Labour MSP Neil Findlay is 'closing gap' to be Scottish Labour against Jim Murphy, he says if elected he will campaign against Trident, copying SNP student politics to pander to unpopular Nicola Sturgeon is just risible, guess what Neil, your policies stink

Dear All

In May 2012, I was at the BBC Big Indy Debate, I have written on this before, during the programme, I got to speak, I said that any credible bid for independence had to have a commitment to Nato and a commitment to retain Faslane as a nuclear submarine base.

The Scottish Labour Party is without a leader since Johann Lamont stepped down, three people have put their names in for members to consider, they are Labour MP Jim Murphy, Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack.

In reality, it is a two horse race between Murphy and Findlay.

Whoever wins that election cannot simply think that there can be business as usual, the Labour vote has collapsed in Scotland, not only that the Labour Party structures appear to be in need of reform, not just in terms of their practices but also who they allow to run their operations.

Scottish Labour needs a new vision, new direction, new ideas, fresh talent and a cull to turn around their decline. They have reached a tipping point where things could turn extremely bad for them, so it is important who the next leader is.

Neil Findlay who is a Scottish Labour leadership candidate has promised to oppose Trident.

On that basis alone, he is showing he isn’t the person to be the leader that Scottish Labour needs in the Holyrood Parliament.  Findlay says he would lobby Ed Miliband not to renew Britain's nuclear deterrent if Labour wins the general election.

That would be a complete waste of time, because the Scottish Labour MPs would be under the control of the House of Commons whips, he also says he accepts defence should remain reserved to Westminster.

This is student politics, this is rubbish, this isn’t the way forward for Labour in Scotland.

Findlay doesn’t get it, his task isn’t to woo the party’s Left wing by promising to oppose the renewal of Trident; his task is to convince people to come back to voting for the Scottish Labour Party if he wins the contest.

Neil Findlay by admitting that Miliband would have the final say rather doesn’t address the real issues for Labour in Scotland, Neil Findlay or Jim Murphy would be the leader in Scotland while Ed Miliband isn’t there.

So, the leadership; isn’t leadership but rather middle management.

The ‘boss’ down the road makes the decisions, the Scottish leader in effective does housekeeping, also as everyone knows, Scottish Labour isn’t a separate party to the Labour Party. 

No one including Ed Miliband is going to devolve control over defence to the Scottish Parliament.

Neil Findlay says he is a contender for the leadership, but, someone should ask him why he is pandering to the nonsense of unpopular Nicola Sturgeon.

Is she going to save your party?

Findlay appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show said the Scottish party should have more autonomy. He says by way of example, that Scottish Parliament should have the power to bring the railways back under public control. He would also like to see the tearing up private finance deals that have funded new roads, schools and hospitals.

Who was it that brought PFI in?

It was the Labour Party, short term thinking to try and make themselves look good, not solving problems but storing up financial disasters which would come back to haunt them in the future. 

Jim Murphy’s campaign has had to move ground to continue to pledge support for existing measures introduced by the SNP who bought the vote. He is also calling for cross-party talks on funding for elderly people’s services, including free personal care, the NHS, pensions and bus passes.

In the early days of her leadership Johann Lamont called for a public debate about the long-term affordability of populist policies such as free prescriptions but she never produced any firm recommendations.

Basically what she needed to say was that there would be no free prescriptions or council tax freezes for rich people, she failed that test and couldn’t get motivated to do anything about it.

Part of leadership is to have the answers to problems, so it is highly unlikely that there will be cross party talks on the issues Murphy mentioned, and still no word about Government or local government reform which was pushed onto the back burners because no one has a clue how to turn round the public sector. It is no good taking the railways into the public sector if the talent isn’t there to run them properly.

There cannot be a return to the 1970’s or 1980’s.

The United Kingdom is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, all the main countries such as America, Britain, China, France and Russia, are all nuclear nations. It is highly doubtful any British Government regardless of party politics will put the seat on the Security Council in jeopardy. 

Neil Findlay could be the next leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, but so far he looks likely to implode their vote.

It may have escaped his notice, but the Nationalists have campaigned on Trident removal at every Westminster and the public has generally said ‘piss off’.

Only an outright idiot would sign up for Trident removal.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University