The bold Kezia

In today's Daily Record there's an opinion piece by Kezia Dugdale in which she waxes lyrical about how the new powers coming to Scotland will enable a Labour government in Scotland to

be even bolder in the decisions we make to stop the cuts in Scotland and give young people a chance to get on in life.

Let trumpets sound and rejoicing begin!  Of course, as Ms Dugdale's chances of becoming First Minister in April are currently in the area of, er, zero, she can make these claims safe in the knowledge that she'll never have to make good on her promises.  Also, based on their record in government in Holyrood in the past, 'even bolder' isn't much of a stretch.

It's a piece filled with deep irony.  For example

It’s an amazing opportunity for Scotland to chart a difference course, if our politicians are brave enough to take it.

Surely the amazing opportunity was for Scotland to have voted for independence, no?  Then there would be no negotiations over new powers.  We'd have them all, and could use them as we think best to solve our own problems.  Tax rates could be freely adjusted, economic levers applied. But alas, Labour in Scotland weren't brave enough to grasp that particular opportunity. 

(There's further irony in that she claims the new powers will stop the cuts in Scotland, but omits to mention that Labour in Westminster opposed the cuts by abstaining from the vote, but I digress.)

There's also contradiction.  She says

Taking on responsibility for Scottish taxes means we should shoulder the risks but it shouldn’t mean losing the rewards we get from being part of the UK and the system that shares money out across the country.

Well, she can't have it both ways.  Either we're taking risks or we're relying on the UK to make sure that the risks aren't all that risky.  And we know that, since Labour in Scotland opposed independence, they're what can only be described as risk-averse anyway.  Can't cut off their access to the Westminster gravy train - that would be a calamity!

In short, this is a fine example of current Labour in Scotland thinking.  Confused, contradictory and unfocussed.  No wonder they're tanking in the polls.

Veni, vidi, errrr...

So the case against Alastair Carmichael came to an end yesterday, with the judges ruling that each side should pay their own costs, much to the chagrin of Mr Carmichael, who is now telling everyone that he is not a rich man and that the costs should be awarded to the winner of the case, clearly himself in his mind.  But was he?

I don't think we can say that Mr Carmichael was vindicated, since he was found against in two of the points and was essentially found not proven on the third.  Indeed, since the judge said that he had 'told a blatant lie', it can now be fairly said that he is a proven liar.

As for costs, he had asked that costs be awarded against the Orkney 4, and that he also hoped that a punitive element would be included.  But what exactly did he want punished?  Did he want punishment for calling him a liar?  Clearly that wasn't going to happen, since he is a proven liar as the result of this case.  Did he want his opponents punished for daring to question the validity of his election, 'pour encourager les autres'?  That would be a very dangerous path to go down.  Everyone is supposed to be equal before the law, MPs and constituents alike, so to discourage people from taking recourse to the law for fear of punitive damages if they were found against strikes at the very foundations of society.

All of this could have been avoided if either Mr Carmichael had chosen to come clean about his involvement in the 'Frenchgate' memo in the first place or if he had resigned as MP and run as the Lib Dem candidate in the resulting by-election, thus allowing his constituents to either show their confidence in him or to select someone else to represent them.  That, however, would have taken courage.

Mr Carmichael is an educated man, so you'd think he'd be aware that 'vindicate' and 'vindictive' may be near-neighbours in the dictionary, but they are not the same thing.  He certainly wasn't vindicated and has shown himself to be vindictive.  Not a good outcome for him.

The softly-spoken magic spells

On Tuesday we had a Guardian editorial telling us that the latest policy pronouncement by Labour in Scotland, the addition of a penny to income tax rates across all tax bands for Scots, together with a rebate scheme for the lowest paid, was 'a big, bold move'.  Oddly, the Guardian did not say the same when Willie Rennie announced a similar policy the previous Wednesday, so it would appear that the newspaper has reverted back to its traditional Labour-supporting stance.

The most interesting thing about the editorial was this sentence:

Alternatively it may shift nothing at all. Either way, it is high time that the SNP’s “best of both worlds” approach is challenged effectively.

When I first read it, the sentence jarred.  The SNP's best of both worlds approach?  Surely that was one of Better Together's slogans towards the end of the referendum campaign, first adopted by one G Brown and repeated ad nauseam?

