SO, it’s the weekend of Labour’s first hundred days. A wholly artificial marker perhaps, and what the late, great Alistair Cooke described as “a foolish custom imported from America” in one of his legendary radio broadcasts.
He may have been right.
Nevertheless, some readers of this pro-independence publication might have voted Labour in July.
Some of them probably switched from the SNP to do so. Some of them evidently thought only Labour could oust the Tories. Some of them stayed at home, thoroughly scunnered over just about everything.
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Lots have experienced buyer’s regret.
Maybe they were seduced by the thought of the Labour Party with whom they, and I, grew up. The one that was unmistakably on the side of the poor and disadvantaged. The one that could never have supported a cap on how many children the state should help provide for.
The one that would never stare into a fiscal black hole (about which they would have guessed a great deal in advance) and say to themselves, “I know, let’s claw some of it back from the OAPs”. Frankly it’s a pinprick to burst a big and ballooning debt. And it might not even be that, if enough elderly folk get themselves on pension credit to qualify for the payment they lost.
(Memo to Labour – a pre-Christmas lump sum is always more welcome than a weekly or monthly modest increment.)
That would be the Labour Party that remembered they grew out of the trade unions, and would always support workers and workers’ rights.
But wait, hasn’t the Labour government just published a new bill on employment rights? Giving folks all kinds of promises from the day they start?
Well, sort of. Except that there’s to be a probably a nine-month probationary period for new staff, and the actual legislation will only come before parliament in the autumn two years hence after making sure the bosses’ horses won’t be frightened.
But isn’t this new model Labour Party Scotland’s best friend? Didn’t Sir Keir say we’d be the beating heart of any Labour government? Didn’t he pop up to Edinburgh the very day after the election to play footsie with the ever-courteous John Swinney? Wasn’t there just a meeting of the “nations and regions council” on Friday?
Ah yes. Seems the nations and regions were the English regional mayors plus the “devolved” first ministers. Our major cities didn’t make the cut. Even our capital city where the meeting took place.
Hang on, though, we’ve got ourselves an actual envoy. Historically a person who deals with a foreign government. Quite an admission. Sadly she couldn’t launch her envoy number at this crucial, inaugural meeting since she’s on her hols. Anyway, it only lasted a few hours.
Plus she turned out to be the top civil servant appointed to run Sir Keir’s shop. Who got herself sacked when it got soiled. Even if “freebiegate” and the lack of a proper grid weren’t down to her, the lads wanted her out and they got their woman.
Also, Scotland’s new bestie has just shafted us for the third time running after our “first reserve” Acorn carbon-capture plant near Peterhead was given a dizzie and the investment went instead to the north west and east of England.
And yes, I do know that there are lot of good reasons for not supporting carbon capture in our haste to get to net-zero, but if the new government is splashing the cash in that direction, we’d like some.
Scotland may not technically be a colony of “Great” Britain as folk keep insisting, but whatever it is, a joint partner in United Kingdom PLC hardly fits the bill. Last time I looked, partners were folk who could get a divorce if the marriage didn’t survive a cost-benefit analysis.
What is the Labour Government feart of? Is it the same kind of irrational panic which gripped the Tory Party under more PMs than you could shake the average stick at?
After all, if Keir and co are certain sure that the Scots don’t want independence, why don’t they just ask us? Instead, “you’ll have had your referendum” they intone, with all the gravitas of an Edinburgh landlady.
Though if you’re a Belfast one, it seems that a referendum can be yours for the asking. Every seven years at that. These “once-in-a-generation” polls just keep coming round – but not for the likes of us.
What’s there to lose? Aye well, there’s the renewable energy right enough; the wind and wave power plus whatever oil is left. Though you’ll note that the oil reserves seem to fluctuate with the political wind.
Now I’m not one of those dewy-eyed optimists who sees independence as a cure-all for Scottish ills. Then again, neither am I a patsy who thinks England likes to hold us close because of its undying devotion. Because it likes our baby blue eyes.
There will be tough decisions to be taken. There will be mistakes to be made. Just ask Starmer and Reeves. But they will be our decisions and our mistakes. Just like any other self-respecting nation.
Like being able to borrow enough to invest. Like having full fiscal control. Like being able to address Scotland’s very particular demographic through managing but welcoming migration.
After all, we practically invented it. Sometimes through forced departure, sometimes through ambition and raw courage. I defy you to travel furth of Scotland to America, the Commonwealth or London without tripping over wall-to-wall Caledonian Societies.
You look at the latest batch of terrible anti immigration twins fighting over who gets to be leader of the Opposition, and you despair. Surely, with their track record, the membership of the Conservative Party are the very last crowd to be let loose to choose the Titanic’s latest bod on the bridge.
You will note that James Cleverly is now being fondly remembered as a “centrist”. In much the same way as I’m a dyed-in-the-wool cheerleader for Donald Trump. The Guardian’s witty sketch writer, John Crace, dubbed him Jimmy Dimly. Cleverly, whatever else, is not much of an advert for nominative determinism.
It’s pretty remarkable that just 101 days after his coronation,
Sir Keir has a poll rating of -33. Remarkable too that his top team has already had to be re-shuffled – square pegs having apparently been directed to round holes.
The new chief of staff is allegedly a master strategist who doesn’t know much about the civil service, as opposed to a civil service guru who was deemed not sufficiently strategic.
Then there’s the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the wonderfully lugubrious Scotsman Pat McFadden – a politician to his fingertips for sure, but unlikely to be confused with a ray of sunshine any time soon.
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Meanwhile, the branch office remains untouched with Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie minding the store. It would not be politically expedient for them to query any Starmerist diktats, I’m sure, given Scotland is nothing if not tribal.
Yet “Scottish” Labour, the “Scottish” Tories (with yet another new leader), and the “Scottish” LibDems need to grow up too. They need to stop having to check the inbox from them down there to find out what it’s okay to say this week.
Not to mention how to vote.
Ask yourself, how could all the Labour MSPs bar two vote against keeping the Winter Heating Allowance? Keir must be fair birling in his grave. The Hardie one. Not the namesake who keeps selling the Labour pass.
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