Brian Monteith: Bruising time ahead for new leaders

Published on Monday 2 January 2012 00:00

The chiefs of Scotland’s opposition parties will have no shortage of challenges in 2012

WHEN the New Year of 2011 dawned last January the expectations of Iain Gray, Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott must have been for a more positive outcome than all three of them falling on their swords by the autumn. How then must their respective replacements, Johann Lamont, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie feel about 2012?

Lamont has the reputation of a street fighter and has never baulked at taking on all-comers for a political square-go, but is this really what Labour needs? The match between Alex Salmond and Lamont looks more like the clashes between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier, with the First Minister’s quick feet and accurate jabs racking up the points while Lamont adopts a relentless approach of walking into punches in an attempt to land some telling ones of her own.

If Lamont is able to show craft as well as graft and discover a new lightness of touch, she may yet appeal beyond Labour’s natural audience. The conundrum she faces is that Labour has always done well when it has shown it defends Scotland’s interests, but how can she do this better than Salmond without being more nationalistic? The key must lie in developing a positive message for unionism – something that has thus far eluded Labour politicians that tend to adopt a default position of depressing negativity.

Another dilemma facing Labour is who its local councillors will have to form alliances with for them to gain power after May’s council elections. Jack McConnell’s introduction of single transferable vote ensured that more and more councils would require coalitions to lead them. As as the independence referendum approaches, who gets into bed with the Tories at a local level could prove embarrassing to Labour – and yet in many councils Labour may find it preferable to working with the SNP. Look for Salmond making much of this in June so long as his own local worthies are not forced into the same difficulty.

Rather than damage her, any reversals in the local elections could be used by Lamont to be more radical in affecting change – but while the structural reforms go on behind the scenes the voters are still waiting on her party reconnecting with them. Localism could offer a solution, and what better way than for Lamont to distance herself from the patronising health bullies such as Nicola Sturgeon and David Cameron – the unlikely couple supporting minimum pricing of alcohol and other health restrictions. In the past it was possible for local areas to vote by plebiscites to make an area dry – why not advocate allowing such local action in allowing either the imposition or relaxation of controls so that licensing hours reflect local wishes or pubs and bingo halls are allowed to have smoking rooms – in strictly controlled ventilated rooms?

Lamont must find issues that put Salmond and Sturgeon on the wrong side of the argument, and allowing people to take local responsibility for their lives could trump the appeal of the SNP’s recipe of nationalist socialism by making it look centralist, detached from communities and inflexible.

For Ruth Davidson, the year offers no shortage of challenges, but refreshingly for the Tories she appears undaunted and her work ethic and enthusiasm in comparison to Goldie is winning her admirers where previously there was scepticism and contempt. One battle-scarred senior politician told me how, much to his surprise and unlike her predecessors, she seeks advice and then actually acts upon it. Nevertheless, for all Davidson’s personal attributes, her political fate may not be in her own hands unless she repositions what she stands for.

It was injudicious to draw a line in the sand over the Scotland Bill stating that there should be no concession of powers beyond it. Considering the Scottish Conservatives had never properly discussed what was always Wendy Alexander’s conception, Davidson could have announced she was adopting a listening mode and made great play of trying to heal the wounds that a leadership election necessarily opens. Only just elected as Scottish Tory leader, it would have been wiser to take a step back from such an inflexible position and continue with the healthy debate that the election contest had released.

Instead, the Tories remain united in public but divided in private about how to tackle Salmond and the SNP’s drive towards independence. The obstacles for Davidson in 2012 include her first Scottish Conservative conference as leader – being held in the rather sedate venue of Troon. No redefining of the stereotype there, but more a confirmation of the tea and scones confection that Goldie left as her legacy.

In May’s local council elections the Conservatives can thank the proportional voting system yet again for saving them from humiliation of a painful drubbing. With a council tax freeze removing the possibility of offering lower tax bills I have yet to hear exactly what local Tories are for. In the war to mend cracked pavements and work up a red mist about planning applications I cannot find much to distinguish Davidson’s Tories from Willie Rennie’s Liberal Democrats. The electorate will be left voting for councillors by selecting those they most identify with rather than the policies they advocate – but in contemporary Scotland such tribal behaviour has left Conservatives marginalised – so we are left again asking, what are Tories for?

