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  • Why aren’t we furious with the Scottish (Labour) party?
  • seosamh77
    Free Member

    Why aren’t we furious with the Scottish party?

    by Kevin Meagher

    The dark, stinking hole Labour finds itself in these days might not feel quite so dark and stinking if the Scottish party had got its act together last year. The loss of forty seats north of the border in the general election turned disaster in England into cataclysm across the UK.

    Last Thursday, the party suffered a repeat pasting in elections to the Scottish Parliament. Labour took nothing short of a punishment beating at the hands of the electorate, sliding into third place behind the Conservatives. After last May’s debacle, it was a ceremonial cherry placed on top of the steaming turd that is the Scottish Labour party.

    How did it come to this? How did Labour ‘lose’ Scotland and by doing so, make it improbable the party will win a general election any time before the advent of commercial space travel? And why aren’t we angrier with the bunglers in the Scottish party who frittered away Labour’s position?

    But first, let’s be clear: the extinguishing of Labour as a force in Scottish politics is the party’s own fault. The SNP hasn’t cheated its way to power. There has been no coup d’etat. They are triumphant because they have outplayed Scottish Labour at every turn in recent years, up to the point where it’s clear the party no longer seems to understand the Scottish people.

    This is not a recent failing. Labour lost control of the parliament to the SNP as long ago as 2007. The situation was exacerbated at the 2011 elections, before the party’s virtual annihilation in last year’s general election. There have been ample opportunities to arrest the decline.

    Clearly, it all came to a head during the independence referendum. By opposing ‘nationalism’ Scottish Labour foolishly forfeited ‘patriotism’ in the process. The party didn’t seem to understand that there is nothing wrong with being a proud Scot and wanting to see your nationhood recognised.

    Equally, there is no reason why that identity cannot co-exist in a spirit of partnership and friendship with the people of England. It’s all a matter of tone. Yet instead of finding a subtle balance, seeking to persuade Scots, the party waded in behind the dreadful, puerile ‘Project Fear’ agenda of the ‘Better Together’ campaign.

    In a referendum campaign where emotions were raw and identity politics was potent, it was a stupid move to sound like Westminster’s branch office, with Ed Balls dutifully toeing the line of George Osborne and Danny Alexander in petulantly ruling-out a currency union with an independent Scotland.

    Yet just a few short months after winning the independence referendum a visiting Martian would be wondering which side really won and which lost. While the SNP surge was held back by a 55-45 per cent margin, the anti-independence Better Together coalition lost ground from practically the first day of the campaign to the last, turning what was a seemingly impregnable position at the start into a slender victory which has subsequently failed to quell demands for independence.

    But back to Labour. How does the party fix its problems? How does it clamber out of the dark abyss? Perhaps a clue lies in peering across the aisle. When you see figures like Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon – fiery, confident, visionary, and, above all, optimistic leaders – you see people who believe in something, can clearly articulate it, fight for it and galvanise people behind them.

    Following Donald Dewar’s untimely death in 2000, the Scottish party chose to field a series of B-team politicians who, let me put it generously, would struggle to find their way into the cabinet of an English county council.

    Talent was not in short supply, however it chose to hop on a train from Edinburgh and Glasgow each Monday and head for London. We allowed an unmistakable message to go out: the Scottish Parliament is a second-best option. Ambitious Labour politicos still preferred Westminster. If we were really treating Scotland like a proud nation, we would send our best to represent our party. We didn’t. And the public noticed.

    Jim Murphy became the first senior figure since Dewar to forego Westminster for Holyrood, taking the reins of the dysfunctional Scottish party six months before last May’s general election. His failure to arrest the party’s decline was not all his fault, but he was also Labour’s Scottish Secretary before 2010. The party was heading, inexorably, towards the iceberg that has ripped its hull to shreds while Murphy was on the bridge. He was symptomatic of a Scottish Labour political class that took its backyard for granted for too long.

    At least he can say he had a good record as a local MP, turning his once-marginal Eastwood seat into a fortress, before last May’s annihilation, where the party lost 40 of its 41 MPs. Alas, the same work ethic was not in evidence among many ex-Scottish MPs, who were quite happy swanning around in Westminster while the SNP parked its tanks on their lawns.

    For years, visiting party officials from England have been aghast at how riven the Scottish party is by the petty squabbling and boss politics of the pygmies who run the place; displacement activity for doing any actual campaigning.

    What of the new broom? Labour’s current Scottish leader, 34 year-old Kezia Dugdale, is fluent but unconvincing. Again, the weight of failure for last week’s disaster is not hers alone, but she claimed last week’s result was ‘heart-breaking’ with all the earnestness of the student politician she still resembles.

