Wings Over Scotland

In a post earlier today we quoted some extracts from the political memoirs of former Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, on the subject of the infamous 1979 vote of no confidence which resulted from his government overturning the Yes result of the Scottish devolution referendum that year, as a result of a Labour MP’s amendment to the bill which meant that it required an effectively impossible threshold for a Yes vote.

Callaghan said of the amendment:

“This provision was carried by a majority of fifteen, with as many as thirty-four Labour Members voting against the Government. I have since wondered whether those thirty-four Labour Members would have voted as they did if they had been able to foresee that their votes on that evening would precipitate a General Election in 1979, at the least favourable time for their Government.”

He blamed the rebels on his own benches, rather than the SNP, for ultimately bringing about the collapse of his government and opening the door to the victory of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher. And we’ve often wondered who they were.

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We’ve spoken before of Scottish Labour’s most revered ancient totem of faith, the 1979 “stab in the back” myth by which they accuse the SNP of sole responsibility for the 18-year rule of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party.

More than three-and-a-half decades later, Labour still cling to it as their trump card in any argument against the SNP, pulling it out when all else fails and relying on the fact that hardly anyone was there to contradict their version of events.

It’s an accusation that’s complete cobblers from top to bottom, but then again you’d expect us to say that. So instead let’s get the view of someone who was there.

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Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, 12 January 2015:

“Mr Rennie said the [SNP] consistently changed its tune on what elections were about after the event and could use May’s poll to claim a mandate justifying a UK vote.”

Tavish Scott, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Tuesday 3 May 2011:

“If you want independence you can vote for it on Thursday.”

Still, at least he was wrong about Salmond fiddling the referendum result, eh?

It is, we’ve remarked before, often difficult to satirise Scottish Labour, because it’s hard to think of anything more fatuous, transparently hypocritical or just plain idiotic than the things they actually say for real. The party’s recent demand that the Scottish Government should set up a “resilience fund” to cushion the blow of falls in oil prices – or as everyone else on Earth usually calls it, an “oil fund” – is only the latest example.

There are just five months between the two tweets above. Yet Labour seemingly believes that the Scottish public will already have completely forgotten that the party spent most of the last two years telling Scots an oil fund was a mad, impossible idea.

But it’s even more ludicrous than it sounds.

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Last night’s bizarre edition of Scotland 2014, in which the three Scottish Labour “leadership” candidates were quizzed by the daughter of a former Labour leader in front of an audience of the candidates’ own supporters (comprising MSPs, councillors and activists), saw all three stick doggedly to what’s clearly going to be the party’s main pitch in the 2015 general election – “Vote SNP, get Tories”.

It’s a line the party has trotted out at every election for decades, and which has been getting pumped out almost daily since Johann Lamont’s resignation – former deputy “leader” Anas Sarwar (who oddly declined to stand for the actual job when it became available) penned a column for the Evening Times on Monday, for example, entitled “Every vote for an SNP candidate is a vote to help elect David Cameron”, and he said the same thing in the Commons this very afternoon.

As alert readers will know, we like to check the facts on these things.

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Readers, since Sunday we’ve been endeavouring on your behalf to find the elusive alleged Scottish Labour conference resolution to oppose the renewal of Trident which Neil Findlay insists is still current policy. We’ve drawn a blank, and Mr Findlay himself has been no help, telling an alert reader that:

“I can’t recall the year – it was quote [sic] some time ago but I am reliably informed it hasn’t changed since then.”

We still haven’t tracked anything down, but thanks to another alert reader we did find a fascinating piece in the archives of the Herald. We share it with you below.

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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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Just a year and six days ago:

Now, maybe not so much.

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Keen followers of Scottish politics, and in particular Scottish Labour, have in recent days found themselves experiencing something of a deja vu overload. Leadership contender Jim Murphy has been all over the media recycling apologies and pledges of reform dating back up to seven years from previous leaders.

But this morning readers could be forgiven for finding themselves a little confused.

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Wendy Alexander, 2007:

“It is a journey that I am determined will end with Scottish Labour back in power at Holyrood.

To get there we must win back the trust of the Scottish people. And to win that trust we must listen to them and show that we have listened to them by reforming our party.

We will not stand by and let the SNP fail the people of Scotland by ducking their real responsibilities of government because of their obsession with independence.

That is our job and we will do it to the best of our ability. But we will not be aggressive for the sake of it. We will be constructive in opposition, and we will give credit where it is due.”

So: listen, reform, don’t just bash the Nats. Got it. How hard can it be?

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Yesterday the three UK party leaders all came to Scotland to “campaign”. None of them would appear in public or be interviewed on TV, speaking only to small crowds of invited supporters before scurrying south again. Nevertheless, their fleeting presence north of the border meant that the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions was conducted by substitutes. Standing in for David Cameron was William Hague.

So that’s all a bit clearer now.

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One of the most commonly-observed facets of the independence referendum so far has been the lack of a real grassroots “Better Together” campaign, and as a historian of Scottish popular politics I’ve found myself pondering why there wasn’t one.

It’s not like there aren’t thousands of Scots who passionately believe in the Union and will be voting No, and are perfectly capable of arguing their case. We all know some – I certainly do, both family and friends. But there’s no organised grassroots campaigning of any serious note. Tiny handfuls of Labour activists, some of them shipped up from England and paid, have done almost all of the donkey work so far.

But as a historian of Scottish popular politics I should have an explanation, shouldn’t I? And when I had a think about it, something occurred to me.

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