Scotland has Failed
There’s a steady churn of legacy media about Scotland and Scottish politics, much of which is misinformed but inoffensive and best to be ignored. But there’s other stuff that needs some kind of response because it has some ulterior purpose. Think Skintland.
This article by Azeem Ibrahim (OBE) in The Spectator is probably one of them. Published this weekend (14/3/26) it’s titled: “Scottish devolution has failed” and is illustrated by a suitably dejected-looking Scotland fan, with a decidedly un-Rampant flag.
Starting as he meant to go on, the bold Ibrahim (of whom more in a moment) states: “Attention on 7 May this year will largely focus on England’s local council elections. Yet the vote taking place in Scotland on the same day surely deserves at least as much scrutiny.”
It’s a bit of a giveaway from the outset.
He then cascades into a spasm of unsupported statements:
“A lack of real scrutiny has become pervasive everywhere in Scottish politics.”
“The truth is that Scottish devolution has not only failed as a political gambit but also in its basic mission to produce a just and competent government.”
“It has actively weakened Scotland and the United Kingdom alike.”
“Scotland today lags behind England and comparable European nations across nearly every devolved area, despite enjoying higher levels of public spending per head than almost any other country in Europe.”
“The ‘political science’ view from Westminster did not predict that devolution would boost separatism, create a culture of unaccountability and birth two decades of gimmick politics that has left the country’s services broken.”
Azeem Ibrahim is a colourful character, whose own background merits some investigation. This Herald piece offers much to ponder between the lines: This Scots businessman is an adviser to Imran Khan, a globetrotting financier, a PhD scholar and political player with links to US presidents and powerful business magnates So who exactly is Azeem Ibrahim? |
The Spectator article reads more like a briefing note to his handler than a magazine article, but it’s fascinating in its dislocation. Who the author is, or who the intended readership is, remains a mystery. The whole premise hovers somewhere above and beyond, but certainly not tethered to history, geography or democracy.
Ibrahim staggers on, explaining:
“When Labour designed devolution in the 1990s, they chose to retain the Barnett formula rather than give Scotland real revenue-raising powers. There were political and practical reasons for this: granting Holyrood tax authority was seen as edging too close to independence; Scottish voters were reassured by the guarantee of higher per capita spending than England; and the Treasury preferred the simplicity of a mechanism already in place.”
Devolution is seen as a technocratic experiment rather than a democratic outcome. There’s a truth in that, but he seems to be speaking the quiet bit out loud. At times, poor Ibrahim seems to be making the case for independence:
It’s all a bit of a giveaway, as if, in a moment of desperation, the author has blurted out a series of truths, they’re just not the ones he thinks he’s making. In summary:
- Devolution was set up to save the Union and stake off calls for independence
- In this it has largely failed
- We have no option but to try to deride and undermine the whole thing
- Small independent northern European countries like Ireland, Finland and Denmark have prospered while Scotland, locked within the Union has not
- Statements like “It has actively weakened Scotland and the United Kingdom alike” just read like buyer’s remorse as it dawns on the Unionist commentariat that they are about to lose heavily in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh simultaneously
- Some of it is just ludicrous and laughable, like “Scotland today lags behind England and comparable European nations across nearly every devolved area” and you are left not knowing if the writer (and the editor) have bothered to research this at all?
As the article goes on, the writer (and the reader) grow more embittered. Ibrahim writes:
“…there are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.”
[J.M.Barrie, What Every Woman Knows (1908)]
What does that mean?
Perhaps: ‘Barrie is a Scotsman on the make. So he knows what he talking about’. But if Barrie is a man on the make, do we have any reason to believe him? Or maybe he is just a playwright writing to entertain.
Yup it’s true but Scotland under neo-liberal economic and social policy now pretty much feels like the rest of the UK in a lot of ways, so ironically as politically its breaking up, if only the people moaning in the spectator realised how much they have succeeded in destroying and homogenising Scotland they wouldn’t be so upset, at the moment independence of it comes feels like a pyrrhic victory at best, luckily for independence the cultural silos.
Never finished the last one, were lucky we still have them, though a lot of cultural institutions are pretty much colonised now. Got to love civic nationalism!
