Scotland’s parties redraw battle tactics after Tories’ energy windfall tax

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Good morning. The extension of oil and gas windfall taxes in last week’s Budget has deprived the Scottish Conservatives of their biggest argument against the Scottish National party. It has allowed the SNP to attack the Tories as a false friend to Scotland’s oil and gas industry. But both parties are in a sense well-served by that. Some thoughts on why below.

Troubled waters over oil

One striking feature of Jeremy Hunt’s Budget was that he was more preoccupied with the Liberal Democrats than he was the SNP, attacking Ed Davey’s party directly during his speech.

Hunt also showed he was relaxed about handing the SNP a stick to beat the Scottish Conservatives with by opting to extend the energy profits levy (EPL) by 12 months to fund his cut to national insurance contributions.

Here’s Simeon Kerr and Rafe Uddin’s story:

Hunt’s pledge to extend a levy on fossil fuel profits threatens to undermine Tory fortunes in the north-east of Scotland, where many fear the transition to green energy will result in job losses. “The Tories have shot themselves in the foot on the windfall tax,” said one SNP figure. “It is less clear that they are champions of the oil and gas sector.”

It was only 10 days ago that Rishi Sunak used his speech to the Scottish Conservative conference to talk up his party’s commitment to Scotland’s oil and gas — in what he set out as a stark contrast to the SNP’s record.

Electorally, the Conservative party has much more to fear from the Labour party, their main competitor across England and Wales, and the Liberal Democrats, who threaten them in many more constituencies in England than there are Conservative seats or targets in Scotland.

The SNP is in a somewhat trickier position. On the one hand, it wants to attack the Conservatives for increasing the EPL, which helps the party in many of the seats where it is squaring up against the Tories. But its biggest electoral battleground is with the Labour party and it is one where it has a lot to lose if it sounds too much like it is Scotland’s staunchest defenders of oil and gas.

But in the short term, again, there is a good rationale here: because while the Scottish Labour party is the SNP’s biggest opponent, the Scottish Conservatives are its most vulnerable.

The most important battle for the SNP will come at the Scottish elections, when almost certainly the attack line that Labour thinks has served it well thus far about two tired governments, one in London and one in Edinburgh, will be rather difficult to prosecute once there is a Labour government down south, particularly given the very tight spending framework Labour has vowed to work with.

Now try this

I had a great weekend at Kew, and a less great time listening to Ariana Grande’s new record (Ludo Hunter-Tilney’s review is exactly right, I think).

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