The George Laird View; Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar touts 'minimum income guarantee' in social security shake-up, no details, no plans and no timescale, Sarwar mirrors the SNP's equally vacuous proposals on minimum income, in the 'race to the bottom' using election bribes, 'pie in the sky', poor people have to face up to reality, it seems privately educated middle class millionaire Anas Sarwar, has a destiny, 'minimum income guarantee' as a list MSP at Holyrood, Jim Murphy led a disastrous campaign in 2015, is history about to repeat itself for Scottish Labour?

Dear All 

Do you believe in free money? In theory, you would probably say yes, what is not to like, the sticky part is of course when someone asks the awkward questions like where is it going to come from, who is paying for it, and what cuts will there be to services to pay for it. The more I read about the Scottish election, the more I see a 'race to the bottom' by political parties promising the earth for people's votes. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is still leading the way on freebies, but other parties are now joining in the wishing game. Sturgeon leads with her free dentistry which I assume the idea came from someone looking at the state of SNP MP Pete Wishart teeth. Not only does Pete Wishart have bad genetics, he also appears to have black teeth. When you consider the salary of an MP plus expenses, you have to wonder what does he spend his money on? Also has he ever heard of brushing his teeth and regular dental check- ups, scaling mean anything to him. 

In the great Scottish giveaway, Scottish Labour instead of doing the hard graft of proposing structural change has decided to shore up the same rotten system by throwing a few crumbs on the table. If terms of crumbs, Anas Sarwar's vision is more meatier than the disastrous campaign of ex Labour MP Jim Murphy, but crumbs are still crumbs. In this election, Scottish Labour leader is fighting, not fighting to be First Minister, he is fighting for second place in this election. In a recent BBC interview, he does not believe he can turn around his party's 20-year decline in Scotland before the Holyrood election on 6 May. Sarwar also said he was being honest and not defeatist about making this statement, but there is a PR gimmick which can be done by trailing lower expectations, so when the bad news comes, there is less heat in it. The flip side to trailing is also that if he does better than expected according to the polls, he can claim Scottish Labour is having a revival. 

On the 6th of May, we will see whether Anas Sarwar stands, will he as polling suggests lose seats? Who knows, he has two weeks to turn around 20 years of decline, actually, he won't be turning around anything. The Scottish Labour project in Scotland is in denial, it is in denial because the various leaders haven't led the party. When Sarwar was elected, I voted for him, but I knew I what I was voting for, the least worst candidate, Monica Lennon and her indy comments were beyond the pale. The Labour Party deliberately rushed the selection of a new leader so as to cut down the chances of a proper candidate from the left. This was a massive mistake of political judgment, in my mind, this was the right wing of the Labour Party not moving the party forward, but a return to Blairism, or poor man's Blairism. If you think back to 2012, London Labour came to Glasgow to vet all existing Councillors, and 20 of them got chopped off at the ankles. Why did London Labour need to do this, well because Scottish Labour was incapable of putting their own house in order. I didn't agree with all who were axed, but the cull should have been extended to MSPs and MPs. The Labour Party in 2012 had an opportunity to reset Scottish Labour and missed the boat. 

It can't have escaped Keir Starmer and his team's attention that if Scottish Labour isn't turned around, then he isn't going to be Prime Minister. After this election, London Labour can either step in and fix Labour in Scotland, or resign themselves to being the opposition. If the angry landlord footage is anything to go by, you can see Keir Starmer having an uphill struggle. Starmer's recent comments on a Scottish referendum show that he doesn't understand Scotland. He is a multi-millionaire who represents a seat  in London. Scotland to Starmer is just a day trip, he is like the General Manager who comes to visit one of the factories in a network, does a tour then leaves, none the wiser. In the entire time, and that includes his election campaign thrown in, Anas Sarwar hasn't came forward with any concrete plans to turn around Scottish Labour. He hasn't came out and said that he will do a staff review of the Scottish operation. He hasn't come out and said he will replace the broken and unaccountable campaign model. He also said in the same BBC interview I mentioned earlier: 

"I can reverse the decline and want us to start rebuilding the Labour Party. I want to give the people of Scotland the Labour Party they deserve." 

I personally doubt that Anas Sarwar can 'reverse the decline', during his entire lifespan as an MSP, he has never fought to do so. When he says he wants to start rebuilding the Labour Party, I would say, when did you recognise the decline? And why didn't you do something concrete about it? What did you do under Richard Leonard's leadership, in fact why did his election for leader against you end up so dirty? The only thing which Anas Sarwar will ever lead is half the Scottish Labour Party, the right wing. After being elected as leader, Sarwar offered Richard Leonard, a shadow Cabinet post, Leonard effectively threw that back in his face preferring to sit on the back benches. The fact is that the right wing of the Labour Party, the part that led to the decline in Scotland actively undermined the party leader. Now that the right wing have control again, they think that carry on with the same behaviour that turned voters away from them. The right wing of the Labour Party see themselves as 'managers' of the people and not representatives of the people.   

One of the main reasons for Scottish Labour decline, was the betrayal of the working class, the Scottish model, election results and polling all bear this out. It isn't just policies that are problem in Scottish Labour, it's people. For example, what does private educated millionaire Anas Sarwar have in common with me? I have met him, I have debated with him, I am in the same party as him, but Anas Sarwar has nothing in common with me whatsoever except we both hold Labour Party membership and both went to Glasgow University. In politics, there is such a thing as 'mirroring', this is when political parties put up a candidate which is the same as their main opponent, the obvious case of mirroring is when it is done with females or done with ethnic people. Mirroring can also be done with policies, so instead of real choice, you get effectively the same policies just done under a different party. Scottish Labour has decided to do this, it has said it would “repair and renew” the welfare safety net if it was in power at Holyrood. In the great giveaway, they say they offer a guaranteed minimum income for all. 

