Report to the People
11th August 2003
It’s the Economy, Stupid
As
everyone who’s read it (mainly chronic insomniacs, political anoraks and
television viewers who couldn’t face the prospect of watching another
pointless pre-season friendly) knows, the Scottish Executive’s programme for
the next four years opens with a declaration that economic growth is its number
one priority.
As
statements of the blindingly obvious go, this is up there with the best.
More than a decade before Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign team coined the
phrase, those of us living through the dark days of economic meltdown and mass
unemployment knew that top of the political agenda must always be “the
economy, stupid.”
Any
government, if it wants to implement its policies, needs a strong economy.
Without that, without businesses being established and expanded, without
people having jobs and money to spend, it’ll soon see its coffers empty and
its fine plans out the window.
We
are, of course, no where near that stage today. Inflation and interest rates are low. Youth unemployment, which threw a generation of young people
onto the scrapheap, is now almost unheard of.
That,
though, doesn’t mean we can be complacent.
The recent figures on economic growth make uncomfortable reading. And
communities like ours still have more people than average without work and an
economic base which is too narrow to be stable.
But,
to be fair to the Executive’s programme, it says a lot more than just
“economic growth is important.” It,
as you would expect, commits the governing coalition to a range of policies
aimed at delivering it.
The
Executive undertakes, for example, to regenerate
communities which suffer from persistently high levels of unemployment.
Measures to expand home-grown ideas and businesses are also promised, as
is a new Business Start Up Fund. And,
through Scottish Development International,
more inward investment will be sought.
Welcome
moves, indeed. But what will it all
mean for us in practice?
This
is exactly what a series of parliamentary questions I have tabled to Enterprise
Minister, Jim Wallace, asks. How will these laudable policies (such as making sure “that
the benefits of economic growth are shared by all of Scotland's communities”)
be put into effect? When can we
expect them? And, more to the point, what will they mean for the Inverclyde
economy?
I
suspect the answer to the last of these questions depends much on the answers to
the first two. So I can assure you
that I will be paying close attention as these measures are worked out, arguing
at every stage that they must be capable of delivering real reform for areas
like Inverclyde.
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