It was a day of golden oldies and their greatest hits at Holyrood. Comfort-zone politics, in other words. Here was Anas Sarwar, tub-thumping defender of the working man and scourge of international capital. And here was Humza Yousaf, rabble-rousing keeper of the flame of liberty and defender of Scotland’s native resources on land and sea.
It has been a while since the SNP and Labour last had a proper fight, but this year’s general election renewal promises to honour the contest’s low and dirty traditions. Belts, you will remember, exist to advertise the upper limits of acceptable targeting.
So, Sarwar demanded, why is Yousaf on the side of Big Oil? Why won’t he support Labour’s call for additional taxes on North Sea oil and gas? Why, when you get down to it, does he hate ordinary hard-working families? (For it is axiomatic that all families must be ordinary and hard-working in equal measure.)
What a scandalous suggestion this was. As Yousaf explained, the SNP stands up for Scotland, and for the northeast in particular. Why does Sarwar wish to consign 100,000 oil and gas jobs to the scrapheap? How will that “help households”?
As so often, these exchanges reflected the narcissism of small differences. “We absolutely believe in a windfall tax on energy companies,” Yousaf said. By which he means he supports the current Conservative-imposed levy of 75 per cent while opposing Labour’s plan to increase that to 78 per cent.
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It is, of course, Scotland’s oil. How dare Labour “raid the northeast” to build nuclear power plants (bad) in England (even worse)? “We will not allow that,” Yousaf roared, inviting us to imagine the spectacle of the first minister gluing himself to an oil rig to protest this grotesque encroachment upon Scottish interests.
At which point Douglas Lumsden (C, NE Scotland) popped up to ask if the Scottish government “still has a policy of a presumption against any new oil and gas licences”. Or, to put it another way, is oil good this week or is it bad again?
Well, the first minister said, we only “consulted” on a presumption against new licenses and more drilling. “We have never proposed having no new licensing at all,” but, on the other hand, “unlike the Conservatives we are not ignoring the scale of the climate crisis befalling our planet”.
From which we may say this: it may be Scotland’s oil but it is also Schrödinger’s oil, being good and bad at the same time and without there being any way of knowing which. If you are confused by this, you may console yourself with the fact the first minister is too.
