The writing's on the wall for the Scottish Labour Party

COMMENTATORS like to think it is a special case, but is Scotland really that different from the rest of the UK in its voting intentions?

A paradox of the 1980s and 1990s was that although Scotland voted differently from England, social surveys showed that the two countries had similar views about social welfare. This was not because Scotland was not left-of-centre; it was because Margaret Thatcher largely failed to shift English views to the right.

So what has been happening since both England and Scotland voted against the Tories in 1997? Has the advent of the Scottish parliament made any difference? What lessons are there for Scotland's dominant left-wing parties, Labour and the SNP? And what of the emerging debate about extending the powers of the Scottish parliament?

Evidence comes from a new series of Scottish Social Attitudes Surveys, due to be published in book-length form tomorrow. These surveys give us an unprecedented insight into what Scotland believes, while parallel surveys elsewhere in Britain allow Scottish views to be set in context.

When they were voting in the first election to the new parliament, Scots continued to hold social attitudes that resembled those in England. In both countries, more than 80% of people believed that inequality of wealth and income was too great. At least two-thirds believed it was government's responsibility to look after people who were sick, unemployed, disabled or old. So the core values of the welfare state seemed secure.

But there was also a widespread belief in both Scotland and England that the welfare state needed to be reformed. In both countries, half the people believed the welfare state induced "dependency", making people less willing to look after themselves, and one-third believed it discouraged people from looking after one another. Moreover, a massive majority (90%) believed there was a lot of benefit fraud.

In all these respects, Scottish views were at most a few percentage points to the left of England. Only in two respects was there a bigger difference. One concerned comprehensive schools, which were favoured by two-thirds of Scots but only one-half of people in England. The other was on what to do about wealth inequality. Two- thirds of Scots favoured redistribution, but only one-third of the English.

BROAD coincidence of views does not, however, force a coincidence of politics, as the Tories discovered to their cost. New Labour have been rather good at hanging on to their 1997 support in England. But in Scotland the surveys show they have been losing votes to their left, mainly to the SNP and the Scottish Socialists.

For Scottish Labour, two ominous changes in people's perceptions took place between 1997 and 1999. One was that the largest group of voters came to see themselves as being to the left of Labour - 45% in Scotland in 1999, compared to one-third in 1997. That was a stronger change than in England. The other was that, for the first time ever, the largest group of voters also saw the SNP as being to the left of Labour.

For example, 40% took this view on the question of raising taxation to pay for more public spending, compared to 30% who saw the SNP and Labour as ideologically identical and 31% who placed the SNP to the right of Labour. This was probably a response to the SNP's proposals to forgo Gordon Brown's reduction in income tax. By contrast, in 1997 less than one-quarter of people put the SNP to the left of Labour's.

Scottish Labour then lost large segments of its former voters. Consider first those 1997 Labour voters who, in 1999, found themselves to the left of Labour. Two out of every five of them defected from the party in the Scottish parliament elections, one- half to the SNP and one-fifth to the Scottish Socialists or the Greens. In England, by contrast, even people to the left of Labour would have stayed loyal in a hypothetical general election in May 1999.

That flow of Labour voters to the left is the party's biggest loss - but it is not the only one. In Scotland, Labour also lost about two out of five people who remained to its right, mainly to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, with a small proportion (about one in 10) going to the SNP. The Scottish Tories benefited from almost none of this. In England, the relatively few rightwards defectors from Labour mainly ended up with the Conservatives.

What are the implications of this? One is for the 2003 Scottish parliament election. If people continue to move to the left of Labour, and if these leftwards movers continue to favour the SNP and the SSP, Labour cannot retain power.

There are only two ways to avoid that, but neither of them will be attractive to new Labour. One is to persuade Scots that Labour is a socialist party after all - which would embarrass the leadership in England. The other would be to convince Scots that the SNP is not to Labour's left - which New Labour politicians resolutely refuse to do, if we are to judge by their reaction to the SNP's recent proposals to raise income tax on very high earners.

The more profound implication is for the Scottish parliament itself. The Sunday Herald's path-breaking poll last month showed that clear majorities of Scots favoured full fiscal autonomy for the parliament and wanted it to control social security spending. Set alongside our book's findings on the voting preferences of the 45% of people who are to the left of Labour in Scotland, Scots seem to be sending an unambiguous signal. They want their parliament to engage in significant wealth redistribution, they want it to have the powers to do so - and they are beginning to doubt that New Labour is up to the task.

Professor Lindsay Paterson is a co-author of New Scotland, New Politics, published tomorrow by Polygon, #14.99

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