Sauce for the gander
The lawyer and Labour activist Ian Smart has had a few strong things to say in the last couple of weeks, not least a coruscating attack on the poor quality of the Scottish party’s leadership candidates. But the piece that caught our eye was one last Monday which was ostensibly about the EU and Eurozone crisis. Commenting relatedly on the internal machinations of the last Labour government, Smart said:
“Any time Blair did anything really unpopular Gordon’s people would let it be known that he would have done things differently. They were careful never to say what they would actually have done, just that it would have been something different. Thus, that ‘something different’ could be whatever you wanted it to be… if the leader of the Labour Party wants to become Prime Minister then he or she will require to win a General Election. And that requires an ability to answer the question ‘What would you do?’ with something more than ‘something different’.”
And yet, when we look at Smart’s party in Scotland, what clearly-specified, active policies do we find that it presently stands for (rather than just against)?
– on the constitution? “Vote for the status quo and we’ll change things at some undetermined point in the future, in some unspecified way or ways (even though we’ve just finished spending several years on the Calman Commission supposedly coming up with a settled and lasting position on devolution).”
– on local taxation? “We’ll get back to you on that.“
– on higher education funding? “We haven’t made a decision yet.“
– on fighting sectarianism? “We refuse to participate in the discussion.“
– on minimum alcohol pricing? “We’re for doing something, but not this.“
– on gay marriage? “The time is right to consult on options.“
– on maintaining/upgrading nuclear weapons? “No comment.“
– on building a new generation of nuclear power stations? “We haven’t ruled new nuclear power in, but neither have we ruled it out.“
Help us out, readers (or Mr Smart, if you’re there) – is there anything Scottish Labour and its new leader actually DOES currently have a policy on?
Loving it, Alf. BTW, what’s the Scots for linguicide? That’s surely gonna be the first question every alert…
“is there anything Scottish Labour and its new leader actually DOES currently have a policy on?”
Yes if the SNP propose it we are against it. Its worked great for us so far, so why should we change, we are Scotlands natural party of government after all.
I suspect that one of the main reasons that Labour are rudderless in Scotland is that although Gordon Brown was a prime example of a man who avoided decisions he did at least know where Scotland was and regarded it as his personal fiefdom. Ed Milliband might know but he's not that interested.
As a regional branch Labour in Scotland are waiting for directions from their leader which never come. That's their actual leader, not the Scottish regional manager the media keeps claiming is their party leader.