The Spectator is such an absurdly right wing (bordering on Fascism) rag that this sort of thing just needs to be dismissed as another political rant
probably born of fear. Fear that the UK might eventually lose Scotland and all that it contributes.
If Scotland was such a failure and such a drag on the UK why on earth would rUK want to keep it?
No, these sort of nonsense pieces just need to be ignored generally. Good though that you have highlighted this effort from Ibrahim to give us a laugh.
From what Mike has written Azeem Ibrahim’s article says far more about the type of publication The Spectator has become in 2026 than the effect of devolved government in Scotland.
It’s got a good chess page and extensive reviews, but I doubt anyone has bought the Spectator in search of left wing rants.
Excellent publication in 2026 if unhinged right wing rants are your thing.
Barrie was being slightly ironic. Amoral and relentless ambition is what he saw in 1908 as a national characteristic. Azeem Ibrahim’s sudden emergence from Scottish obscurity to global triumph and bombast mark him out as Scottish to the core by these criteria (see also: Douglas Murray, Neill Ferguson, Andrew Neill, etc etc).
That was in reply to @BellaCaledonia Editor
The Barrie line is “There is no finer sight than a Scotsman on the make in London…” …
The London bit is important, because he was living there and very much on the make…
Not sure where you get that from, Douglas. Here’s the passage from the play:
DAVID. But his ambition wasn’t satisfied. Soon he had public life in his eye. As a heckler he was something fearsome; they had to seat him on the platform for to keep him quiet. Next they had to let him into the Chair. After that he did all the speaking; he cleared all roads before him like a fire-engine; and when this vacancy occurred, you could hardly say it did occur, so quickly did he step into it. My lady, there are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.
Well, you’ve got me there, Ines…
Equally, as per The Guardian the other day, Gramsci didn’t actually say “The old world is dying, the new is yet to be born. Now is the time of monsters”…
Don’t ask me what he did actually say, but it wasn’t as good as the misquote…
Print the legend etc…
Well, there’s a historical/racist trope about Scots on the make in London that was wildly intensified in the 18th century by John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London. He used his weekly newspaper, ‘The North Briton’ to relentlessly portray the Scots as sub-human, as wolves and leeches, as the enemy within, etc etc.
Largely because the Earl of Bute, a Scot, was the PM and the former tutor of the young king and seen to be favouring Scots – at the time of Wilkes I mean… Ramsay painted Bute…
Same thing happened to G Brown PM and “The Scottish raj” as J Paxman decried his government….
In any case, the Spectator crew don’t have a leg to stand on after 10 years of what has been a never ending shit-show in lieu of normal government at Westminster.
A young person in their early 20s probably has no experience or recollection of what a normal UK gov feels like, ie, that, even if you didn’t like them or their policies, serious people were in charge.
Since the resignation of Cameron in 2016, that’s all gone…
Scotland is a beacon of stability and reasonableness in comparison…
It’s Westminster which is in crisis, not Scotland…
bombardment by medja ov almost identical tropes leading to a state of stultification/psychological paralysis, the intended effect of which is to ensure the guilty parties, i.e., our supposed leaders, fakers & shakers in the limelicht, are not prosecuted to the ful’ extent of the LAW, beginning to wonder if it is the journos or the lawyers that wan shude regard as lowest of low in terms ae the sae cried professional classis
wun ah prepared earlier & last wun am daen cuz sum ae us hae joabs tae go tae; They’ve all been in way too long & keeping bad company so I dare say the US/Israeli secret service hav them aw well & truly by the baws conveniently slipt intae they lang sewn up dry dusty pockets. Thus it is precisely the same case it hus aywis been at least since the snp’s about face in 2012 when it officially committed itself tae the asylum that is the fascistic dictatorial North Atlantic Treaty Organization (naytoe) which wis the only reason Cameron could or would agree tae yon rigged referendum wie compromised binary choice in 2014. The sole purpose of that tedious mind numbing campaign wis tae distract wur attention frae the exploitation & injustice carried oot in our name here, there & ivrywhere whilst simultaneously coercing all those folk freely going about their business oblivious to the schemes being played behind closed doors to sign thimsels on to the electoral roll & thus git hammered fur tax in order tae increase the cash take fur further thumb twiddling by the listers & twisters in & around Holey Rude. Dewar’s devolution wis nowt but a ploy tae tighten the grip ae them that kain fit’s best fur the likes ae wursels (i.e., the plebs) & resulted in yet wan mair double layer ov insulting tax officers/shop talkers owned by bean counting banks, building societies, i.e., the financial sector or in uthir wurds: yon entire shambolic lawyerly mob buying & selling nowt ombdy actually needs or can in reality afford & via thir enforcers charging a fortune fur fit amounts tae fk all but a hail lotae toxic hot air. Thus it is the usual state ov affairs persists, i.e., fitchivir territories fall under the great jurisdictional influence & involvement ov the Great British Anglophonic State shall hav that part currently delineated as ‘Scotland’ up tae the neck then up tae the een in its usual warmongering neo-libralist ultra capitalist blud, shite & vomit.
