As regular readers will know, as a supporter of independence this blog fervently hopes that Tom Harris wins the contest for the leadership of Scottish Labour. Not only because Comical Tom – a fervent pro-Unionist who has already proclaimed that "I don't want Scotland to run her own affairs" – would be a massive recruiting sergeant for the Yes campaign, but also because he's simply the most entertaining.
It recently dawned on us that by joining Youth Labour for just £1, we could actually help to make such a thing happen by having a vote in the leadership election. We duly filled out the form with some enthusiasm, but were sad to realise that we lived far too far away from any of the hustings to quiz Tom directly. Until, that is, he sportingly hosted a live Q&A session on his website…
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Category
analysis, scottish politics
We’re going to come right out and say it. Tom Harris MP will not be the next leader of Scottish Labour. This is because while Scottish Labour might be collectively a bit dim, it’s not THAT dim. Despite having by far the highest media profile of the three leadership candidates (which, in fairness, is clearing a not-very-high bar), Harris failed to secure the support of a single Holyrood MSP for his nomination, a situation that would hopelessly undermine whichever unfortunate lackey was chosen to deliver his attacks on Alex Salmond at First Minister’s Questions.
Opponents of blood sports would shy away from the screen in horror as Labour challenged the FM every week with – at best – a deputy leader acting as a mouthpiece for a Westminster MP. The lack of credibility of an MSP group unable to put forward a single member of sufficient talent to lead would make the party in Scotland a laughing stock, particularly if – as might well happen – the new deputy was a Westminster politician too, such as Ian Davidson or Anas Sarwar.
The SNP, though, will doubtless be hoping against hope that Harris manages to win anyway, because the MP for Glasgow South would represent a massive liability to Labour in many other ways too.
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Tags: flat-out lies
Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics
Earlier on today we reported on a case of a Scottish Labour MP being inadvertently unacquainted with some quite pertinent facts regarding a public pronouncement they’d made. While we’d assumed this to be an isolated incident, it’s in fact our sad duty to report another example within the Northern Branch Office.
That’s the pro-Brexit former Labour minister Tom Harris, there, making just the sort of statement that this site like to fact-check. So let’s see the most recent data.
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Tags: and finally
Category
comment, debunks, europe, scottish politics, uk politics
So called because doing it makes our traffic figures get larger đ
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Tags: Andrew Leslie
Category
history
One of the more intriguing aspects of the EU debate has been the claim made by former Labour minister Tom Harris that a vote to leave the EU would transfer a raft of new powers, including over fishing and farming, to the Scottish government.
(Part of a fairly major volte-face by Harris on who should control what in Scotland, but let’s not get into that right now.)
On the face of it, this is a perfectly feasible possibility, since devolution was set up on a “reserved list” basis – any issues not specifically reserved to Westminster are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. In theory this would indeed mean that powers over farming and fishing would revert to Holyrood automatically upon exit from the EU.
But it’s not quite as simple as that.
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Tags: Scott Minto
Category
analysis, comment, debunks, europe, scottish politics, uk politics
Here’s Kezia Dugdale in the Scotsman:
“Too often in the recent past it has looked like we are only on the side of one group of people â the most vulnerable in society.”
Now, to be honest we’re not sure we remember exactly when that was. Was it when Scottish Labour were threatening to slash “something for nothing” public services? Was it when Rachel Reeves said “we are not the party of people on benefits” (which is almost half the country)? Was it when Tom Harris said “we weren’t set up as some sort of charity to help the poorest in society”?
All we do know is, if we were a prospective Labour leader and we were going to make comments like that at all, we probably wouldn’t choose to do it just hours before a Tory chancellor was going to produce a budget battering living hell out of the most vulnerable in society and throwing 500,000 children in Scotland alone into poverty.
Because, y’know, we might be idiots, but we’re not complete idiots.
Category
comment, idiots, scottish politics
Earlier today we highlighted some of the social-media charm of Labour blogger and BBC pundit Ian Smart, after the Scottish branch office deputy leader Kezia Dugdale demanded that the First Minister should take a more pro-active role in policing the comments of party members on Twitter and Facebook.
Mr Smart’s history of incredibly abusive and offensive comments stretches back many years. But of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable to berate Scottish Labour for its failure to act if it wasn’t aware of them. So we had a trawl through his Twitter followers list just to see if there was anyone who might have noticed and brought it to the leadership’s attention so they could have a quiet word.
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Tags: hypocrisy
Category
comment, investigation, media, scottish politics
From a piece on Labour’s welfare shadow Rachel Reeves in today’s Guardian.
So… who DOES represent those people, then?
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Tags: lizards
Category
comment, scum
We suppose we should offer a few thoughts on this, then.
And we don’t mean Kezia Dugdale’s freakishly gigantic hands.
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Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics
We noted with interest this morning an uncredited story in the Herald, suggesting that Scottish Labour leadership candidate Jim Murphy would stand as an unlikely champion of the poor and downtrodden and the heroic defender of universal benefits.
“Murphy rejects Lamont stance on benefit cuts
On investigation, the truth was somewhat at odds with the headline.
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Category
comment, history, media, scottish politics
Just for fun, we thought you might like to see a list of the Scottish Labour MPs, MSPs and MEPs who are eligible to nominate a candidate for the leadership and deputy leadership positions, but have declined to endorse anyone for either.
If you wouldn’t, don’t look below, whatever you do.
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Category
scottish politics