The Guardian has a bit of a reputation, as far as Scottish politics is concerned, for simply taking Labour press releases and regurgitating them pretty much without question, so it would be a fair assumption, I think, that the use of the 'best of both worlds' approach came from such a press release.  An odd turn of phrase, perhaps a mistake.

On Wednesday the calls from the Lib Dems and Labour for the 1p increase to tax bands were rejected during the debate on the draft Holyrood budget, voted down by the SNP and the Tories. The debate was notable for the fact the Jackie Baillie, when questioned on how the rebate part of Labour's scheme would work, said that the details didn't matter, it was the principle that mattered.  It was also notable for the fact that Labour claimed to want to work with the SNP 'to end Tory austerity in Scotland', conveniently overlooking the fact that, had they campaigned for Scottish independence we would currently have been on the threshold of leaving the UK and therefore the very Tory austerity they rail against.

Then on Thursday we had First Minister's Questions, the weekly circus that really does no credit to most of our politicians.  Naturally Kezia Dugdale's question was on the 1p on income tax policy that had been rejected.  During her peroration she uttered the phrase 'The SNP and the Tories stood should to shoulder'.  Again, an interesting turn of phrase, one usually applied to Labour in regard to the fact they campaigned with the Tories against Scottish independence.

So, are we seeing the start of the next Labour strategy?  Clearly, it would seem the Labour thinking goes,  phrases like 'standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tories' and 'best of both worlds' are at the root of their catastrophic loss of support in Scotland.  That being the case, let's apply them to the SNP and watch their popularity nose-dive.  Cause and effect, like a magic spell.  So obvious when you think about it.

It's not going to work though.  People are not stupid, and can remember the original authors or targets of phrases and the circumstances in which they were used.  Words are important, not least because they have associations.  Simply applying phrases to your opponents that were originally applied to you won't magically have the same effect as they had on you because of those associations.  It will be interesting to see if Labour continue in this vein.  If so, it implies a woeful lack of any real political talent in Labour in Scotland.

Fashion

The other day there was a report on Len McCluskey's speech to the first policy conference of the Unite union in Scotland.  In it he used a phrase which has become common parlance among Scottish Labour politicians, to wit:

The SNP stole most of the radical clothes that historically should have belonged to Labour.

Originally the Labour party chose policies that reflected the hodden grey of the working classes.  A fair day's pay for a fair day's work.  Paid holidays.  Sick pay.  The welfare state.  All excellent ideas and ones that Labour had succeeded in implementing during the 20th century, for which they deserve praise and recognition.  However, a funny thing happened.  Labour politicians spent much time at Westminster, where they noticed that the Tories had much more colourful clothes and, what's more, the wealth to afford them.  And many of them seem to have become dazzled by the Tories' designer gear and decided they want some for themselves.  So they have cast off the old hodden grey of social justice and borrowed the Tories' more dazzling clothes, since those clothes seem to be much more popular with the electorate in the leafy suburbs of south-east England.  Fashion (turn to the right).

Now if you have old clothes that you don't want any longer, you can hardly be surprised if someone else comes along and wears them.  After all, you don't want them any more.  The SNP have given the hodden grey clothes a bit of a tartan twist, but you can still see the basic clothes beneath them.  Fashion (turn to the left).

Now, with Jeremy Corbyn as leader, there are fashion wars in the Labour party.  Some want to hang on to the designer gear, some want to go back to hodden grey and yet others want a mixture of the two.   The current wardrobe wars are entertaining for the rest of use, but are doing real damage to the Labour party with the electorate.

The thing about ideas of social justice is that you can't copyright them.  Labour have no more right to exclusive policies on social justice than any other political party, and they need to realise this sooner rather than later if the party is to have any chance of survival at all.  They need the political equivalent of Trinny and Susannah.

Crying wolf

Recently the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) carried out a review of the Scottish education system.  The report was largely positive and highlighted some improvements that have been made as well as showing some areas that still need work.  On balance, though, it shows that education in Scotland is in a reasonably good position when compared with other countries. 

The National reported on the review in a positive manner, but also highlighted the areas that need to be improved, as you would expect from decent journalism. Everyone would be happy you'd think.