    Pitted against the impressive Nicola Sturgeon and highly-effective Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, even Dugdale’s gender isn’t a useful point of difference. And is it really too much to expect that a party leader has a track record and a bit of vision?

    Over the next couple of years, it will become apparent whether or not Labour is at the bottom of a political cycle, or whether something structural has changed in Scottish politics. If it’s the former, then with the right policies and leadership – and quite a lot of blind luck – the party has a reasonable expectation of getting back in the game.

    However, if a structural shift in political loyalties has taken place, then, without the prospect of winning back those 40 seats, and with a national leadership that simply will not stoop low enough to capture enough English marginals, Labour’s hopes of being a party of government are lost.

    But at least we know who we should be furious with: the lazy, leaderless, incompetent, arrogant and ineffective Scottish Labour party and its leaders and MPs, who have handed a generational advantage to the Conservatives.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    This is fair comment I have to say. It leads to the question, can the Labour party afford to allow the Scottish Labour party to be run from Scotland?

    I’m guilty myself of thinking that the return of the Labour party in Scotland could only happen if there was a clean break from the uk party, but I think the analysis above rings true. Has the Scottish Labour party been give too much autonomy?

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    That’s too long for me to be bothered reading but the last paragraph applied to North and south of the border seems to be the reason.

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    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Scottish labour, and miss Dugdale in particular, are in my opinion too negative. I never hear anything positive that is either happening at present or that they would implement. It’s all just the same hackneyed criticisms of the SNP time and again.

    And as said above, she comes across like a student at times.

    gwaelod
    Free Member

    If Labour had won every seat in Scotland at the last election the Tories would still be in power with 49 seats majority over Labour

    mucker
    Full Member

    I am of the belief that the Labour party both north and south of the border is an anachronism. It was a essential and relevant political force for good from its origins until some time late last century but, it has failed to evolve its relevance to accommodate the realities of modern work and life. I truly believe it is a spent force in terminal decline.

    gordimhor
    Full Member

    I believe SLAB wasn’t given enough autonomy post devolution.

    bobgarrod
    Free Member

    Why aren’t we furious with the Scottish (Labour) party?”

    I thought it was considered bad form to speak ill of the dead ?

    duckman
    Full Member

    We don’t vote for them because of the reasons listed in that article ss77, Oh and the odd illegal war blots their copybook far more than bitter together IMO.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    It’s not as binary as that though. The “vote labour” get a SNP/Labour pact message was being played to the English voters very loudly!

    downshep
    Full Member

    It’s not as binary as that though. The “vote labour” get a SNP/Labour pact message was being played to the English voters very loudly!

    That was very true, which is interesting given how much SLAB / SNP hate each other.

    It could be that the current picture of strong SNP and recent Tory surge is down to ex-labour voters prioritising either their socialism or their love of the union. Those who hate the Tories vote SNP, those who love the Queen vote Tory. That may be a little simplistic but so is much of the electorate!

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    Non-tories are fed up with Westminster and London full stop. Plaid Cymru will also benefit from this.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @seaso I read the whole piece and it certainly has been political carnage, I can’t say I have followed it carefully enough over the years where imo the real damage was done years ago with the SNP delivering the coup de grace post the referendum. Seems to me the anti-Blair rhetoric is very powerful in Scotland, even with a Scottish PM in Brown a man who annually toasted his heritage with tax breaks for Whisky Labour’s standing in Scotland plummetted. I really cannot see a away back, with Holyrood having greater powers and Scots have chosen the SNP as the largest party to represent them and the SNP as their protest/pro-independence vote down in Westminster. The warning signs for Labour must be to truely understand what went wrong and ensure the same doesn’t happen in Wales or even in England.

    It’s not as binary as that though. The “vote labour” get a SNP/Labour pact message was being played to the English voters very loudly!

    If Labour had won every seat there would not have been any SNP MP’s, that message however was very powerful in marginal seats in England. There are plenty of English Lib Dem voters who despise the SNP and are very pro-Union and who voted Conservative. I suppose that’s what you where speaking about @allthepies

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Non-tories are fed up with Westminster and London full stop. Plaid Cymru will also benefit from this.

    Maybe we should waste £10’s millions as does the EU and have Parliament sit in Scotland one week a month, I have to say the “Westminster” line is auite tedious. MPs are from all walks of life and all over the country

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Exactly.

    dragon
    Free Member

    Plaid are playing a possibly dangerous game right now standing alongside the Tories and UKIP to resist a Labour First Minister. However, on the flip side it shows how weak Plaid believe Labour to be.

