Labour leadership contenders all unite to oppose SNP alcohol pricing plan, they admit that it is a lost cause because numbers don’t stack up

Dear All

In a rare show of unity, the three candidates vying for the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party are of one mind that is they all oppose the SNP’s flagship policy on alcohol pricing.

Trouble is, they are up a creek without a paddle as the SNP have a majority in parliament.

That legislation will go through by sheer weight of numbers.

And Glasgow Pollok MSP Johann Lamont has since admitted the question was “entirely academic.”

So, it’s three for the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party leadership.

Johann Lamont and Ken Macintosh, both MSPs with Westminster MP Tom Harris as the ‘outsider’ in all senses of the word!

Of the three, I rank them in this order; Ken Macintosh is the best choice, then Tom Harris and trailing last, Johann Lamont.

Ms Lamont in trying to raise her profile told BBC Scotland’s Politics Show yesterday she still wasn’t convinced by minimum pricing.

The trouble with Labour is that it spent 4 years going nothing but complain, they forgot to bring forward policies.

As such they ended up going gimmicks which had no substance such as the phoney knife campaign which result in no private members bill.

No private members bill on what they describe as a serious issue.

That is why they are out in the street and Holyrood is full of C list Labour MSPs.

They can’t provide an opposition because they have no leader and no vision, the talent pool is very small.

In getting it wrong Lamont insisted:

“It’s my view we should continue to oppose the measure.”

WRONG!

It makes you wonder who sits down with them and ‘plans’ their strategy.

For a party who won a landslide in 1997, they have fallen a long way because no one appears to want to do the work that needs to be done.

A political party needs policies that connect with the people, pitched at their level so they can buy into the concept.

Labour’s campaign for Holyrood was a disaster, amateurish beyond a joke.

And to add insult to injury, they spent thousands of pounds on it, all that money pissed up against the wall.

Failing to achieve all objectives!

Their next leader’s task is to educate right across the board and install the ‘work ethic’ back in Councillors, MPs, MEPs and MSPs.

When you trot into a Labour elected official with a complaint you get a shoddy service if it looks remotely like work to them.

Coupled with an attitude of ‘what do you want me to do about it’?

Which in most cases is relatively simple, fix it!

I expect Ken Macintosh to win, he is in the right place at the time; Harris as runner up, his handicap is not being in Holyrood.

Lamont should come last.

Down the road, the result of the Tory leadership battle, between Ruth Davidson, Murdo Fraser, Jackson Carlaw and Margaret Mitchell will be declared on Friday.

If the Tories are thinking long term, then they will go with the visionary candidate Murdo Fraser.

It has to be Murdo Fraser because no one else is credible, but Fraser has a lot of work on social policy to do.

The Tories recent said that they had changed their social policies to connect with the public and it didn’t work.

That is because they didn’t have someone who understands what the poor really need and want to make progress in their lives.

For Labour, it’s Ken Macintosh and for the Tories, it’s Murdo Fraser.

Any other ‘characters’ doesn’t make sense politically.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University