Labour MP Tom Harris launches his leadership campaign with suicide note: “I'm no Labour carpetbagger”, not a single MSP supports his bid

Dear All

You could say that Labour MP Tom Harris is hedging his bets in wanting to be the Labour Leader of the new ‘independent’ Scottish Labour Party.

If Scotland votes to be independent, he would lose his seat at Westminster, and would find it incredibly difficult to get in somewhere, but as leader, he would be found a seat probably in his own back yard of Cathcart or in the Glasgow area.

He is the wrong man, at the wrong time in the wrong place.

As such, he hasn’t the traction and is an underdog candidate, but he is still better than Johann Lamont, the Glasgow University product who is simply woeful.

Woeful!

Harris instead of fighting the good fight has been fighting a rearguard action to claims he is simply a "carpetbagger."

Tom Harris is a carpetbagger, albeit he wants to stay in the same area as he current holds for Westminster.

To show that the Holyrood clique haven’t warmed to him, he has failed to win the backing of any MSP for his bid to become the first unified leader of Labour`s Scottish Westminster and Holyrood politicians.

Not a single MSP on the Holyrood Labour benches is going to move over to his camp, they will probably back the only candidate in the race, Ken Macintosh.

And Ken Macintosh is the right man in the right place at the right time.

Is it destiny?

No; sheer luck and circumstance.

At his campaign launch in Edinburgh, Harris launch an attack at his new ‘disciples’ by saying MSPs are willing to "tolerate an MP standing in this contest" but "seem to have decided, collectively, that it would be unacceptable for an MP actually to win".

He said:

"I fear they will not understand why an important and influential section of the Scottish Labour party seems to believe that the number of letters after a candidate's name trumps all those qualifications."

I don’t think I feel the love in either direction.

Harris said:

"I am a Scottish politician. I represent a Glasgow constituency. I`m as Scottish as any other Scottish politician in my party as others. But there are sensitivities here. The point I`m trying to make is I really don`t care about them, about the sensitivities not the MSPs. I don`t care about this view that they`re worried about how the media will see this."

His campaign launch included a suicide note it seems.

And to think this guy was a press officer, surely he realises how to spin?

So, it’s Ken ‘interesting’ Macintosh for the Labour leadership all the way.

I can’t see Harris winning, he can argue and has a presence but he doesn’t appear to have any friends to back his cause.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University