very good figure for negotiations with a Scottish government.


UPDATE 12 JULY

Nicholas Watt has taken his Guardian story a stage further today with an account (Trident submarine base: No 10 disowns MoD's Faslane sovereignty proposal Whitehall row and SNP anger ignites over report of plans to make naval base UK territory if Scots vote for independence) of argy-bargy between the MoD, Number 10 and Alistair Darling, who heads the anti-independence Better Together campaign.

It is understood that a senior official from Darling's Better Together campaign telephoned the No 10 Scottish referendum unit late on Wednesday night to express deep alarm about the Faslane plan. The group was assured that the No 10 unit was equally appalled that the private thinking of the MoD on such a sensitive matter had entered the public domain.

An interesting exchange on Twitter between Watt and a Scottish former defence minister: