Congratulations on your victory. With a clear majority of support among the party’s members and elected representatives, you have a clear mandate for change. Who would have believed that with just a few months until the general election, Scotland would be the key election battleground? What happens in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh will determine whether English Labour members of parliament take up red boxes on 8 May. This is truly the era of four-party politics.
As Von Clauswitz said, the first duty of a commander is to secure the base. The Scottish Labour party has fewer than 14,000 members. That’s just embarrassing. The Scottish National party has 80,000, although this will fall away. There are more people in Scotland who believe in ghosts than belong to Labour. So your first hundred days must include a major effort on recruitment, especially among young people.
Next, you need to develop a narrative about a Scotland under Labour better than today. You simply cannot allow Nicola Sturgeon to make the running here. It sometimes seems like we lost the referendum, when we won. So we need a confident explanation of the benefits of a Labour Scotland.
This has three component parts:
The first, of course, speaks to the economy. As John McTernan wrote recently, Labour has a great economic story to tell, from the creation of the hydro-electric power stations to the formation of the hi-tech ‘Silicon Glen’. Tomorrow won’t be about coal and steel and weaving. It will be about green technology and riding the wave of the digital revolution. You have got Rockstar North, creators of Grand Theft Auto. You need to capture the imagination of the Scottish people with a vision of a vibrant, hi-tech, entrepreneurial Scottish economy. If Estonia can do it, so can Scotland.
The bottom line is that talk of a ‘pay rise for Scottish workers’ makes a good slogan, but the only way for Scotland to thrive will be because of a growing private sector, creating jobs and turning a profit. A Labour Scottish parliament, and a Labour UK government, can create the framework, offer the incentives, deliver the training and apprenticeships and make it happen. It is the traditional New Labour message: economic efficiency and social justice go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. A Scotland scarred by unemployment and poverty is not just merely unjust; it is also inefficient.
Next, we need to speak to our culture and society. We have allowed lazy caricatures about the nation and its people to take hold. Just as Glasgow turned its image round in the 1990s, so the whole nation needs to break away from the negative stereotypes. You need to unleash our native talent for creativity and design, for music and film, and for architecture and cityscapes. Again, look at the ways in which smaller European nations such as Ireland, Finland or Denmark have transformed their images over the past 30 years. If we continue to play to our national stereotypes, we should not be surprised if we get left in the past.
Third, we need to show that Scotland can take its place on the world stage, from within the UK. The last thing our people need now is a strangulating debate about independence. We can be independently minded and globally focused while part of the UK. So as leader of Scottish Labour, let us start a debate about Scotland’s place in the world; as an exporter, as a tourist destination, as part of Nato and the EU and as a player in global markets.
Of course, we need to talk about crime and antisocial behaviour, about immigration, about education, about welfare reform, and about the National Health Service. But these come as part of the bigger picture about what kind of nation we are capable of becoming. A raft of policy initiatives in support of these three pillars will gain us permission to be heard. It will wrestle the mantel of progressive patriotism from the SNP, and give us a fighting chance in 2015, and again in the Scottish parliamentary elections the following year. Salmond has gone after two decades. Now is our chance. As the man said, ‘I say we can take this lot a part and it is time we did.’
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Paul Richards is a writer and political consultant. He is author of the Memo on … column, part of the Campaign for a Labour Majority; read all his pieces here. He tweets @LabourPaul
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I doubt if any Scottish Labour Leader is going to take Nicola Sturgeon apart but her policies are a different thing. As an Irishman I wish whoever it is, and I hope it is Jim Sheridan, the best of luck in reminding the Scots what a Social Democratic Party the Scottish Labour Party is and how it can help Scotland define itself to take advantage of the changes which are devastating all of us just now, including the Scottish living in England.
Two questions, Norfolk – Who is Jim Sheridan, and whatever gave you the idea that neoliberal labour is a social democratic party?
Last time I looked out the window the United Kingdom was a constitutional monarchy with Nthn Ireland being the only part of UK that shares a border with another state: the Republic of Ireland. We as an island peoples, surrounded by herrings, should learn to live together without fighting – we have had enough practice and should know by now that under the democratic system, if bonny Scotland ‘s electorate votes in 40 SNP MPs or 40 Kangaroos we, as a Nation un-divided, shall honour that vote and send all 40 [hopefully not all Kangaroos] to Wetminster.
Ed Miliband & Labour’s team should look to working a bit harder south of the border, maybe Londaon say? or south of Watford Gap, taking seats from Tories/LD/Ukip to make up for any [possible] ‘losses’ to SNP up in Alba.
