Attacked by BoJo? No wonder Jim Murphy is happy
DEEP within the bowels of Scottish Labour’s Glasgow headquarters, there were smiles and high fives last week. Given the torrid time the party has had i n recent months, that was something of a surprise in itself.
But what was more intriguing was that Labour officials were cheering an attack by one of their own, on their own leader.
Let’s just take a step back and consider what happened last week, because it gives a pretty good indication of the way Labour intends to fight the election campaign in Scotland.
It started when Jim Murphy, Labour’s new Scottish Leader, used his first main policy speech to declare his intention to use the proceeds of Labour’s so-called mansion tax – which will be levied largely from millionaires in South-East England – to fund new nurses in Scotland.
Politicians of all hues from the South of England went nuts, including London MP Diane Abbott. As one senior Labour source put it: ‘Jim was delighted, particularly because he was being attacked by Diane Abbott – from the Right.’
BUT it wasn’t just Miss Abbott’s intervention that had Scottish Labourites cheering. What delighted them even more was the reaction of London Mayor Boris Johnson. ‘There is no one more Tory than Boris Johnson. To be attacked by him was fantastic. It was worth a poster advertising campaign, all by itself,’ the insider said.
So, even though he found himself lambasted from all sides – including by a senior Labour MP from London – Mr Murphy’s mansion tax speech was seen by many in the Scottish party as a calculated success: hence all the smiles and high fives.
But it also showed that the Scottish Labour leader is not averse to being more than a little crafty when it comes to politics.
That is because Mr Murphy was doing little other than simply re-stating Labour policy. But he did it in such a way as to make it appear as if he was not only standing up for Scotland, but also challenging the most Tory of Tories and putting distance between himself and Mr Miliband’s London leadership at the same time.
The Scottish Labour leadership has come up with a phrase to describe this approach. They call it ‘strategic opportunism’ and we are likely to see an awful lot more of it as the election approaches.
What it seems to involve is saying anything or doing anything – within the bounds of Labour policy – that will create the maximum amount of opposition from the Tories and generate as much publicity as possible.
However, there will also be two other main strands to Labour’s election campaign. Mr Murphy has already made it clear he wants to focus on the Scottish children who are failed by the school system and, as this is a matter of principle for him, expect to see more of this too.
Then there is health. We saw the first salvos on this subject last week when Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, used First Minister’s Questions to attack Nicola Sturgeon on the SNP’s record on the Scottish health service.
There is a belief in senior Labour circles that the SNP does not have a good record on health and ‘it has been allowed to get away with it for too long’.
However, by deciding to go for the SNP on health, the Scottish Labour Party is also dovetailing its assaults with attacks mounted by its London counterpart on the Conservatives.
There is clearly some ‘strategic opportunism’ in play here as well.
That is because there are two different health services in operation in England and Scotland led by two different governments – of different political colours.
But Labour leaders refuse to see that as a problem, attacking the Conservative-led Government at Westminster for its approach to health while attacking the SNP Government at Holyrood for its – completely different – approach to the same subject.
However, there is going to be one final strand to Labour’s Scottish campaign and it involves the overall electoral message.
THE SNP has claimed that more Nationalist MPs will mean a greater chance of keeping the Tories out of Downing Street. But Labour’s Scottish leadership believes it can trump this complicated message with the simple slogan – the biggest party will win.
While the SNP will be arguing for a big group of Nationalist MPs to help prop up a non-Tory administration, Labour has opted for something more straightforward – vote Labour and get Labour.
So that’s it. It may not be aweinspiring or novel or even set out a positive vision of the future but, if last week is anything to go by, it has a chance of getting some purchase, if not yet with voters then at least with the media.
And, as any Labour activist will tell you, that is not something Labour has been able to offer for several years.