Gavin McCrone Square

Why so many nationalists disparage experts in Scotland

MANY WILL REMEMBER Michael Gove, as a cabinet minister, saying, in relation to Brexit, ‘I think the people of this country have had enough of experts’. While this was provocative and extravagant, there was some sense in it. After all, trust in experts had been eroded by prominent cases of experts getting it wrong or even doing wrong. This has included cases of damaging surgery carried out on blameless patients, and the crashing of financial institutions by their directors. It is, however, also the case that the internet, our friend Google and social media platforms have given those with no expertise opportunities for claiming specialist knowledge in various fields, sometimes with political motivation for their claims.

This is particularly true among Scottish nationalists. They have been tutored in their ideology and what they must say to combat the ‘Unionists’ they detest and whom they habitually accuse of ‘talking Scotland down’. Their propaganda sources, either the SNP’s ‘communications’ department or some blatantly inaccurate websites (‘Business for Scotland’, ‘Believe in Scotland’, ‘You yes yet’, e.g.) or blogs (‘talking up Scotland’, ‘Newsnet’, ‘Yours for Scotland’, e.g.) disparage the UK and make idle boasts about the ‘successes’ of the SNP regime in such areas as health, education, welfare.

The reverse of this is their often dishonest claims about all that is wrong in England (sometimes, the UK). Their self-satisfied demeanour is that of Dougal, the Harry Enfield character in short videos on YouTube: “Oh yes. Everything’s better in Scotland”.

One expert source that came in for separatist rancour from an evidently clueless Scottish nationalist was the UK Defence Journal (UKDJ), edited by George Allison, which has a stellar reputation for reliability. Trying to impugn its motives as well as its credibility was an SNP propaganda-saturated troll claiming, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the number of frigates being built for the Royal Navy at Scottish yards was smaller than that he alleged was promised in 2014. And he persisted, in the face of evidence to the contrary from the experts.

Another tried the same with the nationalist myth that the two new British aircraft carriers do not actually carry any aircraft. This has been debunked by UKDJ, but, as is normal with nationalist propaganda stooges, the myth of the absent aircraft persists. It doesn’t occur to them that there might be a reason for not broadcasting the number of aircraft being carried on either the HMS Queen Elizabeth or the HMS Prince of Wales at any given time.

The most hilarious example was when an ignorant nationalist engaged with an expert historian in an argument about the contents and meaning of a book on the myth of the army using tanks to quell unrest in Glasgow in 1919 (it really didn’t). The contender in this case could see that he was arguing with Dr Gordon J. Barclay, but didn’t seem to comprehend that the book, which scotches nationalist myths about ‘The Battle of George Square’, was co-authored by Barclay himself. So he dug himself into a hole, telling Barclay that his book didn’t say what he, the co-author, could show that it actually did say.

And now we have had a persistent claim about a fifty year-old briefing paper by a civil servant for a minister. The author was Dr Gavin McCrone, Chief Economist in the Scottish Office in the 1970s. McCrone’s prediction was that oil would bring in very substantial revenues which would benefit any ‘independent’ Scotland massively. Nationalists have seized on this and claim that, because this briefing note was not published at the time, it was therefore ‘suppressed’. Apart from the fact that briefing notes from ministers are not published, McCrone’s own view, when that question was put to him in 2012, was :

“When civil servants write briefs for ministers, they are confidential for the purpose for which they are written, and so it wasn’t intended to be published, and it was quite right that it was not published at the time. Actually, most of the information that I gathered and put into that report was already available in various sources.”

One of these sources was the Observer newspaper which had already devoted space in two editions to the subject.

Further, the existence of bounteous oil resources was common knowledge. The nationalist claim that the information did not come into the public domain until after a 2005 Freedom of Information request for the McCrone briefing does not stand up. The SNP’s opportunistic ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ campaign ensured that the extent of oil exploration, extraction and revenues was widely publicised. The SNP used that slogan in both the elections of 1974, and made modest gains in these – winning seven and 11 seats respectively, until being reduced once more to only two seats in 1979.

Yet indefatigable nationalists persist in claiming that McCrone’s advice for a new minister in the Wilson government from early 1974 was classified as ‘secret’ – ‘to deliberately withhold its politically inconvenient findings for 31 years? That’s suppression.’ McCrone’s own words about his briefing note, above, and the fact that civil servants’ briefing notes for ministers are not published undermine the accusation that there was a conspiracy at government level to ‘withhold’ the kind of advice that was not published. But, once again, an expert’s view is dismissed by nationalists with a self-proclaimed righteous tone.

When an expert in a relevant field shows Scottish separatist propaganda to be inaccurate or plain dishonest, nationalists not only try to argue against that expert but sometimes also try to discredit him or her. This is particularly the case with the GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland – figures which are regarded by responsible economists as authoritative, and which the late Alex Salmond in 2014 described as ‘a kitemark document’.

Nationalists rage against it, describing it as based on ‘Treasury figures’ or ‘ONS figures’ – when the figures are compiled and produced by the Scottish Government’s own professional statisticians – and therefore designed to show Scotland in a poor light. By claiming that these statisticians simply accept ‘Westminster figures’, separatists are saying – whether they realise it or not – that these professional experts are either incompetent or dishonest, or both. They are also saying that any figures derived from London cannot be trusted because the experts compiling them in London are axiomatically dishonest.

This is of extreme importance to Scottish separatists, because the GERS shows that Scots are better off inside the UK than outside it. The unremitting nationalist campaign to discredit GERS is an existential one for the nationalist cause, although SNP ministers are obliged to acknowledge, if grudgingly, the authoritative nature of the GERS. Hence nationalists’ extreme hostility to the blogger Kevin Hague whose ‘chokkablog’ blog has exhaustively examined GERS, among much else, and has convincingly exposed the incompetence and dishonesty of GERS deniers. Nationalists have attempted, unsuccessfully, to discredit him and his blog, which nationalists are not permitted to read. They are allowed only their own ‘trusted sources’.

This has been a running battle since 2014, with various SNP or separatist websites creating ever more elaborate propaganda to try to discredit the GERS, even though it is endorsed by the respected Fraser of Allander Institute (FAI), which describes GERS as ‘an accredited National Statistics [publication] produced by statisticians in the Scottish Government (so is not produced by the UK Government) and is a serious attempt to understand the key fiscal facts under the current constitutional arrangement’. Separatists have tried to discredit GERS by dismissing it as being partly based on estimates. As FAI says, estimation is a part of all economic statistics and is not a reason to dismiss the figures as “made up”’. For separatists, these estimates are no better than a random guess, which merely highlights their own ignorance.

The FAI has not escaped nationalist vituperation, with claims that it is funded by ‘unionist’ sources, which in SNP-speak means it is discredited. As a research institute within the University of Strathclyde, the FAI has recently received funding from the Scottish Government (scarcely ‘unionist’), as well as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Standard Life Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Commission, UK Energy Research Centre and Deloitte.

Others who have defended the GERS have also been disparaged. The world-renowned financial expert, Professor Ronald MacDonald of Glasgow University, is dismissed by nationalists as a ‘Unionist’ whose views on finance cannot be trusted because of his ‘Unionist’ stance. His outstanding reputation counts for nothing with these people. Nationalists cannot imagine that perhaps experts who oppose Scottish secession do so because they can see how damaging leaving the UK would be for Scots, and that that is what determines their pro-UK stance. For the nationalist, being pro-UK is their primary characteristic which motivates actual experts to deny the ‘truths’ of Scottish nationalism. Therefore they are not to be trusted. The Scottish civil service has similarly come under suspicion from separatists because, they say wrongly, it is paid for by London.

How did formerly canny, intelligent and self-respecting Scots come to this pass? It used to be the case that people at the top of their profession who had a string of qualifications and a proven track record of achievement were trusted and their judgment accepted. Perhaps the problem derives from the Zeitgeist. The age of deference is over. Wi-fi has enabled everyone to become their own expert – they think. There is no longer a hierarchy of knowledge and opinion – ‘my opinion’s as good as yours, if not better’. In matters where genuine experts are dismissed and disparaged by Scottish nationalists because of their views on the constitutional issue, there is what I can only call an arrogance of ignorance.

The real problem is, however, that the SNP and the fringe separatist groups have not been able to produce a coherent case for Scotland seceding from the UK, whereas the case for the pro-UK side is unassailable and recognised as such by the well-informed. All that is left to the nationalists is lying about the relevant facts and figures and attacking the experts who produce the evidence that Scotland would be poorer and in a worse condition if it left the UK.

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Photo of Gavin McCrone courtesy of the Scottish Daily Express

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