Scottish Labour in chaos: the blows fall thick and fast as Labour as candidates struggle to secure crowd-funding donations, lack of activists available for campaigning, lack of organisation, lack of leadership, lack of teamwork and the tin lid, Kezia Dugdale refuses to say whether she applied to work for the Scottish National Party

Dear All

Some time ago I coin the phrase the ‘political economy’ in relation to campaigning, what is that you may ask?

It is people, resources and money.

In October 2013, I stood as an independent candidate in the Govan by-election, this was the first time I had ever stood for public office, out of 14 people standing I placed 7th.

At the time, I was told by people in the Labour Party that this was a remarkable achievement for someone standing as a first time candidate; on top of that I had no one to help me. It gets better, only 17 days to run my campaign, plus two hate campaigns run against me, one by the Nationalists and the other by a man who ended up in court.

Done my own election videos, and invested £100 to buy 5,000 leaflets.

I had two objectives to show that I could run a decent campaign as a credible candidate and help take votes away from the SNP candidate, who lost to John Kane of the Labour Party. After the result, the SNP walked out prior to the winner giving his speech, it was very petty, and as they left I was laughing my head off.

In 2014, Scotland went on a journey, the Nationalists tried to win independence and miserably failed, their prospectus was built on lies and falsehoods, many people came into politics thinking that indyref 2 was round the corner.

That was another lie sold by SNP Candidates to whip up support for Westminster 2015!

As people know I didn’t take any part in political campaigning that year, I was living under the shadow of cancer; it was physically and mentally the worst year of my life, in quite some considerable time.

This year, I had planned to stand for Holyrood in the Pollok Constituency as an independent candidate, but because of health reasons that was to prove to be impossible.

Why stand?

Because political parties don’t believe that someone like me should stand.

Anyway, I joined the Labour Party in Glasgow to assist as best I can get people elected to public office, I am a well know campaigner in Glasgow at least, last night you may have spotted me on the BBC for the tax debate. Six people from various parties offered up their views on why we should vote for them.

A quick run through and my verdict of that show for the blog regulars.

Labour… 1 pence in the pound tax, not bold enough.

Greens….. Land Valuation Tax, too much politics and not enough substance.

Lib Dems…… too cocky for a man whose party is effective dead in Scotland.

SNP……. Defensive, like a man hiding a lot of guilty and hoping no asks him about it.

Tories….. bad tempered in parts and evasive.

Ukip ……. Too much comedy and focusing on EU referendum.

In 2015, the Labour Party had the worst result since about 1918, their campaign was awful, it was insulting to the electorate, they hadn’t learned from the referendum, and their elected politicians were living off the legacy of the Labour brand and reputation.

Some people were effective getting away with being bad MPs for their areas, since the Labour Party couldn’t or wouldn’t get rid of them; the task fell to the people of Scotland.

And the people did just that, all but one of the Labour MPs in Scotland was removed at the ballot box, the sad part is that good were swept away with the bad; there was a tipping point for Labour.

We are now in the short campaign for Holyrood 2016, are Labour’s problems fixed?

No!

No?

Well, if you take the time, you can read that Labour's Holyrood election campaign has suffered further tales of woe after it emerged that crowd-funding for candidates has struggled to secure donations.

But it isn’t just money that Labour is failing to secure, they are also failing to run effective campaigns as they struggle to get activists to come out and mount a decent campaign in their branch areas.

I went to the last Labour Conference in Glasgow, my friend Andrew Skinner had a stand for Scotland in Union, he is their campaign manager and they are lucky to have to him. Anyway, after listening to some people boring the tits off me in the Conference Hall, I decided to pitch in and help him. I can only stand people talking out their arse for so long before I have to get out.

During the day, up pops a guy to complain, his name was Scott Nicholson, he is the Labour Candidate for Perth and Kinross. Nicholson decided to have a go at Andrew Skinner because during #GE15, Scotland’s Big Voice, an activist group on Facebook were promoting ‘tactical voting’. As I listened to him speak I found him to be the most patronising bastard I had ever met who was full of his own self-importance.

Anyway, the world turns and it seems that Scott Nicholson has suffered the humiliation of getting only a miserable £60 out of £750 on his crowd funder appeal. In this election, I don’t see a hope in hell of this clown getting to Holyrood.

Labour’s troubles seem to be getting worse not better; one candidate has failed to raise any funds through crowd-funding, not even their family is backing them it appears.

Why is Labour in this state?

It is because they think they can ride out the storm, and wait for the SNP to fall from grace, and then continue as business as usual.

The new business as usual however is Labour Candidates failing to get elected, and that will continue for some considerable time unless the Labour Party changes.

In contrast to Labour Candidates doing so badly, the most successful Scottish candidate on crowdfunder is Ruth Davdison, £6,500 for her Edinburgh Central campaign. The Scottish Tories see an opportunity due to the demise of Labour’s fortunes.

It seems at present that Kezia Dugdale isn’t doing well, especially with her U turns, bad policy decisions and her comments on independence.

The way things are going, Kezia Dugdale was part of the team that led Labour to its worst defeat in 2015; it is rather shaping up that she will lead Labour to its worst Holyrood defeat since the creation of the Scottish Parliament.

The people of Scotland are waiting for something different.

To put the tin lid on it for Scottish Labour, Kezia Dugdale has repeatedly refused to say whether she had applied for a job working for the SNP at the Scottish parliament in 2003.

She is refusing to answer the question, she thinks she is being smart but what she is doing is raising the issue of trust in her and gifting an own goal to the Conservatives who are running with the theme they are the true defenders of the Union.

Kezia Dugdale appears not to be fighting for the position of First Minster but for third place.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University