WOBBLY Wednesday, Labour called it – the day last week when three of the Scottish Government's flagship policies came under serious fire at the same time.
Promises to cut class sizes were called into question when education directors produced figu
res showing £360 million would have to be spent for new classrooms plus £62m a year for extra teachers – double the price quoted by the Government.
Plans for a centrally set local income tax to replace the council tax were thrown into doubt when law experts warned the move could breach European law.
And the proposed Scottish Futures Trust – the SNP's answer to controversial private finance initiatives – also suffered a mauling from the opposition.
Labour branded the following day Threadbare Thursday when, at First Minister's Questions, Alex Salmond failed to put a price tag or timescale on the pledge to cut class sizes. Some commentators proclaimed the SNP's year-long honeymoon was over.
But it may be too early to expect Mr Salmond and his colleagues to wipe the smiles off their faces.
The SNP undoubtedly has to grapple with some of the more difficult policies it promised in last year's election manifesto. It has fulfilled the easy pledges – abolishing tolls on the Forth Road Bridge, scrapping the graduate endowment fee and beginning the phasing out of prescription charges.
The promises to cut class sizes, abolish council tax and replace PFI were always going to be more difficult.
But the Nationalists are still well ahead in the polls and there is little sign of the public mood turning against them.
They can turn the oil price crisis to their advantage by arguing Scotland's case for a share of the growing revenues, and although Labour leader Wendy Alexander put in a notably improved performance at First Minister's Questions last week – pressing repeatedly for a straight answer to a simple question on the cost and timing of cutting class sizes – Labour still has to up its game.
The Nationalists insist their policies are on course. They say the Scottish Futures Trust will be established over the summer, that local income tax is popular with the public if not MSPs, and that there will be steady progress in bringing class sizes down. Despite the flaws and shortcomings, it will not be easy for the opposition to make its case in some of these areas.
There is widespread scepticism, if not hostility, towards PFI as a way of financing public projects. It is seen as a system that has allowed private companies to make massive killings out of building and running schools, hospitals and prisons, while taxpayers are left to meet inflated bills for decades.
The Scottish Futures Trust ran into trouble when it became clear the original idea of raising investment cash by issuing bonds was not within the Scottish Government's power. Critics say the other part of the SFT, the "non-profit distributing" model of an arms-length company, is little different from a PFI.
But the complexity and confusion of the issue works in the SNP's favour. Most people will not inquire too closely into the technical financial arrangements.
The legality or otherwise of a local income tax set by central government at the same level for all councils may be a good debating point.
The SNP points out that the Scottish Socialist Party's proposal for a centrally set Scottish service tax in the last parliament was ruled competent.
But the real hurdles facing the new tax are the lack of a parliamentary majority and Westminster's refusal to hand over £400m which would be saved from council tax benefits. The SNP will make the most of the row over that £400m as another opportunity to prove it is "standing up for Scotland" against the UK Government.
Class sizes may be more straightforward – parents, teachers and pupils will see the reality on the ground. But Labour has questioned whether smaller classes should be the top educational priority, so making too much fuss about it now may not be entirely convincing.
NEVERTHELESS, council funding shortages – including the delay in Edinburgh's school building programme – and cuts like the closure of sports centre crèches could yet rebound on the Government.
Ministers repeatedly refer to the "historic" concordat with local authorities and seek to lay the blame for cuts at their door. One SNP source sees this as the weak point for the Government.
"We are riding high in the opinion polls at the moment. But the concordat between the Government and the councils is beginning to unravel a bit on the issue of class sizes," says the source.
"Some local authority people are beginning to say this historic concordat is not such a good deal for local government as it was made out to be."
Mr Salmond and his colleagues have managed to stay in the voters' good books for more than a year, but they know that cannot last for ever.
An SNP insider admits Prime Minister Gordon Brown is unwittingly helping the Nationalists by deflecting attention from Holyrood.
"People are looking at Gordon Brown's problems and what's happening to oil prices, the 10p tax fiasco and so on. None of these issues is touching the Scottish Government," the insider says.
"If Gordon Brown was coasting along without any of these issues, there might be greater scrutiny of the Scottish Government. But at the moment all the scrutiny is being distracted."
The full article contains 924 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