    The question is what is the point of Labour? Once upon a time they defended the working class primarily based in (private sector) manufacturing, they no longer really exist, and Labour have morphed into the party of the public sector instead, but that isn’t enough to win elections.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Agreed @dragon, Labour need to be a party which supports aspiration. In Scotland for 45% of the people their current aspiration is to be independent. Labour are not going to be pro Independence as they want those seats in Parliament (and also independece is not a good idea anyway 😉 )

    MrWoppit
    Free Member

    I was going to comment, but I don’t want to intrude on your grief…

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Labour need a new “big idea”, one that plays equally well across the UK. It’s been suggested that they could get behind home-rule / federalism as a constitutional middle ground. Details of how this might function can wait until they are closer to being able to implement it, as long as they can halt their current decline. The one thing they don’t need is more metropolitan interference to things north of the border.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    I have to say the “Westminster” line is auite tedious. MPs are from all walks of life and all over the country

    The problem is the Westminster system – it wouldn’t matter if the UK parliament sat in Grimsby, it’s that FPTP is hugely unrepresentative, and there’s a big unelected second chamber.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    The question is what is the point of Labour? Once upon a time they defended the working class primarily based in (private sector) manufacturing, they no longer really exist, and Labour have morphed into the party of the public sector instead, but that isn’t enough to win elections.

    I’d agree if you changed:

    ‘working class primarily based in (private sector) manufacturing’ with;
    ‘workers’ because they also supported nationalized industries, and some of the biggest unions are in white collar public services for good reason (no competition so the only way you’ll get fair terms as a health worker, Teacher etc is by unionisation).

    And ‘public sector’ for ‘public services’. I’ve not seen Labour standing up for individuals but more for the NHS, schools etc as a whole.

    The problem is the Westminster system – it wouldn’t matter if the UK parliament sat in Grimsby, it’s that FPTP is hugely unrepresentative, and there’s a big unelected second chamber.

    True, but then the Westminster system doesn’t just represent Chipping Norton either. The SNP line always sounds a bit Citizen Smith to me “Freedom for Tooting Scotland, you wouldn’t understand bcause you’re Tory[i] English[/i]“

    The FPTP system if flawed, for a start Scotland (as the SNP) gets twice as many seats as it would under PR.

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    Maybe we should waste £10’s millions as does the EU and have Parliament sit in Scotland one week a month, I have to say the “Westminster” line is auite tedious. MPs are from all walks of life and all over the country

    As bencooper said, it’s nothing to do with geography, it’s to do with helplessness. That stat from gwaelod above just shows how little influence a whole country has on government.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    A dispassionate analysis of recent political developments in Scotland and the demise of Scottish Labour would be welcome, but as one twitter response to Meagher pointed out:

    A lot of reasonable underlying points here, but they’re expressed with such counter-productive hyperbole.

    When the raw emotion post Indy referendum dies down, perhaps some reasoned analysis will be produced on what is a fascinating political period.

    In the meantime one is left scratching ones head at the remarkable success of the SNP (missed open goal aside) and their ability to create such a chasm between rhetoric and reality. Even by today’s standards their achievements here are remarkable.

    When a nation that showed its ability to see through the deceit of the SNP during the referendum, ignores the reality of what they do in practice, one can only look on in amazement/awe/bemusement etc. SL need to understand how to play the media game better – it’s not what you do, it’s what you say – at least that is the only rational conclusion that can be drawn so far.

    We should rename political spin as political reeling

    richmtb
    Full Member

    Following Donald Dewar’s untimely death in 2000, the Scottish party chose to field a series of B-team politicians who, let me put it generously, would struggle to find their way into the cabinet of an English county council.

    I’ll put it less generously, Labour’s main problem in Scotland is that they are clueless bunch of muppets who couldn’t find their way to their own party conference without a map.

    They have almost no coherent policies that look like they haven’t been stolen from someone else.

    They have zero vision, everything they say or do is defined by being opposed to something another party (mainly the SNP) is doing

    When pressed on any issue rather than state their own position (they seldom have one that makes sense) they just attack the opposition

    “Kezia Dugdale, what’s Labour’s view on Pluto being reinstated as a planet”
    “Well, I’m glad you asked and we’ll make our position clear in our upcoming manifesto, but what I will say is the the SNP’s continued focus on larger planets and cutting funding for college places for asteroids is indefensible in the current gravitational climate.”

    It’s amazing how far they have fallen, its hard to see a way back anytime soon.