Sounds like Azeem Ibrahim is a clever pen name for Herr Fromage or Mr Tice. Lol
Azeem Ibrahim is a real character of the Walter Mitty variety.
As Mike writes, there are some truths in the article but ones that the articles author would rather not dwell on.
Am I better off in 2026 than 2014? On a personal material level yes, but on a social material level? Absolutely not. I was willing to give the SNP a punt in 2014 and again in 2015 but when Brexit occurred I started to really wonder if they had any sort of plan. The 2017 UK GE confirmed that they did not have a plan at all and everything after that was an obvious performance with less and less substance. Look at the mess in the party finances, obvious alarm bells from the moment the then CEO refused the then Treasurer access to the books.
How people at the top behave signifies the culture of an organisation. What signals did the SNP believe they were and are sending to the people of Scotland?
Why have Labour failed to capitalise on any of this, and why has the Scottish Conservative Party disintegrated into the mess it is? What exactly is the point of Alex Cole-Hamilton?
There really isn’t anyone whondeserves our votes. Fuck ’em all.
The Spectator article is in step with MAGA’s “Democracy has failed, watch us destroy democracy”. “Devolution has failed. Destroy it”.
No surprise, since the paymasters of MAGA and The Exspecto-rant are the same people.
Any institution which “fails” to channel unfettered cash-flow into their greedy hands, or license their nefarious activities must be destroyed.
Post Assisted Dying Bill being rejected by MSP’s despite polling showing it has substantial public support a few questions:
1)Was this a failure of Holyrood to meet the expectations of public?
2)Does this vote show that religious faith still has a significant influence despite Scotland becoming an increasingly secular country?
3)What effect did limitations of devolution have on vote?
– Holyrood could not approve conscience opt out for health professionals which required Westminster consent.
4)How much did party affiliation have on outcome despite it being an individual conscience vote?
Greens & Lib Dem’s MSP’s voted overwhelmingly in favour.
SNP voted 3:2 for bill – in line with polled public opinion.
Conservatives voted 3:1 against – not surprising as Tories historically uneasy with social change.
Labour voted overwhelmingly against- only 3 Labour MSP’s voted in favour. – this really baffles me and prompted me to ask question. Would Holyrood voting in favour have caused problems for Westminster government?
Last comment- this is an issue which potentially affects every citizen but would be an individual choice for each person. Is this a rare case of a non constitutional issue which would be best resolved by a referendum rather than MSP’s?
It is exactly what it says on the tin, but didn’t mean anyone to understand; presumably because the writer Azeem Ibrahim either didn’t know himself (unlikely but possible), or because the stated, yet supposedly hidden meaning is just badly executed (lacking disguise and subtlety).
It is Unionist buyer’s regret. Nobody was supposed to notice that devolution was an exercise in Unionist managed democracy and elusive, limited and highly misleading tax powers. It has blown up in their faces, it doesn’t work for the Union, badly lets down Scotland; and far from just institutionalising nationalism in Scotland it has led Westminster governments in desperation to confrontational politics; and devious resort to placing resources in Scotland, over the head of Holyrood and the Devolution settlement.
It is a mess, because it was a supposedly crafty stitch-up to defeat the SNP; but turned out to be an illustration of the deep, intractable nature of the political incompetence of Westminster.
Good analysis.
When something is created as a lie, or has a lie at it’s heart, it will inevitably fail in the long term. We negotiate so many untruths and contradictions in Scotland. It gets quite dizzying at times. And it is a huge waste of our resources and time.