Leaders: Signs of life in Scottish Labour?

WHEN Scottish Labour politicians say their party has hit rock bottom, it’s less a case of brutal honesty than wishful thinking.

Its showing at last year’s Holyrood elections was catastrophic, and there is still a fear among some activists that the local council elections this coming May could see Labour sink further still. That remains to be seen. For now, as the party meets for its first conference since its humiliating parliamentary defeat, there are some signs that Scottish Labour is, at the very least, dusting itself down and starting to muster its thoughts about a fightback. The ways it is doing so do not, however, suggest the party is anywhere near ready to claim a role as a dynamic and effective alternative government.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the constitution. On Friday, Johann Lamont, the party’s new leader, announced the creation of a commission to formulate a new Scottish Labour position on more powers for Holyrood. The fact that this is necessary, and the fact that it will examine the subject from first principles, shows how off-the-pace Labour is on an issue that has been a constant preoccupation in Scottish politics for the past 45 years. Still, it shows Labour recognises that, if it wants to remain relevant in the Scottish political debate, its response to the constitutional question must be more than a doleful wish that it did not have to be asked.

Of course, Labour’s commission is now only one of a number of bodies examining Scotland’s future and working on possible blueprints. The range of options currently stretches from a conventionally independent Scotland through to indy-lite, devo-max, devo-plus and the current Scotland Bill going through parliament. To this we must now add Lamont’s commission, a Liberal Democrat version headed by Sir Menzies Campbell and whatever it is the Prime Minister had in mind when he held out the possibility of more powers in a speech in Edinburgh last month. If the voter is not already confused, he or she soon will be. There is a very real danger that people will quickly tire of the constant churn of alternatives. The quicker the referendum options clarify, and their consequences can be examined with a degree of confidence, the better for everyone.

Some developments within Scottish Labour are particularly welcome. Rule changes now mean it has a legitimate Scottish leader, and not just a leader of Labour MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. Early days, perhaps, but this seems to have added a coherence to the party’s profile north of the Border, with less likelihood of the kind of turf wars between MPs and MSPs that scarred the party in recent years. Lamont and Margaret Curran, the shadow Scotland Secretary at Westminster, are acting like colleagues rather than rivals. Labour must now turn its attention towards being an effective opposition to the SNP in a parliament where the Nationalists enjoy untrammelled power. Democracy relies on opposition that can hold governments to account. This, for the foreseeable future, is Labour’s biggest challenge. In fact, it is now Scottish Labour’s key purpose in Scottish politics; its primary duty.

A new leader, a new rulebook, a new commission – all are signs of life. But are they signs of a resurgent Scottish Labour party? Not yet, and not by a long chalk.

It may have ditched the complacency, but Labour will not be a contender again in Scottish politics until it works harder, re-connects and becomes braver and bolder.

Cuts hit most needy

LAST week welfare reform legislation was granted Royal Assent and became law. Despite opposition from the Lords, charities and advocacy groups for the disabled and their carers, measures that are expected to cut half a billion pounds from the money going to those on incapacity benefits are now in place. This will add to the financial burdens already facing people like fundraiser Ann Maxwell, who cares for her 15-year-old son Muir, who has Dravet Syndrome. Pressure on council social work budgets has reduced the money available for the care of special needs children such as her son. Now families like the Maxwells will have welfare reforms to contend with as well.

It is right that government addresses inconsistencies and iniquities in our welfare system, but the idealism with which Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, embarked on his task seems to have been lost along the way. This now looks like little more than a cash grab by the Treasury at the expense of the most vulnerable. The radical response required by the economic crisis was an opportunity to reflect a new set of moral standards as to how we spend – and collect – our money. And yet the £1.5bn lost to benefit fraud is just a tenth of the £15bn lost in tax evasion by the wealthy. David Cameron’s words – “that we are all in this together” – now sound hollow.