Dae sumthin! (part 2)

Where's the big idea? Scotland on Sunday has decided that the First Minister is not cutting the mustard:

"After five years in office no number of slogans, foreign trips or famous friends can conceal the intellectual vacuum at the heart of project McConnell. This matters. His refusal to take hard decisions means disadvantaged children continue to have their life chances hindered by a moribund education system. His suspicion of reform ensures the health service continues to creak along, wasteful of taxpayers' cash and too often offering a second class service. Even where McConnell has done well - cutting business taxes; an innovative preventive healthcare strategy - it has proved impossible to extrapolate an overarching theme or "big idea".
It is not only the voters who are disenchanted. As we reveal today, one of McConnell's closest allies, Health Minister Andy Kerr, has warned him that he must spend more time in Scotland and less jetting abroad. Kerr is right. Scotland does not need a globetrotting salesman while there is so much to do at home. As well as schools and hospitals, we are unclear what McConnell would offer in the way of modernising our transport services if Scottish voters are forgiving enough to offer him a third term.
One of the few areas he has taken a stand on is street crime, but he increasingly looks like an ineffectual lobbyist failing to persuade local authorities to impose more ASBOs. If he is to defy our low expectations, McConnell must set out as quickly as possible a series of ambitious and specific proposals. By the time he publishes his Labour manifesto for the 2007 election, it may be too late to turn around public opinion."

This is a bit unfair. Mr McConnell never became First Minister because of his creative vision. What does SoS want the man to do? On health and education, the choice agenda favoured in England hardly seem to recommend themselves to English voters, as was revealed last Thursday. On crime and justice, the Executive appears to be doing significantly better than the Home Office (although, given the dysfunction of the latter, that is hardly a recommendation). More devolution in fiscal matters is for wonks, and taking greater responsibility for immigration would open up a new can of worms.

Arguably, it is not ambitious proposals which are needed, but rather a commitment to better administration. It may catch fewer headlines but running the show more sensibly would be preferable to introducing dramatic new departures.