But of course, Labour in Scotland are not happy.  They do not, as the old song goes, accentuate the positive but instead respond in Eyore-ish, glass-half-empty kind of way.  An illustration of this was discussed on Wings Over Scotland, which showed a screengrab of a tweet from Blair McDougall.  In it he pulls out every negative thing said in the report with no positives to counterbalance them.  The usual 'SNP Bad' stuff.   I have no doubt that other Labour MSPs will be banging the same drum over the next day or so, when they're not criticising the Budget.

Labour in Scotland really need to rethink their reflex to declare that anything the Scottish government suggests is bad because the Scottish government suggested it, and that anything negative said about Scotland by a third-party organisation must have the blame laid at the feet of the Scottish government.  They have got to the point now where a large proportion of the electorate simply ignore their pronouncements due to their relentless negativity.  This is bad for democracy, since the odds are that at some point Labour will be correct about something that the Scottish government has got wrong, but at that point no-one will be listening to them.  They will be like the boy who cried wolf.

To me an opposition's job is not to simply oppose anything that the government might propose, but is rather to look at a proposal and ensure that questions are asked to make sure that all possible outcomes or consequences have been considered and contingency put in place to deal with them.  Sadly, however, Labour in Scotland seem to be no more capable of this than they are of persuading people to vote for them.  For too long they had things their own way, so that they didn't need to develop the necessary skills for either task, and it doesn't look like they're going to master them any time soon, if ever.

It's no oor fault

Over the weekend there was a lengthy article in the Guardian by John Harris about Kezia Dugdale and Labour in Scotland more generally, and their chances of reviving their fortunes before next May's elections.

The first part of the article describes a First Minister's Questions session, which clearly took place some time ago since Ms Dugdale's question was about the police not responding to the crashed car containing John Yuill and Lamara Bell.  In it he says that Ms Dugdale has 'something of the rabbit in headlights about her', which is a fair description in my opinion.  Afterwards he asks her about FMQs and whether she enjoys it, and she says this:

Look, I’m acutely aware that I’ve just been an MSP for four and a bit years,” she says. “You know? I’m 34 years old. There’s a lot about life, a lot about politics, that I’m still learning. A lot of the things I’m doing as leader, I’m doing for the first time. But there are things I do know a lot about, and there are lots of things I’m incredibly passionate about: education, tackling poverty, female inequality. And on that stuff I’m 100% on my game. But I think it probably does take a wee bit of a while. She’s had 12 years more than I have.

Unfortunately this comes across as a slightly whiny 'it's not fair, she's had longer at this than I have', but it leads to an obvious question: if Ms Dugdale herself feels that she lacks experience and has a lot to learn, why did Labour in Scotland vote her in as leader?

The next part of the article goes on to describe conversations that Mr Harris has with various Scottish Labour stalwarts, including some ex-MPs, as to why Labour is doing so badly in Scotland.  Gemma Doyle, a former MP, thinks it stems from 2007, when the SNP first took power in Holyrood.  According to Ms Doyle it was Labour's failure to change their approach that is the cause of their decline, which has been caused by voters punishing Labour for not doing things differently.  Neil Findlay, on the other hand, ascribes the decline to the devastation of heavy industry in Scotland and the declining influence of institutions such as the trade unions and the church.  Oh, and also that the SNP hired some talented strategists and media-operators.  Oh, and furthermore Labour's siding with the Tories in the Better Together campaign was a big mistake.  Mags Curran, however, blames the use of social media, where the evil SNP would undermine all the fantastic doorstep work she was doing by talking to people on Facebook.

So what do Labour want now?  They want people to listen to them.  Fair enough, that's what any politician wants.  But here's the thing.  If you want people to listen to you, you have to have something they are interested to hear.  It's no good just repeating the mantra that Labour has used for decades - 'vote for us, we know what's best for working people, don't worry your heads about the details.'  In the age of the internet that is no longer going to cut it.  And the current strategy of 'SNP bad' isn't going to cut it either.  People compare what Labour are claiming with the reality of their everyday life and tend to find it doesn't match up to the Labour rhetoric.

