EDUCATION will be a key battleground in the Scottish Parliament election in May.
Over the next five months this will be a debate as much about differing political ideologies as it is about results.
Nicola Sturgeon has said her record as First Minister should be judged on education. Is it better? Do more children have better skills and abilities when it comes to reading, writing and maths? Crucially, Sturgeon will ask herself at the end of her tenure, do those who live in areas of multiple deprivation have the same opportunities to learn and to achieve as those at the top?
Ruth Davidson too has made education a priority of her leadership of the Scottish Tories. Indeed, Davidson and her party have often been at their most effective holding the Government to account when it comes to schools and universities.
Though there may be some similar aims, there are clear dividing lines between the parties.
We are not too sure where Labour are, however. Indeed, Labour probably aren’t too sure where Labour are. Their current strategy for survival is to say as little as possible to as few people as possible and hope that nobody notices.
The problem really is that May’s election looks comfortably like an SNP win. Clearly Sturgeon’s party will be desperately hoping that despite this, their voters will still turn out. The more people who vote for the party, the higher the turnout, the more legitimacy in all that is in the party’s manifesto.
It would be a major upset, an incredible upset, if the SNP lost it.
Nobody is even countenancing such a possibility; not the pollsters, the press or the public, and least of all the Labour Party, the Tories and the LibDems.
The parties of opposition are not showing the people of Scotland which of them is most likely to be a credible alternative government.
If anything they are trying to show them who should get to go first at First Minister’s Questions.
So it means that the parties don’t really have to try coming up with new policies, as those parties know nothing proposed in those manifestos is ever likely to become policy.
The voters know that.
This is why we’re likely to see more policies such as Ruth Davidson’s education shambles revealed in today’s paper.
A policy that would see Scottish students lumbered with a £6,000 tax after graduating.
A policy that shows you the headline figure but hides the working out.
The Tories will hope this sort of thing can be released and announced without even the tiniest amount of scrutiny.
Expect Labour and the LibDems to do more of this between now and May 5th.
This paper will continue to scrutinise and hold to account the policies of Labour, the LibDems, the Greens, Rise and others, just as much as it does with the policies of the SNP.
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