Labour’s hopeless hopefuls

Choice Words

Just when I thought it was safe to remove the ear plugs that have been my first line of defence since the general election campaign, my sensibilities were tormented by the opening salvoes of the Labour Party leadership contest.

First of all, who designs the sets for these so-called debates? Who thinks that those little pedestal tables (chest high for the interviewer, knee-high for the candidates this time) do anything to add gravitas to what is by definition a pretty undignified occasion? And who chooses the chairs? And why are they always too high for short people? I couldn’t help noticing that Liz Kendall’s feet were having trouble reaching the floor or that Yvette Cooper obviously knows she may not have the best policies but she has the best legs.

And what kind of subliminal message was supposed to be conveyed by the Meccano set columns and the abstract red and blue diagonal patterns on the giant screen? You can tell from my passing interest in the above I was less than absorbed in the candidates’ shtick.

Platitudes

As the self-aggrandising platitudes and clichés drifted listlessly around the set like so much tumbleweed in a fifties western, a single question kept nagging away at me. Is this charmless, humourless, ungracious, sound biteobsessed bunch of question-dodgers all they’ve got?

Finally, once I had stomached so much of such meaningless ritual that I felt compelled to go and pour myself something smoky and Hebridean to take away the unpleasant taste in my mouth, I got around to answering my own question.

The answer is no, of course not. It’s just that the Labour Party is in such a state of navel-contemplation-induced hysteria that it has forgotten that there are in its ranks two of the country’s ablest politicians.

The one thing that would surely wipe the self-satisfied smirks from the faces of Cameron, Osborne et al, is the prospect of Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson knocking their party back into shape by leading from the front. Why has their party not persuaded them months ago that that is where they should be?

Luckily, none of it worries me too much, because I have been persuaded by the arguments for Scottish independence since before I was old enough to vote. But I think the level of Westminster politics has never been so base in my lifetime, never been so ugly or so rude, never been such an unedifying spectacle.

The most interesting audience question in the TV debate was from a woman who asked which of Nicola Sturgeon’s qualities the candidates thought they shared and not one of them answered the question directly because not one of them has a clue how to lead a political party, far less how to run a country.

Nicola Sturgeon has at least two things going for her. One is that she was taught by a master of street-wise politics. The other is that she speaks the language of the rest of us, the nonpolitical classes, engages effortlessly with young and old and in-between, street sweeper and rocket scientist and in-between.

Nothing to say

The lingering impression of Labour’s four hopeless hopefuls is that they had no sense of their audience, they had nothing to say and they said it for far too long.

They are classic symptoms of a political movement that it has lost its sense of direction and forgotten what it is supposed to stand for (thanks again, Tony Blair). Some commentator or other (the names, the faces, the voices, the by-lines have long since morphed into a single blur) leafed through his reference book of apposite clichés and came up with “politics is at a crossroads”.

Actually, it’s not. It’s at one of those motorway intersection roundabouts the size of small towns with more signposted exits than any sane human being can possibly absorb on a single lap.

B-road in politics

The Labour leadership contest is a B-road in this scheme of things, soon to be followed by the unclassified road of the Labour deputy-leadership.

But then there is a Scottish Parliament election and who knows how the political maps of the land might look after that, especially as the breast- beating Tory right gets its anti-Europe, anti-immigration act together, and the UK government strives to mollify them by its unashamed and quite inhuman refusal to accommodate a fair share of those desperate boat people cast adrift between Africa and Europe.

Privately at least, how they must hate that kind of arrogance in the EU.

The result of Britain’s EU referendum (especially if Westminster tries to devalue the Scottish election by holding it on the same day) could easily be the beginning of the end of Scotland’s part in that particular journey, and hasten the second independence referendum.

My worry is that between now and then the road ahead is liberally strewn with random outbursts of the worst kind of politics articulated by the worst kind of politicians.

Now where did I put those earplugs?

They had no sense of their audience, they had nothing to say and they said it for far too long

Picture: PA. Uninspiring: Jim has been less than impressed by Labour leadership hopefuls Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper.