Alexander resignation: 'John Reid is the man to save the Labour Party'

Published on Tuesday 1 July 2008 10:30

CONTEMPLATING the Labour leadership tussle, one senior Party figure sighed: "This should be called the deckchair election because rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic didn't make any difference either."

It has come to something when dyed-in-the-wool Labour people feel so despondent only a year after the SNP took control at Holyrood, especially a year in which so much of the Nationalists' programme has run into trouble. But the fact that Labour has been unable to land a glove on Alex Salmond is a reflection on failed leader Wendy Alexander and her top team as well.

Lining up to take on the wily street fighter is a quartet of candidates who all have serious short-comings in the charisma department when that's the one thing that Mr Salmond displays by the bucket-load. All the policy attacks at First Minister's Questions will matter not a jot if the inquisitors are swatted away with a smirk and a waft of the back of a hand.

It is not as if Wendy Alexander had nothing to go at; suicidal local income tax plans, confusion about funding new school buildings, failure to even attempt to meet promised class size targets, and handing free prescriptions to the wealthy to name but four. Set against Alex Salmond's soaring approval ratings shows how lucky Labour have been that the election donations row did for Ms Alexander before things got any worse.

But if the four likely candidates to succeed her are not capable of giving Mr Salmond a regular bloody nose, never mind a knockout punch, what is Labour to do? The lack of an alternative to Wendy Alexander was the reason she was elected unopposed and now the party is forced into the unenvious task of picking a leader whom all will regard as in some way flawed right from the start.

How ironic, then, that sitting in the Glasgow east constituency, where a disaster in the by-election later this month could signal the downfall of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is a person who could turn round Labour's fortunes and who is probably the only one capable of mounting a credible challenge to Mr Salmond. That man is former Home Secretary John Reid, who retired from rather than fight what looked like a losing battle with Mr Brown and is now happily ensconced as chairman of Celtic.

He is now the only Labour character of any substance not tainted by current disasters in either Holyrood or Westminster and his position as an arch-unionist but one very definitely outside the Brown camp makes him almost perfect for the job. Except he's not an MSP and doesn't want the job anyway. But when Jack McConnell eventually gives up his seat, what price for Dr Reid being the candidate? If now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Scottish Labour Party, he might just have to step up to the plate.