Wings Over Scotland

(Real) email correspondence forwarded by an alert reader:

From: HARTY, Sam
Sent: 21 October 2014 16:58
To: MILIBAND, Ed
Subject: Official Copy of Vow

Dear 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

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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.

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Owen Jones in the Guardian today:

“If Scottish Labour does indeed die, historians will ponder just how the party of Keir Hardie allowed itself to be outflanked on the left by a Scottish National Party committed to George Osborne-style cuts to corporation tax.”

You know where we’re going with this one, right?

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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.

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Here’s a quote from a piece in today’s Scotland on Sunday:

“A source close to Lamont said: ‘A call came through from one of Ed’s people to one of Johann’s people. He passed on the news about Ian Price and Johann’s guy said, “I assume this means you want Johann to resign?”.

‘The guy from Ed’s office said, “No, of course not,” but he just didn’t get it. He didn’t get the fact that Johann had been completely undermined.'”

So that’s clear – Ed Miliband DIDN’T want Johann Lamont to go. Right?

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Iain Gray, leader of Scottish Labour, at First Minister’s Questions in March 2011:

“After 92 times at this, you would think the First Minister would have realised by now that I get to choose what the questions are about. But his turn is coming soon enough!”

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.

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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.

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The Daily Record last month:

But that’s not even the funny bit.

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It’s been a very slow news day today and it’s chucking it down outside, so we found ourselves stuck for entertainment. Earlier this afternoon alert readers will have noticed us tweeting about breaking through 35,000 Twitter followers, and while we were comparing that to various other entities for our own amusement (eg it’s over 10,000 more followers than Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives and the Scottish Lib Dems put together), we stumbled across this feature from 16 months ago.

And because – as readers of our Panelbase polling features will know – there’s nothing we like more than the occasional wallow in some stats, we got to work.

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It’s the beaten side who are supposed to lose their minds. But we couldn’t resist sharing with you two articles by Labour activists today whose authors have studied the last decade of Scottish politics and arrived at the conclusion that the salvation of Scottish Labour lies in… ramping up the arrogance and hating the SNP more.

Oh, you’re going to love these.

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From the Twitter account of the Aberdeen Conservative and Unionist Association last night, during the First Minister’s appearance on Question Time from Liverpool:

Just a couple of things.

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