Sir Walter Scott asked: ‘Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,/ ‘Who never to himself hath said’, / ‘This is my own, my native land! / ‘Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,/ ‘As home his footsteps he hath turned,/ ‘From wandering on a foreign strand!’ Now we know Jim Murphy’s answer. He has jumped into the contest for leadership of the Scottish Labour party, but with one big difference from the other candidates – he says he’s running to be first minister of Scotland. Not for him the leadership of an impotent opposition. He’s a big man – literally and figuratively – with ambitions to match.
The clue was there all along. Right through the referendum campaign he said: ‘All nationalists are patriots, but not all patriots are nationalists.’ A great and illuminating phrase. One that reframed the debate and reclaimed patriotism for the ‘No’ campaign. You could tell it worked because it was like holy water on a vampire to the ‘No’ campaign. They hissed, and sizzled, and attacked Jim for saying he loved his country. But no one really believed he’d make the break. The door to the House of Commons from Scotland was thought to be one way only. Just like Hotel California, it was assumed ‘you can never leave’. Murphy has just proved otherwise.
Reclaiming patriotism is just a step, but it is rooted in a passion. Once when he was secretary of state for Scotland he was at a fair where the local branch of the Scottish National party were handing out small Saltire flags. Murphy went over to get one but was initially rebuffed. ‘No’, he argued, ‘it’s my flag too. It belongs to all of us.’ One was sheepishly passed over to him. Importantly, though, he is adopting patriotism to adapt it. He aims to put it above politics – if we all share the Saltire, and Scottishness, no single party can try and benefit from it. That done, he can move to define Scottish politics through a different prism. Not the arid in-out constitutional debate of the referendum, nor the wretched processology about powers. But the ultimate question of politics – purpose.
For Murphy there is one answer – equality. As a young man growing up in South Africa he saw first-hand the brutal and oppressive racist face of racist apartheid. Revulsion against that led to a life-long commitment to the cause of anti-racism and fighting antisemitism. He was born in Glasgow just a small distance from East Renfrewshire, the seat he currently represents in the House of Commons. Just a few minutes’ walk or drive away – but what a difference in life chances. There’s a life expectancy up to a decade less in those Glasgow schemes. And only a one in 10 chance of getting to university, rather than the nearly 10 in 10 chance of his middle-class constituents. Expect real social democracy to be top of Murphy’s agenda – the same chances in life, the same chances for a great education, good health and a decent job wherever you are born or live in Scotland.
This will provide the SNP with the first real scare they’ve had for years. They have had the habit of talking left – an impossible scheme for renationalising the Royal Mail here, an unpopular plan to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland while other countries still have them there – while all the while acting right – opposing an energy prize freeze, opposing a 50p higher rate of tax. The SNP’s run of unchallenged hypocrisy is about to end with a bang.
It’s an old, old story that your biggest enemies are on your own side – the other guys are just your opponents. True to form, Unite the union has stepped up to demand ‘democratic socialism’ – a phrase that in most circles disappeared along with East Germany. This should be the merest road-bump for Murphy. His 51 per cent of the vote in East Renfrewshire is based on the support of middle-class and working-class voters. That describes perfectly Scottish Labour’s electoral college. And it equally well captures the electoral battleground Labour needs to fight and win in Scotland. Edinburgh and Glasgow. Stirling and North Lanarkshire. Blue collar and white collar.
Ultimately, there’s an interesting irony in Murphy’s move. It is no secret that he and Ed Miliband are not the closest of political colleagues. Murphy helped David Miliband to run his leadership campaign. And had his differences with the Labour leadership over Syria too. But politics is the ultimate game of frenemies – people who are neither friends nor enemies. When you get to the highest level in politics it’s never simply about liking each other, it’s a case of needing each other. Now it’s the other brother that needs Jim. Without a Murphy leadership Scottish Labour looks shaky. With him at the helm the Scottish bloc, so essential to a Miliband majority, will be delivered.
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John McTernan is former political secretary at 10 Downing Street and was director of communications for former prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard. He writes The Last Word column on Progress and tweets @johnmcternan
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If Jim Murphy is the answer, John, you are either asking the wrong question or you have misunderstood it.
Scottish Labour was never used to opposition. Murphy comes out of the monolothic politics of Scottish Labour in the 80’s and early 90’s. The political armoury of that age will be as rust now.
Be gentle with John. He’s got fees to earn and a difficult product to sell.
McTernan: labour ‘did’nt need’ the votes in the northern heartlands.in fact ignored them from 1997.it’s not only scotland they need to worry about.it’s the child abuse scandal in Rochdale,Rotherham etc You don’t ignore the people who switched to UKIP.there are some who have said that.talking heads.who have’nt a clue about anything north of Watford Gap.
Labour has just topped the poll with over the half of the first preference vote in Rotherham, as in all three of the other local authority areas in South Yorkshire.
There is no point in screeching “postal votes!”, either. Anyone may apply for such a thing, and on a turnout this low they would all have been drowned out by people’s going to the polls, as they chose not to do. Clearly, no one had convinced them that it was worth their while to do so.
UKIP’s candidate had managed not to notice anything amiss during his 30 years on the South Yorkshire force. Not Orgreave. Not Hillsborough. And not Rotherham, either.
The persistence of the bedrock Conservative vote, which can no more be expected or enticed to vote UKIP than to vote Labour or anything else, is as noteworthy as ever.
