Take Salmond seriously

Alex Salmond’s bold stroke to propose replacing council tax with an extra 3p on the basic rate of income tax is the real business of government the main parties in Stormont should turn to once they’ve got over their crisis of confidence and the other parties come out of deep freeze. Powers to raise taxes which Stormont doesn’t have but could bid for, matter far more to people’s real lives than the macho struggle over P&J. There are two ways of responding to Salmond’s gambit. One is to do what the Treasury foolishly did yesterday and threaten to withhold a £400 million payment to Scotland. This looks peevish. After all, it was New Labour which legislated to allow the Scottish government to do precisely what the SNP are proposing when they set up Home Rule in the first place. The Conservatives are cannier than the increasingly panicky Brown government and are prepared to enter the game. And it’s looking more and more likely that it’s with them that Salmond will deal if as is equally likely he wins the next Scottish election. In the meantime the Stormont executive might start getting their heads around what to do when the ticking time bomb of the rates freeze goes off.

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