What does Glasgow East Change?

What does Glasgow East Change?

So what does Glasgow East Change? The headlines suggest it spells the end of Brown and the usual suspects are calling for a leadership challenge. However of course many forests have already been lost in the facilitation of such hyperbolic nonsense throughout history and this is no exception. Before drawing an irrational conclusion it is worth considering the following: contrary to anonymous whispering campaigns there is no mood within the Labour party for such a contest- no up and coming minister would want the poisoned chalice and it would be a huge miscalculation for the party to appoint a second un-elected leader within only 2 years. In Westminster the fortunes of the SNP are of little consequence, even the clear message that Labour can’t even win in their heartlands will be ignored by the party hacks who’ll no doubt complacently give the usual array of sound bites about listening closely to “the message of the electorate.” Gordon Brown will weather the political storm for another few months and with only 2 years until the next election there will not be time to change leader even if they wanted to.

However, while very little has changed in London this result could be a turning point for the Scottish Labour Party. Following the long overdue resignation of Wendy Alexander the Scottish wing of the party are without a leader and no longer have the safety cushion of the West Coast to fall upon for votes. What has happened here is that we have seen people who would normally vote Labour switching their allegiance in order to punish the PM. Will these voters return in droves for the next Scottish election? With the extended honeymoon of the SNP and the real possibility of a Tory government south of the border the prospect of a renaissance of Scottish nationalism is a real possibility.

Regardless of who becomes leader the Scottish Labour Party they will be in a state of turmoil: Alexander’s last act was to commit the party to supporting an independence referendum and a potentially divisive contest could leave the party split in to factions and still unable to find a consistent line of attack against the SNP. For too long, especially in Scotland, the Labour party has been run, with few exceptions, by a core of politically sterile Blairites. It’s been over 15 years since the party last had any serious internal ideological debate and in the current climate it seems pertinent that they should almost certainly have one. Ironically a rising support for the SNP has coincided with a distinct cooling in attitudes towards independence, however with a Tory victory down south almost inevitable this is subject to change.

The last few months have seen the government achieve their worst local election results since 1968, following that they lost a strong seat against the Tories in Crewe, then they came 5th behind the BNP in Wales and now they’ve managed to lose in their Glasgow heartlands. The government machine however will manage to hear no evil and see no evil and will be as contented as ever to chug along to electoral oblivion. In this regard their fate south of the border seems to be exactly the same as it would have been had they won the seat: even if they had won in Glasgow East, where the Conservatives are irrelevant it wouldn’t have been much of a revival and it would do little to change the fact that the only thing keeping the Prime Minister in a job is the fact that there is no-one in the cabinet who has enough charisma or public support to take over.

The situation in Scotland though is in some ways even worse, without a leader and without any momentum they run the risk of becoming politically impotent, if they have to plough time and resources in to winning in the Glasgow then Alex Salmond is right in saying there really is no such thing as a safe Labour sea

wast not want not

“Waste not want not.”


So Gordon Browns latest solution for tax burdened hard working families is for us all to save £8 a week through eating their stale food. It would be cheap of me to point out the irony in this coming at the same time as Brown was set to embark upon 8 courses of the kind of fine food that is so rare to find in his Kirkcaldy constituency. In fact it would also be cheap to point out that this plea for prudence is coming from the same man who squandered billions through his indecision on Northern Rock. Finally it would be cheap to pass comment on the fact that this declaration of caution came shortly after MP’s voted to keep their notorious John Lewis list. However all cheap points aside the greatest waste and the greatest tragedy has been the way in which Brown has thrown away a once in a lifetime opportunity to reform our great country. When he should be championing deep and long lasting change Brown is spending his time sending out patronising messages about how we can save our pennies.

The past year has been a year if doom and gloom with U-turns and anonymous briefings defining the Westminster village in a way reminiscent of the final days of Major. This time last year Brown was riding on a wave of high expectations and strong public support. Since then we have seen precious little to get excited about, in no are of social policy has Brown managed to do anything seriously worthy of note, we are still in a quagmire in Iraq, the nation is still gripped with widespread discontent relating to petrol prices and in terms of health and education we have seen precious little. After 11 years of a Labour government the gap between rich and poor has grown and the widespread disillusion has seen the Labour Party fall behind both the SNP and Tories and have been rejected from almost every single city council across England and Wales.