Ms Dugdale herself claims to have seen Labour's catastrophic decline coming even before the referendum:

I was well aware that there would be a consequence for the Labour party,” she says. “I can remember speaking to a Times journalist at a lunch, saying that the rhythm of events I could see was: Scotland voting no, but then being almost angry with itself, despite feeling it was the right thing to do – and the way to articulate that anger being to kick out at the Labour party. That was before the referendum.

 So there we have it.  Scottish voters are basically using Labour as the political equivalent of kicking a dog to relieve their anger at themselves.  It's not the dog's fault, it just happens to be there.

Then we have something about Ms Dugdale's background.  There is one paragraph I found quite revealing:

I vividly remember going into my first class, on the Scottish legal system – 250 people in a lecture theatre, all banked up the stairs – and it just made me so conscious of all these privately educated kids. They all had their schools’ sporting gear on. I just felt hugely out of place. I knew within the first few weeks of starting that I didn’t want to be a lawyer.

 So let's see.  Ms Dugdale's current bee in her bonnet is about how the professions are dominated by those educated privately.  However, the fact that Ms Dugdale herself was accepted into a law degree at Aberdeen would suggest that it isn't a closed shop by any manner of means.  She seems to imply that she didn't want to be a lawyer because there were too many privately-educated students on her course.  One rather suspects, however, that the fact that studying the law requires attention to detail may have been her downfall, since she seems to be often lacking that sort of rigour in FMQs, leading to frequent embarrassment when she is yet again proven wrong on a point of detail, for example this week when she made a big song and dance about the environmental impact of the FM flying to a climate change conference, only to be told that the FM would be travelling by train.  Another example is this:

Because I think [Nicola Sturgeon]’s a bit of a late convert to feminism. I think it’s something she’s adopted at a late stage, having studied Labour history and heritage. What it actually means to be a feminist… well, affirmative action, for example, the SNP have a very poor record on.

So apparently appointing a 50/50 gender split cabinet doesn't count as affirmative action then?  And Ms Sturgeon has been a feminist for rather longer than Ms Dugdale would have us believe.

The overall impressions from the article are that Labour in Scotland are still trying to blame everyone but themselves for their current predicament, they still feel that they are entitled to Scottish votes by default and Ms Dugdale is probably a nice person but is seriously out of her depth being leader and is unlikely to survive as such if there is a similar wipeout of Labour MSPs in next year's Scottish elections.  I almost have the impression she was elected as the sacrificial lamb who can be easily dispensed with in that event.

Labour in Scotland are clearly still in serious denial about their decline in Scotland and may not even survive with the formation of RISE taking the far left-wing spot on the political spectrum.  Meanwhile all they can do is cry 'it's no fair' and 'it's no oor fault' and wonder why that isn't working and no-one is listening to them.

Defiance and morality

Tomorrow there is a vote on whether the UK should extend its current bombing campaign against ISIS in Iraq to include Syria as well,  joining allies such as France and the US who already carrying out bombing runs against ISIS in Syria.  The current expectation is that the UK parliament will vote in favour of military action, especially since Jeremy Corbyn has announced that Labour MPs will be allowed a free vote on the issue rather than voting in accordance with party policy.

Mr Corbyn's supporters as hailing his decision to allow a free vote as the moral thing to do, hoping that the majority of Labour MPs will vote against.  To me it's a serious failure of leadership.  A survey of Labour party members showed that 75% of them were against airstrikes in Syria, which is a pretty clear mandate.  By refusing to use a whip, Mr Corbyn appears to be weak and ineffectual, almost a typical sandal-wearing, lentil-eating, Guardian-reading cliche dad, who doesn't discipline his children because they should be allowed to do the right thing of their own accord.  And we all know how well that works out.

Will the airstrikes stop ISIS?  I don't think so.  If you voted Yes last year, think back to how you felt on 19th September.  Did you just shrug your shoulders, think 'oh well, that's that then' and move on with your life?  Many of you, like me felt a range of emotions, but one that isn't often mentioned is defiance.  And that defiance has continued, as can be seen with the phenomenal success of the SNP in the past year and the continuing high levels of political engagement in Scotland.  Do you think the ISIS fighters will feel any differently?

As for the moral case for the bombing, ISIS live among the ordinary people of Syria.  Is there a moral case for bombing people who are not part of ISIS but who happen to live in areas that ISIS fighters also live in?  If your answer to that is 'yes', you need to take a long hard look at yourself.