Scottish Labour now has a leadership contest, with the (relatively) left-wing MSP Neil Findlay throwing his hat into the ring with that of colleague Sarah Boyack (assuming both can secure the necessary 10 nominations from M/S/EPs).
We thought we’d help him tidy up his press statement on the matter, as he appears to have accidentally left a few words out.
This is how it begins. This morning’s media reports a call from First Minister-elect Nicola Sturgeon that any future referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU should be subject to a veto from all four constituent nations – that is, if the UK as a whole votes to leave but either England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales vote to stay in, the result is null and void.
It’s an extremely clever move. While none of the main three Westminster parties actually WANT to leave the EU and would love to go along with such a plan, public opinion in England will not allow any of them to back it. There would be a massive outcry, and quite legitimately so – Scotland, people would reasonably say, just voted that it wanted to remain part of the UK, and therefore must accept UK decisions.
And with that, the die is cast and the door opens.
It seems the Daily Record has taken something of a sulk at our post of earlier today. This evening the paper’s editor Murray Foote issued this statement on its Facebook page in response to one of a number of readers who’d posted links to the story:
It’s a telling reaction.
(Real) email correspondence forwarded by an alert reader:
From: HARTY, Sam
Sent: 21 October 2014 16:58
To: MILIBAND, Ed
Subject: Official Copy of VowDear Ed
Mr Clarke has a constituent who would like a formal copy of the Vow that was made prior to the Scottish Referendum.
Is it possible for your office to provide Tom with a copy for his constituent?
Thanking you in anticipation of your co-operation.
Regards
Sam
On behalf of
TOM CLARKE MP
So, a full day has passed and not a single comrade has put themselves forward for the job of pseudo-leading the snarling pit of angry dogs that is Scottish Labour. Perhaps we’ve underestimated them. Perhaps they’re not quite as dim as they look.
Owen Jones in the Guardian today:
You know where we’re going with this one, right?
On the left the Observer yesterday, on the right the Guardian this morning.
Imagine the UK’s great newspaper of the liberal left repeatedly confusing Theresa May with Esther McVey, or Harriet Harman with Dianne Abbott. Feel the comradely love.
We haven’t bothered sending a submission to the Smith Commission.
Here’s why.
Here’s a quote from a piece in today’s Scotland on Sunday:
So that’s clear – Ed Miliband DIDN’T want Johann Lamont to go. Right?
Iain Gray, leader of Scottish Labour, at First Minister’s Questions in March 2011:
A few weeks later, Gray had resigned after just barely holding onto his own seat by around 150 votes as Alex Salmond led the SNP to a historic landslide victory.
Luckily, Gray’s successor learned from his embarrassing hubris, for if there’s one thing Scottish Labour ensure us they’re really good at, it’s learning lessons.
Our undercover agent inside Labour (whose identity we can’t reveal, other than their codename “Nasa Warsar”) just leaked us this internal security-camera footage from both the Scottish and UK party HQs at the time of Johann Lamont’s resignation.
We’re sure readers can work out who’s who.
We have many faults, but we try our hardest to ensure that hypocrisy isn’t one of them, so we’re not about to turn round and pay tribute to Johann Lamont just because she’s quit her job. We’re sure she’s a nice person in real life, but for three years the Scottish Labour “leader” has lived a lie, railing bitterly against London control while doing everything she could to impose that very fate on the people of Scotland.
(And ultimately succeeding, in so far as one could say that the mainly-absent Lamont could claim to have played any meaningful part in the referendum campaign.)
She leaves her party in the same abject state she found it, its position in the polls if anything slightly worse than it was after the SNP’s historic landslide victory in 2011. Her only achievement was to give Scottish Labour’s bitter, spiteful, tribal hatred of the Nats an accurate-looking corporeal manifestation, her face invariably contorted at First Minister’s Questions into a snarl of naked loathing for an opponent who’d done nothing other than successfully co-opt what used to be considered traditional “Labour values” after Labour abandoned them in pursuit of Middle England votes.
But we will say one thing for her – she went out with a bang.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