Scottish Labour’s plan for minimum income came with no cost details, no timeline, no explanation of where the money will come from. But it says it wants to “work towards” a minimum income standard no one would fall below. To kick that can down the street, it says it will work with a commission to “work out the precise value in the wake of the pandemic”. This is what I mean when I say there is a problem in Scottish Labour, this plan is bullshit, if there are people will extraordinary low IQs, it might attract a few votes. When you have universal free money for all, the poorest in society lose out the most. You might say, if everyone gets guaranteed minimum income, how can they lose out, it is like lighting a candle at both ends and holding it in the middle, eventually you will get burned. To fund guaranteed minimum income, you have to cut services, and means right across the board. SNP have also said it will to “start work” on a minimum income guarantee in the next parliament, but also offered no costings or timescale for delivery. Do you remember the SNP pledge for 100,000 high paid jobs at £42 a year for women to fund the SNP childcare programme? Do know how many high paid jobs at £42 a year for women where created? 

Zero! 

In several issues, I highlighted that Labour leaders had a knack of being on the wrong side of history, in some cases on a par with Scottish Green Leader Patrick Harvie, famously Kezia Dugdale supported all the wrong causes, Brexit and anti Trump being the most notable. I am poor, I am working class, and because of my life experience, I know 'pie in the sky' when I see it, and Scottish Labour's approach is wrong. Anas Sarwar should be fighting the SNP instead he has cosied up to them in policy terms, where is his vision? Instead of fighting the SNP, he is fighting the Scottish Conservatives, saying he wants to reverse the “cruellest” aspects of Tory benefit reforms. Guess what Anas, you aren't an MP, your target is the SNP, it isn't too aspire to be the second party of Holyrood, that isn't an objective, that is just a hostage doing up their prison cell. My view is this, Anas Sarwar has no interest in reforming the Labour Party, he is happy to be a list MSP because that is his "guaranteed minimum income". 

Just as the SNP couldn't provide 100,000 high paid jobs for women, I see no evidence that Anas Sarwar can provide 170,000 covid recovery jobs in various sectors. Why not you may ask, well simply his plan doesn't take into account that in order to get these jobs, people have to be trained to do those jobs. And in some case training takes years! 

Sarwar said: 

“If we focus on making the next Scottish Parliament a Covid recovery parliament we can immediately lift as many as 60,000 children out of poverty and work towards ending the scandal of child poverty once and for all. We can transform the lives of those Scots who risk falling deeper into poverty year after year by offering them the stability of a guaranteed minimum income. Scotland’s powers over social security give us the opportunity not just to repair the safety net after a decade of Tory austerity and SNP inaction, but renew it so it is fit for the challenges of the 21st century. A national recovery after Covid should mean a minimum income guarantee for people that no one falls below - restoring dignity to those who have been denied it. That means Parliament working together to ensure good jobs, lower housing costs, and a social security system there when people need it.” 

A few years ago on Questiontime, Nicola Sturgeon as SNP Deputy First Minister was slaughtered when she implied that she could create jobs. A fellow panel rip her a new arse by exposing the lie that the Scottish Government creates anything. Private business creates jobs, and in order for private business to do this, the people who run it must be able to see a profitable return. 170,000 covid recovery jobs is a pipe dream, Scotland's unemployment rate from December 2020 to February 2021 remained at 4.4%. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the employment rate, for those aged 16 to 64, over the same period was 74.6%. There were 2.567 million people aged 16-64 in employment between December and February, while 120,000 in that age range were unemployed. Of the 120,000 people in Scotland now, how many would be able to walk straight into a covid recovery job with being retrained? I found this information out in a few seconds on a google search, so if I can do this in a few seconds, who is going to buy into Anas Sarwar's 'pie in the sky' jobs? Let's say he actually got all the 120,000 employed, that's bullshit but bear with me, where do the extra 50,000 workers come from? If they aren't in Scotland, it means they would have to come here from elsewhere, is Sarwar really proposing mass immigration to Scotland in a UK jobs market that remains subdued? 

Finally, Anas Sarwar's claim to fame in this election was when he told Conservative leader Douglas Ross to "grow up". In 2015, I wrote an article, 12 weeks out from the election called, 'fucking it all up', this was Jim Murphy fighting a Westminster election on reserved Holyrood issues. 

http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.com/2015/02/fucking-it-all-up-labour-leader-jim.html 

When, I wrote that post on Thursday, February 19, 2015, I could see early on what the Scottish Labour mentality was by whoever concocted this strategy. And guess what, the SNP got 56 MPs in Scotland, I was right then, just as I am right now, Labour's strategy is wrong. Was a pledge then that alcohol be re-introduced at football matches, the biggest social injustice facing Scots? Was the repeal of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill just a brilliant concept, or did someone remember a John Wheatley quote that to win elections you need the football fan vote? Things have moved on a lot since the time of Labour MP John Wheatley, things are more nuanced.  You have to work for a vote today, you have to be credible to get a vote today, and 'pie in the sky' and copycat ideas like sour grapes just withering on the vine leaves a bad taste. The real enemy that Scottish Labour should be focused on is Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, maybe someone from Keir Starmer's team should point out the elephant in the room to Anas? 

Yours sincerely 

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University