A very British coo... [a machiavellian perspective on the Scottish Parliament]

I have this conspiracy theory. It's speculation, mostly, with a bit of hard experience thrown in.

First of all, lets briefly brush past Machiavelli:

"A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests." Niccolo Machiavelli

Wendy Alexander got a skelping in the press for her inept debut in the Vichy Parliament a few days ago. For one, I was nervous of Wendy. She IS quite bright, though a bit mouthy (no pun intended).

Labour, since before the election, has been distinctly lacking it's usual tactical nuances. This means one of two things: one, the gradualists in the SNP are suddenly brilliant. Or two, Labour is intentionally allowing it's Scottish Branch to fail.

Now, you'll find lots of threads, fora, fauna and articles about the former "we're braw" position, but very few of the machiavellian position. I thought I'd bring it up. Here is my conspiracy theory.

Henry McLeish was the man who was confident that a Scottish Parliament would all but wipe-out the SNP. It was intended to take three-party UK politics into a new era and eliminate demands for Independence by providing the Scottish People with definite and legitimised powers. He was wrong, he was sacked, and instead New Labour in London was sidled with a parliament which instead hightened feelings of an Independent Nature.

Not only that, the nats have sidelined their Bay City Rollers Govan Temptress into "co-pilot" position and sent Walter the Softie back for retraining. Meanwhile, the charismatic one, "Eck", is back in charge. The People adore Eck, and London has bombed the crap of enough countries for people to get a bit sick of the current situation and want a change.

As a result of all the London policies: ID cards, wars, economic problems on the horizon, and a Nationalist election win up north, you fact a dilemma. If you fully back up the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament, you legitimise it, and more importantly, prolong it. If, however, you intentionally subvert Scottish Labour in the light of an impending election loss in Westminster, you do a number of things. The Liberals and Tories are weak in the Vichy Parly. As are the Greens. There's no Socialists anymore. If you intentionally weaken the Labour Party, you leave only one strong party: a minority SNP government who can't get a vote through because there isn't enough of them. That's because of Proportional Representation.

With weak british parties in opposition in the vichy parly, you can isolate the SNP in a situation where it can never get a decent vote through. You can't lose a Westminster election to the SNP because you've reduced and Gerrymandered the seats conveniently enough. After that, you have a Westminster government with a strong legitimate government (whichever party wins) and slowly but surely you erode public confidence in the Scottish Parliament enough until people will THANK you to get rid of Holyrood and bring back all Westminster rule.

The one thing you CAN'T do, is to provide serious opposition to the SNP inside the vichy parly. If you do so, it allows Alex Salmond to perform and get his ratings up. Put on a boring, businesslike display, and he should remain stifled. You can even switch leaders, transfer the good ones to Westminster and leave the SNP to rot in their minority government.

So there's my conspiracy theory: Wendy Alexander isn't meant to succeed, she's designed to fail. She's designed to make the Scottish Parliament LOOK like a waste of time. She'll pick pointless fights on irrelevant issues that will be buried inside the tabloids, while Gordon Brown hogs the front pages with Westminster issues. The "social value" of the Holyrood project will be subverted by and for Westminster's benefit. And "social value" is the key here. It's a matter of public perception and confidence in their elected members. With the SNP in minority government, it's unlikely to get key votes through. Not the kind of key votes it needs to legitimise the parly without enough powers.