As Scotland absorbs the latest set of indicators that we always have been and always will be treated as a lesser partner in this failed 307-year-old union, it is worth considering the political machine that enables the deceit to pass for reality. The dissemination of mistruths and political cons that are so detrimental to the well being of Scotland, are only possible when willing bodies such as mass media organisations and eager foot soldiers such as political bloggers and activists are in place to perpetrate the offence. One such activist is author David Torrance who said of the poll tax:
“A tax maliciously ‘tested’ on Scotland? Certainly not”
The release of the revealing documents under the 30-year rule, gives an insight into true Tory thinking on Scotland. Let’s face it, the secret documents may be a revelation for some, but for many Scots educated in their political history, it was already widely accepted that a disgraceful anti-Scottish Tory government led by Margaret Thatcher in 1989 implemented the hated and unjust poll-tax in Scotland, 1 year earlier than the rest of the UK as an experiment. Now that the unabridged truth has been revealed, the defenders, apologists and deniers of Tory thinking on Scotland look at best foolish and at worst deceitful.
The raison d’etre of the early Scottish implementation of the poll tax never seemed in doubt for me. There was an attitude among Tories that they had very little support in Scotland anyway (and still don’t), so why not treat the whinging Scots like a testbed to see what might work in England and Wales?
It was crystal clear that the policy of charging a new rates replacement tax per-head rather than relating to property values was something that would massively favour the rich and disadvantage the poor. In fact, it was set to be the biggest mugging of the less well off for the benefit of those living in expensive mansions and estates, in political history and is why David Torrance and others like him, would do well to show Scotland some common courtesy now they have been found out. Some, like Michael Howard when being elected as Conservative Party leader in 2003, apologised for his party’s role in introducing the unpopular tax on his first visit to Scotland as leader. He said:
”It was a bold and brave experiment but it didn’t work, it was a mistake, I’ve apologised for it before and I’m happy to do so again.”
Others, like David chose not to accept the obvious and act as a lapdog for an alien political plutocracy that was and is holding the majority of Scots in a perpetual poverty trap. David Torrance is a former political reporter for Scottish Television and the BBC and now a freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster. He wrote a biography of Thatcher ally George Younger who was implicit in the poll tax con and, ‘We in Scotland’ – Thatcherism in a Cold Climate a pro-Thatcher propaganda piece.
The arrogant and shameless Alan Cochrane released a book recently which has since been widely slated and ridiculed, Alex Salmond: My part in his downfall, the title of which is a play on Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall and therefore yet another disgusting Nazi reference by the unionist camp to slur Scots pining only for a more equitable society. Similarly, David Torrance also cashed in on Alex Salmond’s name by releasing Salmond – Against The Odds.
You may well consider David Torrance must have had privileged insight into the thoughts and inner-workings of Scotland’s former First Minister which gave him an adequate starting point to write such a book. The opposite is in fact true, and discussing the book Mr Salmond said:
“Now that I have time on my hands to read newspapers, I noted the musings from my self-appointed biographer David Torrance”
“I understand, of course, that thus far the general Scottish response to the referendum is the exact opposite of what Tory-leaning David would have wished, and also he must be totally devastated by my standing down – thus depriving him of a lucrative income stream.”
“However, allow me just two observations. First, I hardly know David Torrance. And secondly – and much more problematically for a biographer – he doesn’t know me at all.”
I can assure you that the complimentary quotes on his website from unionist politicians and journalists are in complete contrast to what you will find written about his book by Scots searching for a more equitable social justice and long overdue change in our country.
Consider that Former Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind had already called the poll tax “a great political mistake” in 2003. Then in September 2006 the now-Tory leader David Cameron had even seen enough sense to realise the game was up and gave an apology. He said: “The decision to treat Scotland as a laboratory for experimentation in new methods of local government finance was clumsy and unjust.” This however was not enough of a hint to stop David Torrance pulling the wool over Scots eyes.
Let’s look a little closer at what Torrance said back in May of 2009 on a well known Tory website. The title of his article, ironically and now laughably is ‘David Torrance: Debunking the myths about Margaret Thatcher and Scotland’.
He kicks off with this corker to attempt the high moral ground and educated approach where the insinuation is that his opinion is ‘reason’ and ‘reality’ that is here to set the myth straight:
The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper once wrote that he believed ‘the whole history of Scotland to have been coloured by myth, and that myth is never driven out by reality, or by reason, but lingers on until another myth has been discovered, or elaborated, to replace it.’
David’s chosen opening gambit:
In the 1980s I would contest that the Scots discovered such a myth, that of a Mrs Thatcher who did not understand Scotland, neglected it, hated it and even sought to use it as a ‘test bed’ so malicious was her vendetta against it.
So it appears now we are fully furnished with the facts that it is actually David Torrance who is responsible for converting fact and reality to myth. Try to hold in your laughter while reading his full text of myth No. 3 of his 5-myth comedy fest.
Myth Number Three – Margaret Thatcher set out to “test” the Poll Tax on Scotland
Another myth, that Mrs Thatcher ‘tested’ the Poll Tax on Scotland is perhaps the most corrosive and persistent of them all. The chronology of the Poll Tax, however, offers no evidence for this oft-quoted claim. Ministers were already working on alternatives to the Rates – not exactly the fairest form of local taxation itself – when Scotland endured a rather traumatic revaluation in early 1985. The resulting political outcry that generated did spur Mrs Thatcher on, but her intention was always to phase in the Poll Tax on a Great Britain-wide basis over several years. Crucially, those who had her ear on Scottish issues – George Younger, Jim Goold, the Scottish Tory Chairman, and Willie Whitelaw – all thought differently and persuaded her to let the Scottish Office legislate early and separately ahead of the 1987 general election. She only agreed to this reluctantly and her bitterness is clear from her memoirs. ‘If, as the Scots subsequently claimed, they were guinea pigs for a great experiment in local government finance’, she wrote in The Downing Street Years, ‘they were the most vociferous and influential guinea pigs which the world has ever seen.’
Indeed, therein lay an obvious retort to the ‘guinea pig’ argument: why, having ‘tested’ the Poll Tax unsuccessfully in Scotland was it then applied to England and Wales with no major changes? So, a badly thought out and unfair tax? Certainly; A tax maliciously ‘tested’ on Scotland? Certainly not.
There you go, in David’s own words ‘the myth that was the most corrosive and persistent of all’, has been proven to be 100% true. He says there is no evidence; well now there is unequivocal evidence. He also reminds us of the Thatcher quote in her memoirs where the iron lady lies about the fact Scots were guinea pigs for the tax.
Now that history and 30 year-old facts have left Torrance with egg on his face, I will leave it to your judgment how much faith and trust you wish to place in anything David Torrance has to say ever again. We await an apology from David Torrance and others who similarly deceived the Scottish nation.