    I used to vote for them, can’t see me doing that anytime soon

    dragon
    Free Member

    In the meantime one is left scratching ones head at the remarkable success of the SNP

    Not really it pretty simple they are new so not tainted with previous failures and also offer lots of free stuff which sounds great to many people.

    The problem is the Westminster system

    Funny isn’t it, as the North East of Scotland has a problem with the central belt. Fact is capital cities always attract more investment, jobs etc. than regions, you can’t easily get away from it.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Not really it pretty simple they are new so not tainted with previous failures and also offer lots of free stuff which sounds great to many people.

    The SNP have been in government in Scotland for almost a decade – not exactly new! The basic truth is, even if you don’t agree with their policies, they’re not doing a half bad job at running a competent government. No sex scandals, no overheard gaffs (apart from the one Alastair Carmichael lied about), no massive splits within the party.

    The daft thing about the election campaign was that everyone knew the SNP would win. No-one was ever going to expect the Tories or Labour to actually have to act on their manifesto commitments, so they could make up any old stuff they liked – and Labour often did. They spent the APD money at least three times over.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    Why aren’t I furious?

    I’m not Scottish and I find it difficult and overly wasteful of my energies to become so exorcised about something so boring and utterly outside of my radius of influence.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @dragon yes, point well made on both issues

    @Alex Scotland comprises 8% of the population, its very well represented. It isn’t a seperate country (grave danger of here we go again … )

    @dragon that system you complain about have delieverd much wealth to the whole country and made the UK the 5th richest nation in the world.

    I think this thread shows Labour’s problem in Scotland, its seen as an English party and people won’t vote for it for that reason. The SNPs record in government is poor but few people care when it comes to Westminster. Perhaps Scots have taken the view that the real government of Scotland is in Holyrood (hence no SNP majority) and the Westminster MPs are protest votes

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    No sex scandals, no overheard gaffs (apart from the one Alastair Carmichael lied about), no massive splits within the party.

    So no media fluff then ? They have managed an expsense scandal though 😉

    ninfan
    Free Member

    I think that you also have to give some credit here to the utterly amazing job Ruth Davidson has done.

    You could argue that she has put much of that effort into creating herself as a brand rather than the Conservative party (a bit like Boris) but she is a clear minded and passionate speaker, future PM material.

    richmtb
    Full Member

    The SNPs record in government is poor

    Compared to who?

    SLABs manifold failings aside, folk (particularly those hae bide somewhaur else) seem to forget that the SNP have ran a pretty well organised and competent government for the last 9 years – its mainly why they get re-elected funnily enough

    bencooper
    Free Member

    I think that you also have to give some credit here to the utterly amazing job Ruth Davidson has done.

    She’s likeable, as long as she stays away from politics – but dragging the Tories up to the level they were at after Thatcher isn’t exactly an extraordinary achievement. It’s not that the Tories are suddenly massively popular in Scotland, it’s that Labour and the LibDems have divebombed.

    mefty
    Free Member

    It is all very well criticizing Labour for having a B team at Holyrood, but now the SNP have so many MPs and MSPs, is their quality spread quite thinly? Over 100 representatives is alot to generate from a relatively small population.

    But Labour’s problem was complacency, the Tories were irrationally hated, and they saw the SNP as single issue politicians with limited reach. As a result, their grassroots operation withered and died and they had no troops left when the battle came.

    athgray
    Free Member

    We are furious with the Scottish labour party, hence their pasting at the Scottish Elections. If we are furious with a party, surely not voting for them in elections is one of the best things to do.

    bencooper
    Free Member
    mefty
    Free Member

    Typical Labour profligacy.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    mefty – Member

    It is all very well criticizing Labour for having a B team at Holyrood, but now the SNP have so many MPs and MSPs, is their quality spread quite thinly? Over 100 representatives is alot to generate from a relatively small population.

    Definitely true. And what’s more it’s become weirdly loaded; they placed a lot of their talent to the scottish parliament, at a time when they had no hope of big wins at Westminster, and put filler up in the national election. Then they accidentally won almost every seat in Scotland, so now they have a bunch of MPs that nobody believed would be MPs 😆 In Glasgow especially.

    I’m surrpised it’s not been carnage really, you can imagine when the Natalie McGarry stories started to break and people in head office going “Who is this person? Did we vet her?” “Oh her? She’s a vegetable, but don’t worry, we put her in Glasgow East, she’s got no chance” “She won” “Well ****”

    But I think mostly Angus Robertson’s threatened them all with Chinese burns and told them only to give their names, ranks and numbers.

    mefty
    Free Member

    But I think mostly Angus Robertson’s threatened them all with Chinese burns and told them only to give their names, ranks and numbers.

    Figuratively speaking

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