Dear All
In September 2011 I wrote a blog post that the person, who
was best suited at that point to be the leader of Scottish Labour, was Ken
Macintosh.
The person who won the contest was Johann Lamont. Her tenure
as Labour leader in Scotland
was patchy, at the start, she didn’t do well at FMQs, however over time; it
improved.
In the end, Johann Lamont was to step down, and as she left
rather suddenly, she decided to take a dig at London Labour for treating
Scottish Labour like a ‘branch office’.
If the leader of Scottish Labour doesn’t have total
authority over the entire party in Scotland , then that is a problem.
In politics like in life, you can’t serve two masters.
The problem with Scottish Labour is that some people for
example on the issue of defence don’t get it, the Trident issue being a
particular bugbear. Some people want to see Trident removed from Scotland , as if
this will revive the party’s fortunes.
It won’t.
When Johann Lamont went for the leadership, two other people
wanted the position, Tom Harris and Ken Macintosh. Tom Harris wasn’t my pick,
of the candidates, he was in a bad position, he was a Westminster MP, and
didn’t strike me as the type to carry Labour forward.
The other person was Ken Macintosh, I rated his chances as
better than both Harris and Lamont; he spoke well on a range of topics and was
a good performer on TV, which anyone who wishes to lead must have that ability.
It isn’t enough to reel off facts and figures, you need something more. During
the Scottish independence referendum, I was lucky to be asked to a couple of
events run by Labour; the person who was the guest speaker at both events was
Gordon Brown. On both occasions, he delivered very powerful speeches which
changed my impression of him.
If Gordon Brown had been more like this, he wouldn’t have
lost in 2010.
At one event, I listened to Johann Lamont making a speech;
she talked about how everything she does was based on social justice.
Johann Lamont is the MSP for my area, one day, I went to her
with a constituency case, she tossed in the bin, not in front my face, but I
did get a letter telling me she wasn’t going to do anything.
And there she was telling me and the other members of the
audience about her social justice credentials and about her passion for it. As
I listened to her, I didn’t believe a word out of her mouth, and that is
setting aside the incident of the constituency case.
No one can try and avoid the scale of Labour’s 2015 election
nightmare; now Ken Macintosh is considering a bid for the Scottish Labour
leadership.
Last time round he had support among members but the Unions
apparently weren’t too keen on him and instead they favoured Lamont along with
some MSPs.
Two of the possible challengers to Ken Macintosh would be
Neil Findlay and current Deputy Leader Kezia Dugdale, so, this creates a
problem for Macintosh who was pretty much sidelined in the Scottish
independence referendum. One Sunday, close to the vote, my friend wanted some
advice on gardening, so we ended up at B&Q in Darnley, to my surprise in
one of the few weekends before the vote, who did I see, Ken Macintosh with his
family. In fact in a discussion with my former resident critic ‘Hamish’ who
retired from complaining on the blog, I did mention that as Sir Francis Drake
had been bowling, George Laird was in a back garden.
Part of being a leader is showing commitment, so Ken
Macintosh may want the trappings of leader but is he prepared to lead from the
front? I am not so sure, in 2011, he seemed to be the most credible candidate.
Post Lamont, he had all but disappeared never to be heard from again, of course
being leader has benefits, people want to know you, and if elected, he would
find himself with helpers all keen to align with him. It could also help in his
attempt to hold his seat in Eastwood.
Whoever is appointed leader has a massive task ahead of
them, and it cannot be ‘business as usual’ because business has gone right done
the drain. Political parties rise and fall, this is Labour’s fall, and by the
looks of things it will be a deep one. If there is any comfort, the same will
happen to the SNP, the public just don’t full understand that they have been
conned. But they will eventually click on to it, and then just as there was a
backlash against Labour, there will be a backlash for the Nationalists.
Ken Macintosh’s pitch for leadership according to a source is
he wants to change Scottish Labour's "angry" tone and reassert the
party's values. The source also commented that Macintosh also had a focus on
campaigning on bread and butter issues such as improving health care and job
prospects.
Scottish Labour needs a leader with a vision, not someone
who thinks that being a ‘caretaker’ or ‘middle manager’ is going to cut it with
the Scottish public. Scotland
has changed politically; the landscape isn’t the same as 2011, something that
Ken Macintosh should reflect on if he decides to go ahead with a leadership
bid.
Can Ken Macintosh wield the knife and have a cull, because
the old guard has had its day, I doubt it, you could make a reasonable case
that being all warm fluffy and cuddly has landed Labour in the mess it is
currently in. Too much empathy towards people who once they got elected didn’t
think it matter too much if they didn’t work their areas and served the very people
who put them there.
One of the problems of Labour which is mirrored by the SNP
is what some term the ‘red princes’, people related to elected members who get
positions and candidacies, Stephen Kinnock, the newly elected MP for Aberavon
and son of former Labour leader Neil, now Lord, Kinnock said there was
"potentially a case" for separating the Scottish and UK parties.
That won’t solve Labour’s problem; that is the same short
term thinking that got Scottish Labour into the current mess that it is in.
Scottish Labour is preparing to choose its sixth leader in
eight years, so there is a consistent theme of making bad choices and then
rallying around someone who isn’t up to the task and then the same scenario of
failure repeats itself.
If you want to watch a movie on how to benefit from repeated
failure and learn from it then I would recommend, Tom Cruise’s Edge of
Tomorrow, because the message that Labour needs is evolve.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
No comments:
Post a Comment