Insiders calling for Murphy to go now
Polls useless, poll reveals
JIM Murphy is facing growing calls within Labour to step aside now after revealing he wants to impose new rules on the next leader, the Record can reveal.
MSPs oppose his decision to cling on while he prepares a report on the party’s future.
Murphy will resign next month despite narrowly winning his party’s confidence in a tense vote.
Senior party members say the mood in the Holyrood group is hardening against Murphy’s plan.
They are furious that he forced members to the vote then chucked in the towel without first informing the party’s ruling body, the Scottish Executive Committee.
A senior Labour MSP said: “I don’t think he’ll last a month. Even people who voted for him are baffled.
“I’ve heard people have gone to the general secretary to raise their concerns.”
The source said Murphy’s decision to try to enforce rules on his successor is becoming a big issue for local constituency groups.
On the Labour Hame website, long-serving MSP Duncan McNeill wrote: “Jim cannot now be the person to shape and dictate what the party does next.”
He suggested No2 Kezia Dugdale should act up so the party can wait until after summer to hold a leadership contest. PEOPLE don’t trust pollsters after they failed to forecast the Tories’ election win – according to a poll.
Only 17 per cent of 2010 British adults surveyed trusted polling experts. And 50 per cent said they did not.
The exercise, carried out by political lobbyists PLMR and ComRes, revealed that doctors are the most trusted (84 per cent), followed by teachers (80 per cent) and the police (62 per cent).
PLMR’s Kevin Craig said: “Pollsters have fallen and haven’t enjoyed a huge amount of public support.” THE SNP were told yesterday to get a grip of education after years of “severe” failures.
Labour piled pressure on Education Secretary Angela Constance at Holyrood, saying the Scottish Government’s track record has been a “national scandal”.
Constance was forced to admit she has to make improvements just six months into her job.
The two parties clashed in a Labour- led debate on the attainment gap between children from better and worse-off areas.
Labour economy spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said literacy and numeracy levels have fallen at every stage in primary and secondary school since the SNP came to power eight years ago.
Baillie added: “The cabinet secretary admitted the Scottish Government should be doing much better in education and we will work with her to improve education in Scotland.
“But as the First Minister herself has said, a party in its second term in office cannot avoid taking responsibility for its own failings.
“In educational attainment, the failings are severe.
“We are failing our young people as a consequence.
“Under this SNP government, Scotland’s children, especially those from the most deprived backgrounds, are not getting even the most basic of skills. “Our children’s ability to read, write and count has all gone backward under the SNP.”
Constance said the Scottish Government are investing £100million in a national attainment fund after a report which f ound reading standards among eight and nine-year-olds in Scotland have fallen by five per cent since 2012. And she conceded: “The results this year on literacy certainly do show that we need to step up the pace of change.
“That is why this Government has made the key focus of our programme for government to close the attainment gap so that every child in every community gets every chance to succeed in school and in life.
“Therefore, we are investing £100million through a national attainment fund over four years, targeting support at authorities with the most depr ived communities, providing schools with greater access to expertise and resources.”
She was at Holyrood one day after setting out her aims for the education system in a speech at Glasgow University’s Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change.
Her critics accused her of dodging the reality of the SNP’s record. Labour pointed to a 20 per cent drop in pupils passing the new National 4 and 5 exams compared with Standard Grades.
Fewer kids are getting the best grades in some of Scotland’s most disadvantaged areas.
Tory education spokeswoman Mary Scanlon said: “I’m pleased to hear after eight years that this has now become an urgent issue.”
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: “Children who started school in 2007 are now well established at secondary school. They don’t get a second chance.
“The class of 2007 has witnessed this Government’s failure, its failure to deliver its promises.”
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