Just saying, as although I am a Labour member and supporter, I admire them that abide by THE RULES OF COMBAT and I certainly do not admire giving-up-the-ghost before the battle has commenced.
I see SNP membership is @ £1quid a month or nowt[free] if not working. There’s a thought to boost membership figures for Labour – or does 1901 Party Policy dictate otherwise? SNP crowing on about their members being 100k then 88k – worth a look-see to audit & check those figures, Margaret? Alex is 1st and last a very good salesman who can use stat’s and bend them to his will. Ditto Farage. Ditto Tories & LD. Ditto Raving Loony Party, only Labour fighting Demons that don’t exist, and is wasting energies on repelling non-existent Ghosties.
Go knockin’ on a few more doors, like Alex and Nige’ is my ‘advice’. Means getting some bums off posh green leather seats and earning your ‘keep’.
Labour did well in May in London even nearly taking places like Barnet. However Ed’s ratings will take its toll even more down here as people less political, less Labour and are easily taken in by the English Tory press ( 80% of it Tory) and the poodle BBC which just cheaply replicates the Tory Tabloid/ London bubble agenda. Its Foot all over again …sorry.
Advice on Planning a Battle: “For the want of a Nail, the horse was lost … for the want of a nail the Battle was lost, and all for the want of a Nail.” Anonymous General
Go nail ’em, Ed [!] and take a BIG hammer along.
As a sociologist I say the The figures from the FT Mori source ( 14/11) are really, truly awful for Labour with SNP on voting intentions at 50 %+ and Labour 20%+ ( sorry they use Bar Graphs) moreover Nicola Sturgeon on circa 60% with Ed on circa 18% slightly BELOW Clegg. For me those figures are truly awful and we should be changing our Leader quickly. We can not remain in cloud cuckoo land for ever. Now, I cannot see us winning GE on these data. For me a sad day. Its over.
The Bradley effect was proved worthless cf. Obama’s two wins in 2008 and 2012. Extrapolating generalities and making predictions based on what are in fact non-scientific and empirically speaking inaccurate-suck-thumb-bunkum-stats’ is no reason whatsoever for any [knee-jerk] change in labour’s leadership. These Polls moreover are more often than not sponsored by media Moguls from Oz who have their own agendas.
Ask any Tony Blair for statistical facts and references.
Dunce’s Cap 101
Unsure what Bradley effect is: But totally disagree with your point as the FT data is sourced by IPOS/MORI which show the ‘game changer’ for the SNP/Nicola S. effect opening up a massive gap now. Also many sites have changed in the last week; polling reports UK give Hung Parliament , polls this last few days give Lab. lowest score in 4 yrs, bookies odds are changing from Lab out right victory and the minus ratings for Ed are just so far off other political leaders ever! Labour owe it to UK voters to get a new leader quick. Sorry politics is about the art of the possible not some bleeding charge of the Life Brigade.
“If the Camel once gets its nose in the Tent, his Body will soon follow.”
Old Arabian Proverb
Some points:
1. Not sure who the ‘we’ are who won the referendum. It was ‘Better Together’ who won not Labour by itself – and Better Together brought in 400,000 Conservative voters and 300,000 Lib Dems, as well as people who had never voted before or voted UKIP at the EU elections. You need to show how you will reach out to them and show Labour as the best guarantor of the UK.
2. The small European nations you mention that have changed their image are all independent. You would be better showing how a region of a country had changed its image – can you find one in France or Germany or Italy?
3. This does not seem a social democratic vision for the future. How does it differ from what Ruth D and the Conservatives will offer – high tech, green industries?
4. As part of the UK Scotland’s place in the world is pre-determined. It has no separate and divisible place. It is what the UK Government determines it to be – and that is what the Scots voted for. It cannot have a separate foreign or defence policy. Can you give some inspiring suggestions about what Scotland’s
5. The new leader will also need to come up with solutions to the dirty question around EVELs. What should that answer be? And to say why they oppose ‘Devo Max’. In answering these questions it is likely that Labour’s position will worsen in the short term because it seems a lot of Scots are affected by voter remorse at the moment. Their hearts told them to vote ‘Yes’ but their wallets and aversion to risk got them to vote ‘No’
The author appears to have missed out one of the most important points of all . . .
The new leader should not have fleeced the taxpayer of over a million pounds in expenses during their career as an MP.
I would have thought that given the current climate of disdain for our politicians of all 3 main parties; not fiddling expenses would be quite high on the list.
Apparently not; since Mr Murphy seems set to be selected, as “organised” by the Westminster party apparatchiks.
Ahhh! Democracy . . . If only we had such a thing.