Under not circumstances would the self proclaimed Heathcliff have envisaged his first year running so badly, a series of bad results in bye election could be followed by a disastrous result in Glasgow East which many are already saying would spell the end of Brown. While a defeat in the Glasgow heartlands would surely be crippling all of this speculation ignores they key point that no one in their right mind would want to lead the government right now. For a young up and coming minister like Milliband or James Purnell then surely a stint in the top job would be a political kiss of death, the best they could hope for is for the next election to be competitive. Also as Michael Heseltine can attest it is very rare for the one who bears the sword to ever wear the crown. There appears to be a sense of compliance within the government, from a voters perspective it appears it seems like there’s an acceptance that the party are due a term in opposition.

Yet to paraphrase the West Wing it has to be said that Labour MPs have a greater chance to affect change within 1 day in government than they do in a lifetime outside it. One of the main reasons for the government’s failings has simply been a poverty of ambition. It’s been a long time since the Prime Minister addressed the big themes of government; we are still yet to hear about the Brown vision, unless that vision involves mediocrity and a series of corny sofa interviews. If we accept that defeat in 2010 is inevitable then that only further underlines the need to Brown to make the big changes and put in practice the irreversible egalitarian policies that we always hear about him supporting.

Brown has wasted his first year in the top job, he has thrown away an opportunity that the majority of us will never have: the chance to help create the Britain of his dreams. Significantly a number of Brown’s wounds have been self-inflicted; the indecision, the 10p tax disaster and the serious questions about the health of the economy yet these have all happened under an air of doom from a PM who spent 1 years backstabbing and bullying his way in to power and has shown precious little ambition now that he’s in control. Brown needs to stop wasting the little time he has, stop chasing headlines in the right-wing press and remember the reason he got involved in politics: to make the country a fairer place. The extravagance of the G8 feasts, the John Lewis lists and the indecision over Northern Rock are one thing but to waste a full year and to waste the chance to introduce great reform in Britain’s top job is surely unforgivable.

Wendy Alexander

Wendy Alexander

From a partisan biased perspective the recent resignation of Wendy Alexander as leader of the Scottish Labour Party was an overdue end to a sorry saga. However regardless of the perceived political wisdom it has to be pointed out that from a Scottish Labour Party perspective this represents a key opportunity for political progress.

Alexander’s lasting legacy is the parties’ commitment to an independence referendum and if the party had any sense they would stick to it. Consistent polls have shown a growing support for independence yet while they have always shown a consistent support for greater devolved powers they have also shown a consistent, but shrinking, support for the union. The danger for the unionists is that eventually the apathy towards Westminster could plausibly develop into a support for independence.

With hindsight the best thing the unionists could have done would have been to unite around referendum during the first term of the parliament in order to call the SNP’s bluff. Without a doubt they would have won at the time and undermined the SNP for a generation. As things stand it would take a monumental blunder for the Tories to lose the next election and as such it would appear this will coincide with the SNP’s referendum timetable.

If I was a supporter of the Labour party I would urge them to unite behind any old rubbish, keep their heads down and weather the storm of bad headlines and blunders being made south of the border. The SNP have yet to convert a lot of people to their cause and have thus far failed to live up to the expectations of millions, they are still one million miles away from winning their mandate, their success is almost entirely built on the weakness of a very poor Labour Party.

I think it’s fair to say that with 2 leaders having resigned for financial irregularities and the widespread blunders of last years national deputy leadership race then yet another internal contest is going to be arousing the suspicion of many investigative journalists and to be honest I would find it hilarious if some peeping tom manages to find out that old habits die hard.

Regardless of any financial foul play I think we can all conclude that the main problem the party have is that there is simply no one on their benches who can compare to Alex Salmond in terms of his charisma, confidence and ease with the electorate, the key reason probably being that any competent candidates are already in Westminster. However Alexander wasn’t merely a bad leader, she was an utterly inept leader and if she was the intellectual powerhouse of the party then those of us who want to see them sink without a trace may see our wish coming true. If the party stick to their referendum pledge then in all likelihood they’ll win it with a small majority. The main danger for the parties’ long-term future comes from dropping their commitment. It is inevitable that if support for a referendum keeps chugging along there will eventually be a referendum, the Labour party need to strike fast because nothing will make Scottish people want to break up Britain more than a term or two of Tory rule down south when we can guarantee their Scottish vote will barely break in to double figures.

Personally I cant see the Tories providing too vocal an opposition, the union ensures an extra 40 or so Labour MP’s south of the border and surely the break-up of Britain would probably have the result of allowing the Tories to cling on to Westminster indefinitely. The future of the Labour party nationally is reliant upon them getting the timing of the independence issue right because if they get it wrong they will simply drift in to insignificance.