STEPHEN DAISLEY: The SNP’s £100m empire of spin comes at a cost that money can’t buy – credibility and trust of voters

The Scottish state is committed to spending your money wisely, and just so you know how wisely, it is spending more than £100m telling you about it.

As revealed by the Scottish Daily Mail’s Michael Blackley, the Scottish Government and 93 other public bodies now employ 642 spin doctors between them, each tasked with presenting their institution in the most favourable light possible.

Given the track records of some of these organisations, that is no small feat, but breaking through the £100 million cost barrier, and in the space of three years no less, lays bare the price of the SNP’s empire of spin.

There is something faintly absurd, in a comedic style reminiscent of the Soviet Union, about the state having done such a good job for its citizens that it must hire hundreds of public relations specialists to help its citizens realise this.

You might not see any evidence of a bountiful wheat harvest, comrade, but the Five Year Plan for Revolutionary Grain Farming has met all its targets.

This is, of course, an exercise in propagandistic profligacy, as foolhardy a use of scarce resources as the outrageous spending that was allowed to go on at the Water Industry Commission for Scotland and the six-figure sum frittered away fighting and losing the For Women Scotland case on the definition of sex in the Equality Act.

Under John Swinney, the Scottish Government and 93 other public bodies now employ 642 spin doctors between them

What sticks in the craw of the public is that there is never any accountability for these decisions. Just some faux contrition and mumbling about ‘lessons learned’, the lesson seemingly being how not to get caught the next time.

But this is more than a matter of pounds and pennies. The top-heavy spin operation of the Scottish Government and other public bodies risks stifling transparency in a country where it is sorely needed. 

The Scottish state is a creature that stalks the shadows, opting to do its business behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the public.

Understandably, there are matters which cannot be attended to under the harsh aspect of sunlight, issues like security and emergency situations, but these are exceptions to the rule that to govern well is to govern openly. 

The Scottish Government, and the whole cosmos of devolved power, appears to be allergic to openness. They know best and they’ll let the rest of us know when they’re good and ready.

This attitude was exemplified in the cover-up of the first Covid-19 outbreak, in central Edinburgh, early in the pandemic. 

Despite the cases being linked to an international conference, in a busy city, after which delegates would have dispersed nationally and globally, neither the public nor businesses in the surrounding areas were alerted to the risk.

It wasn’t until 69 days later, and via a BBC Scotland investigation, that the outbreak became public knowledge. It was a breach of trust that would have required resignations in any other government but under Nicola Sturgeon was just the way things were done.

The Edinburgh cover-up paled in comparison to the investigations into Alex Salmond and their fallout. Accused of misconduct, the former first minister was investigated by a procedure later found unlawful and prosecuted on charges of which he was later acquitted. 

Yet when the Scottish Parliament came to interrogate the circumstances behind these extraordinary events, it was met with unminuted meetings, informal chats, absent civil servants, and the almighty power of silence in an institution in which those who know the most know to keep their mouths shut.

All sorts of assurances were given in light of what we were told were lapses. Only, the famous lessons had not been learned when the time came to manage the pandemic. 

We learned thanks to the Covid inquiry that the country was being run by a shadowy group, Gold Command, the existence of which was unknown even to senior ministers. Life or death decisions taken in secret with no minutes recorded. That should chill the blood of any democrat.

Yet there was more contempt for open and accountable government yet to come when it was revealed that Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney deleted their messages during the crisis. The one hope Scots might have had of learning who made the fateful decisions, how and why — snatched away.

We hear a lot these days about the hostility some members of the public harbour towards politicians, and obviously threats and abuse are unacceptable, but there isn’t nearly enough recognition of just how much hostility some politicians, including the most senior in the land, harbour towards the public. It is not enough that they have power over us, they insist on having it without any responsibility.

If the battalions of spin doctors to be found across government and the public sector were there to share key information to the population, we would not learn about such things via leaks and inquiries and press exposes. 

But these highly paid, generously pensioned apparatchiks are not in the business of communicating information but of controlling it, of trying to gull journalists into presenting ministerial perfidy as public service and managerial failure as imperfect success.

They are massagers of truth, rehabilitators of lies, and dealers in the plausible and the deniable.

Scotland is hardly the only nation where government and public sector encircle themselves in a praetorian guard of press officers, but it is one in which the imbalance between journalists trying to unearth the facts and propagandists trying to keep them buried is so very pronounced. 

Nicola Sturgeon routinely deleted her WhatsApp messages during the Covid crisis

It means that, no matter how diligently they strive to separate fact from falsehood, to compose the most accurate picture of what has transpired behind closed doors, and to put this information in front of the voting public, reporters will always be outnumbered and outgunned by a taxpayer-funded manipulation machine.

Spending £100 million on spin in three years is indefensible given the duty to use taxpayer’s money wisely and hypocritical given oft-heard complaints about insufficient finances. But it is more than that. 

Recruiting so many spin doctors that the journalists tasked with holding you to account will always be unequal in manpower and resources is intrinsically anti-democratic.

On the surface, it meets all the outward requirements for open, transparent government, but where it matters, on the level of substance, it is a cynical pretence. 

The Scottish Government and the myriad bodies and agencies that run this country do not want you to know what they are up to with your money. They want you to know only what they want you to know.

When the state cloaks itself in this much spin and secrecy it is because the state has something to hide. 

When it spends so much cash defending its policies, cash that could have gone to improving services, it’s only natural to ask whether the decision-makers have the public’s best interests at heart.

However cynical you feel towards the governing class, you do not feel anywhere near cynical enough. 

A government or a public body that would spend so extravagantly to shield from your eyes the consequences of its actions is one that has forfeited your trust. Trust is what this whole racket runs on. 

They can make you hand over your money, but they can’t force you to trust them.

£100 million pays for a lot of spin, but it costs government something money can’t buy: credibility.