Stop this idiocy Kezia, and learn to work together
IJOINED the Labour Party on my 15th birthday, back in the dark days of 1981. On the long journey since I have had the privilege to work with some remarkable people like Gordon Brown, Johann Lamont, John Reid and Douglas Alexander. Whatever you think of their politics, each, on top form, had the intellect and ability to analyse a political problem so acutely that at times it took your breath away.
The current Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, also managed to take my breath away this week – but not in the way they did.
The decision to suspend nine newly-elected Labour councillors from the party for the ‘sin’ of forming a coalition with the Conservatives on Aberdeen City Council was one of the most breathtakingly stupid, selfdefeating and offensive political misjudgments I have ever heard of. And, yes, I go way back to Henry McLeish.
Let’s start by looking at this in the context of the present General Election campaign. The key issue in Scotland is whether or not we are going to have a second independence referendum at the behest of the SNP.
SCOTTISH Labour has only one MP, and despite the best efforts and hard work of Ian Murray, his Edinburgh South seat remains a marginal. He needs Tory voters’ support to keep the SNP out. That has been a consistent message from the Scottish Labour Party in the handful of seats where it could win. It is in every party leaflet.
Then, with a megaphone, Ms Dugdale tells the country that Tories are toxic and if Labour people work with them they will be suspended from the party.
So Labour’s offer on the doorsteps of Tory voters is now this – please lend us your vote to defeat the evil Nats, even though we think you are more evil and don’t want anything to do with you.
But it gets better – or worse – depending on your point of view. In areas like Renfrewshire, where Labour has a key target seat and the message is ‘only we can defeat the SNP’, the party goes into coalition on the council with – wait for it – the SNP.
So Ms Dugdale’s message now is: ‘Dear Tory voter, please lend me your vote to keep out the evil Nats but we won’t work with evil Tories – though we will work with the SNP.’
If this is what passes for strategy in the Scottish Labour leadership then logical thought just had a hernia.
Those Aberdeen councillors, many of whom were already working hard for the Labour cause back in the days when Ms Dugdale was looking for work experience with the SNP, had gone to Scottish Labour’s Glasgow HQ and told them of the proposed deal with the Tories.
They were given two conditions – agree to no cuts and no compulsory redundancies.
They got agreement on those issues and on all 15 points of the manifesto they had stood on. They even got the leadership of Aberdeen City Council.
To me that looks like success. To Ms Dugdale and her team it is betrayal.
Then they added insult to idiocy. The Aberdeen councillors had, apparently, ‘put gold chains ahead of loyalty, pay packets ahead of party’.
If leading the council of one of Scotland’s great cities is a sign of disloyalty then there is little hope for Scottish Labour.
What Kezia should have done is what the party did in the last council elections. Allow local parties to form coalitions suited to local circumstances.
The SNP is, rightly, happy to do deals with the Conservative Party – indeed the Nats relied on the Tories in their first administration at Holyrood.
If Nicola Sturgeon had complained about the Aberdeen deal it would have been she who looked whining and small, not the Labour Party. Now it is Ms Dugdale who is diminished.
The sound you heard when her decision was announced was not the smack of firm leadership but the thump of innumerable Labour loyalists hitting their foreheads with their palms.
The party then briefed that it was all down to her dastardly deputy, Alex Rowley, who had the casting vote in this idiocy. Kez had been done in by her number two.
THERE may be little love lost between them, but if Ms Dugdale can really be outmanoeuvred by Alex Rowley, I fear for her if she encounters a shopping trolley with a stuck wheel. The dynamic of Scottish politics at the moment is that the SNP has mopped up almost all the 2014 Yes voters and the Tories are doing better at picking up No voters than Labour is.
Ruth Davidson will doubtless respond to the new rebuff by offering the hand of friendship and the chance to work together.
Unable to find a way of making itself attractive, the Scottish Labour Party relies on the toxicity of others.
Once again it is trying to fight Margaret Thatcher even though she left office more than a quarter of a century ago. Even though the current Tory leadership is criticised for not being Thatcherite enough. Even though the Baroness is dead. Labour must have been watching another channel when her funeral was on TV.
I have a lot of sympathy for Kezia in taking on the worst job in Scottish politics. But she didn’t need to make it worse.
The party was in intensive care when she took over. She has to ask herself, is she holding in her hands paddles which will shock the patient back to life, or a pillow over its face – taking the last few breaths away.
I OFFER you just two sentences. One is from an SNP press release, the other an intro to a piece from BBC Scotland.
One reads: ‘Nicola Sturgeon today hailed the SNP’s decade of delivery for the people of Scotland.’ And the next: ‘Nicola Sturgeon has hailed the SNP’s “decade of delivery” as she marked the 10th anniversary of her party coming to power.’
Can you spot the difference? Impartiality is adding two inverted commas these days, it would seem.