Of all the three new leaders Rennie possibly has the least room to manoeuvre in that the largest factor determining electoral support must continue to be the impetuous behaviour of the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, with Vince Cable and Chris Huhne doing little to help matters. Again, like the Tories, there will be local politicians that can be depended upon to attract support, but at a Scottish level the problem now for the Liberal Democrats is finding relevance. While Ming Campbell’s commission into greater Home Rule for Scotland could give Rennie a useful platform from which to make an appeal, not least to Tories disillusioned with Davidson’s intemperate obstinacy, the problem remains that the Liberal Democrats must look like they can form a government with another party so they can’t just go around rubbishing everyone else.

While Lamont, Davidson and Rennie should survive the year it will be a bruising one they must learn from. For Alex Salmond all their problems make for a happy time. W hile his opponents flounder he can simply get on with running the country seemingly impervious to their attacks.

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Charles P

Friday, January 27, 2012 at 09:28 PM

Good Lord what an article from Brian Monteith, it seems to consist solely of the Executioners advice to the condemned Unionist Leaders on how to stand on the Trapdoor in order they don't hurt themselves when they fall! In the Scottish Parliament there are a handful of unreconstructed Tories, even Fewer Liberals, and as the Real Labour Party, i.e. the Bosses in England, align themselves with, and support every right wing policy to exit David Cameron's mouth, they are not just writing 'the longest suicide note in history' Margo McDonald is already handing them out the Pills.

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11

briteric

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 12:01 AM

The comments in support of The Scotsman reports on Scottish politics seem to be absent. well done the Moderator, there is enough drivel in the reports.

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samcoldstream

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 07:47 PM

IF, the Opposition can't stop the Nationalist momentum by next May then don't be in the least surprised to see Labour councillors forced into co-habiting with Nationalists to form Council coalitions. We have already seen that all 32 members of Labour-led Cosla have meekly agreed to a further Council Tax freeze because they have no other option. Cosla caused the previous minority Scottish government many problems but forgot the old adage: what goes around, comes around, and the majority Nationalist government now has Cosla well and truly by the short and ......

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korky

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 04:02 PM

Journalistic codswallop

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Kinghob

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 03:35 PM

The big challenge to the unionist efforts will be to ..........tell the truth instead of lies.

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douglas-home rule

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 10:12 AM

Joe Lamond cant run her own constituancy, what chance has she running Labour with Curran perched on her shoulder and Sarwar waiting on a slip. Davidson justs mouths Forsyth platitudes so far, while she gets the usual easy ride from the media. The LibDems are closest to the SNP in ideology and made a major blunder in 2007 by not backing a referendum then. But they have marginalized themselves instead and its not easy to see Ming ( a Westminster stalwart and perhaps the man who forced the 2007 stance) coming up with anything meaningfull

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SlyFifer

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 08:44 AM

The only thing positive about Labour in Scotland is one of the terminals on the head of Lamont. It is the smaller of the two as the other significantly larger terminal is the one marked - Negative, which is all Labour in Scotland can ever be.

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glassbenmhor

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 12:59 AM

Oor Wullie of the LibCons.....oh my sides are sore laughing, whose paying the deposits next time around, but wait Emperor Ming is chair(person) of the latest cabal ........ 'Home Rule'!......... Wow , I always thought home rule was railway bridge graffiti from the 1950's!

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glassbenmhor

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 12:50 AM

I think Brian Taylor not Monteith wrote the first half of this article, and within is the true story, the two Brians, with a labour card in one pocket and white knuckles in the other, it's pretty sad in truth that a National press can have such open hatred of the SNP. But they still really do not understand why 'CyberNatland' flourishes in the wake of their one sided drivel, well it natural, redress and balance!

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New Unionism

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 12:34 AM

They could be honest and admit that they want us to stay part of a country with the second worst distribution of wealth in the developed world. And that they don't want this situation to change.

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New Unionism

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 12:25 AM

Given their Unionist beliefs, could they not listen to one of their own and get on their bikes and look for someone who will listen to them. it will very likely not be in Scotland.

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New Unionism

Monday, January 2, 2012 at 12:22 AM

I know what they can do - they should just GTF

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