Beyond re-electing incumbents against whom it had in any case never previously fielded candidates, UKIP does not exist anywhere outisde the comment threads of certain websites.
Especially of Breitbart London, on which James Delingpole has had a kind of nervous breakdown over this entirely predictable, and outside Ukipworld universally predicted, result.
UKIP ran a campaign effectively written by those comment threads, and the voters in the real world have given their answer.
Now the rather more serious figure of Alan Billings can get down to addressing the true story of Rotherham, as also of Orgreave and of Hillsborough.
That is not a story of race, but a story of class.
who said the following?
‘Muslims must accept asian,and pakistani men are grooming young girls off the
street for sexual abuse,and do more to stop it’.
Nazir Afsal Head Of the CPS for the Northwest.
The National Leader on sexual exploitation of children
It’s halloween not April fools
“As a young man growing up in South Africa he saw first-hand the brutal and oppressive racist face of racist apartheid.”
Then why does he consistently support Israel?
In a world exclusive, the Mayor of Bethlehem, Vera Baboun, chooses The Lanchester Review from which to address British MPs on their recent vote to recognise Palestine – http://lanchesterreview.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/in-response-to-recent-vote-of-british.html
Great stuff John, keep it up.
I’m speaking as an SNP supporter of course. Murphy is fatally compromised and may be able to sneak it in East Ren but his record on Iraq, Israel, Tuition Fees and SO, SO, SO much more will destroy him in any Scotland-wide role. There are genuinely too many reasons NOT to vote for him for me to keep track on. However if he is anointed (as Sarwar moving in sleekit fashion into the shadows would suggest) they will all come out of the woodwork. So much ammo, he’s the ideal candidate.
What an unconsciously revealing phrase from Mr Mcternan: “the Scottish bloc will be delivered”. What contempt for the Scottish voter: fodder to keep the Labour cohort at Westminster.
Shame the votes can’t just be bought as in former days, weighed, and passed on to Milliband’s delivery-man, it would avoid us having to stomach a deal of hypocrisy.
I fail to see any reference to Mr Murphy’s expenses claims in this article, Mr McTernan; it’s telling that Nicholas Watt, Chief political correspondent of the Guardian also failed to mention this in his overtly “puff piece” today.
Why is that?
Jim Murphy has no degree to show for his nine years at university collecting student union sabbatical positions.
He followed them up with a year in some party non-job, leading into a parliamentary seat at the grand old age of 29.
Wikipedia (I know, but even so) lists him as “Profession: None.”
Quite.
His profession like all the other so called Scottish labour politician is Liar.
Glad to see you’re Jim Murphy’s election agent, John, your Tracy record is second to none. You managed not to elect Viceroy Broon in 2010, followed by Julia Gillard (against Tony Abbott!) in Australia. I have every confidence that you can make it three with a Trident backing, austerity backing, war supporting Blairite who won’t even commit to further fiscal powers for the government he says he wants to lead. He’s facing the most engaged electorate there has Ben in the U.K. For decades – he’ll be fun lot.
Ha Ha Ha what a load of nonsense without Murphy Labour gets a drubbing with Murphy Labour gets an even bigger one . How quick McTernan would like us to forget Murphy’s £ 1 million claimed in expenses, his 9 years at university and yet no degree, his support of the Iraq war, his anti Palestine stance and his avid support of austerity. Yes lets have Murphy please.
John McTernan does not understand the magnitude of Scottish Labour’s problems. His last sentence sums up his inability to comprehend Scottish politics. He states in his last sentence “With him at the helm (Murphy) the Scottish bloc, so essential to a Miliband majority, will be delivered”.
Mr McTernan can only see Scotland through the Westminster lens. In other words, what the impact will be for London Labour. Mr McTernan knows fine well what he is doing here, it is exactly this attitude (looking at Scotland from a London viewpoint) that rankles with nationalists, and he cannot miss an opportunity to stick one at the auld enemy. However the article tells the reader something else about Mr McTernan, that is, he does not understand Labour’s real problem with Scotland or he is deliberately avoiding it.
Labour are stumbling towards political oblivion in Scotland. I do not exaggerate. A new leader in Jim Murphy is not going to change that. Should he win he will be the seventh leader since the creation of the Scottish parliament. The situation that Labour in Scotland finds itself has nothing to do with the Scottish leader, it has nothing to do with the semantics of the meaning of patriotism over nationalism. It has nothing to do with the SNP. That might sound perplexing to southern readers who may reasonably ask ‘if it was not for the SNP……….. But it is a fact that the problem Labour has in Scotland is of Labour’s making. It also has nothing to do with Labour’s stance, along side the Tories, during the referendum (although they will not be allowed to forget that one).
Labour’s problems in Scotland are not repairable and will only get worse without first of all acknowledging one unavoidable reality.
The problem is devolution. Its a conundrum for all unionist parties because to recognise devolution for what it is, a constitutional structural weakness results in only two conclusions. Devolution might have sounded like a good idea at the time but the reality of devolution in practice has been the vandalism of the unwritten constitution of the UK.
So if Labour wants to sort out the mess it has got itself into in Scotland it has to do one of two things. It has to either support the dissolution of the Scottish parliament or fight for its independence.
Or to put it in another way, Scotland does not need a three parliaments, Brussels, London and Edinburgh. One will eventually have to go.
Please comment Mr McTernan.