The race to replace Iain Gray starts in earnest as he leads Labour Party to the worse defeat in living memory, a political tsunami did for him!

Dear All

The Holyrood race is over but the Labour Party in Scotland has to go to the blocks for the next race.

The race to be the next leader of the “Scottish” Labour Party or to better describe it, who will lead the considerably smaller and talentless MSP Group.

Iain Gray is expected to fall on his rubber sword.

Andy Kerr, the former King in waiting has been slain by SNP MSP Linda Fabiani.

The King is dead, long live the King!

A Ladbrokes spokesman said:

"We opened the book before the polls opened. The indications are Labour will lose so it is likely Iain Gray will be replaced."

Andy Kerr was an early 2-1 favourite with Ladbrokes.

Ex-journalist David Whitton was also a promising contender at 11/8 with Paddy Power but he got the chop as Fiona McLeod of the SNP tap danced on political corpse.

Another ‘cracker’ is Shadow Health Secretary Jackie Baillie.

Jackie Baillie as Labour leader at Holyrood, she is now the front-runner at 4/1 with Paddy Power.

Baillie was a former Chief of staff for Wendy Alexander and isn’t a unity candidate.

So, that might usher in ex-politician of the year Hugh Henry who attracts 10/1 with Ladbrokes as the ‘caretaker in waiting’.

Failed PM Gordon Brown gets a shout as a 200-1 outsider.

One commentator said:

"It is a measure of how shrunken the Labour Party in Scotland now is, that it thinks that Iain Gray is capable of being the leader."

Gray had a series of PR disasters including the now infamous Subway sandwich shop incident.

Last month he bottled it showing he had no guts for a fight as he fled a few protesters at Glasgow's Central Station.

Instead of facing down the mob, he bolted and hid in a Subway sandwich shop.

Subway makes fantastic sandwiches but isn’t known for being a great hideout especially when the mob follows you through the front door.

Iain Gray didn’t even have the chance to hide under the table before he was caught.

Then he went into an Asda who are another great retailer in Ardrossan but had to scarper he heard SNP Leader Alex Salmond was already inside chatting to customers.

Critics also turned their attention rightly towards and hit out at campaign co-ordinator John Park.

Clueless and ineffective, watching him on telly, I wasn’t impressed by him or his logic and answers in front of interviewers.

A halfwit!

One Labour candidate, who refused to be named, said:

"What the people who ran this campaign should consider is that because they were beaten at every turn by the Nationalists, good people might lose their seats. Lots of people who put in a power of work in their constituencies have now been left totally disillusioned by this. We have to find someone to lead this party in Scotland more effectively. But who that person is, no one knows."

Well it isn’t Richard Baker or Jackie Baillie.

Both of whom have the IQ’s of a handball.

Last night politics Professor James Mitchell, of Strathclyde University, agreed Gray would want to quit as leader sooner rather than later.

He said:

"It's too embarrassing, it is humiliating and anybody would understand why he wouldn't want to hang about."

It seems that everyone isn’t just deserting the ‘East Coast Weasel’ Iain Gray but outsiders wandering by want to stick the boot in.

Prof Mitchell said Labour needed a complete change of tack if they are to win back respectability in the eyes of voters who have left them in droves.

Four years of opposition for opposition sake made the Labour Party pay a heavy price for their stupidity.

In the recent Scottish budget, the Labour Party voted down every single thing they wanted of SNP Finance Minister John Swinney.

How could anyone be so stupid?

Professor Mitchell continuingon Labour’s defeat said:

"They have to realise that more of the same will not do. They have to find a leader who is willing to acknowledge you can't win a Scottish election on a British agenda. The big problem for Labour is, with the party in opposition in London and out of office at Holyrood, they could find themselves isolated and irrelevant”.

And that is the tale of the tape.

Weak leadership, poor campaigning skills, dislocated from the public; and poor performances at Holyrood, all piled up like garbage creating a stink.

You could also say that by pulling the knife crime con on voters that resulted in them getting that particular 'blade' firmly lodged between their shoulder blades.

The Scottish people stood up to the Labour Party trying to use fear as a campaign tool to scare them into voting Labour.

Iain Gray was returned by 151 votes to Holyrood, but he returns as the man who lost the Labour Party the Scottish election 2011 in such a disastrous fashion.

A political tsunami has swept across Scotland and in its path left total destruction of the Labour Party in Scotland.

5TH May 2011 was history unfolding before our very eyes, a night to be long remembered.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University