Wendygate: the saga almost ends

MSPs have decided not to issue a one-day ban to Wendy Alexander. I said at the time that a one-day ban fell between two stools. If you beleived that either she'd done nothing wrong or that the matter was trivial, you'd have wanted the report thrown out altogether. If you believed that this was serious and that the then Leader of the Opposition needed to be held to account for serious wrong-doing, then a one-day ban would have been the limpest, weakest sanction imaginable. In short, the outcome pleased no one other than the four members of the Committee who voted for the report.

Nor did it help that the Committee's work almost mutated in the eyes of observers. For those not sympthetic to Wendy Alexander, this matter was almost in danger of becoming a proxy for the Electoral Commission's inaction over the 'dodgy donations', all of which were concocted to sidestep legal issues, with the exception of one, which was just plain illegal, and cost Charlie Gordon his place on the Labour frontbench. So the matter of whether or not Wendy Alexander declared her donations to Parliament on time became the last chance to hold her to account. The fact that the discussions centred on a piece of Parliamentary procedure rather than criminal law, and that whatever happened, Wendy Alexander had already escaped prosecution on the one violation of the law of the land no longer mattered. Wendy had to face scrutiny, and that was that.

For those more closely aligned to the former Labour Leader, the very idea that this investigtion was even happening was proof of a vindictive witch-hunt. Her supporters saw all this as the SNP's doing, a plot to smear their Leader's name. That she had in fact broken the law didn't matter. That the complaint came from the politically-neutral Standards Commissioner was irrelevant. Her supporters conveniently ignored the fact that even the Electoral Commission had suggested that she'd broken the law but decided that it wasn't worth further action (how many people with three points on their driving licence were jealous of her that day?). They viewed that decision not to bother as an exoneration that proved she was whiter than white, so anything more must be politically driven. Wendy had to be found innocent, and that was that.

And it's in this context, and in the context of the limp sanction offered by the Committee that everyone appears to have overlooked what happened: Wendy Alexander neglected her responsibility to declare her donations on the Register of Interests. Now, she did ask the Clerks, and they did give her the wrong advice, but it only occurred to her to ask after the deadline had passed for some of the donations. So if they'd been on the ball, they'd have told her that she had already broken the rules.

And with Parliament throwing out the punishment today, Wendy Alexander must have been wondering "What if?". She resigned for the good of the party, to avoid having this hanging over her. But the Party was in the mire anyway: Glasgow East saw to that, and the campaign to replace her managed to trigger a turf war between Labour MSPs and MPs. However, her Parliamentary performance had been called into question, and the chaos that she generated around Labour's constitutional policy was cringeworthy. Perhaps this just made gave her a fitting exit strategy, at a time when she could blame the SNP for a witch-hunt, rather than her own Party (for its support for her evaporating), or herself for performances in the Chamber (remember that as far as the party is concerned, that the Chamber is the only place where she led Labour). No time is the right time to go, but there was at least a Keith Brown-shaped scapegoat in place.

But the worst part is that no one comes out of this smelling of roses. Wendy Alexander did break the law and did break Parliamentary rules - she may have escaped formal sanction for both but that doesn't change the fact that she was in the wrong to begin with. The Holyrood Clerks look like complete and utter dingbats for getting this so badly wrong, and if you look at the ostensible reasons for Wendy's departure rather than the subtext, you'd be forgiven for thinking that they inadvertantly did more than anyone to bring the axe down on Wendy Alexander's political career. The Standards, Procedures & Public Appointments Committee was itself divided over the issue: that was always going to be the case, but the fact that it came to a 4-3 vote meant that it was in a particularly weak position taking the case to the full Parliament; and the verdict was a shabby compromise in any case. Then Parliament managed to hold an ugly debate on the matter and then opted to leave a violation of the rules unpunished. So it's difficult to see who the winner is from this, other than Wendy Alexander's eventual successor, whose term of office will commence without this hanging over them.

So what needs to happen? The rules need to be made clearer and simpler. The Clerks need to know what they are. And it needs to be spelt out once and for all that it is the responsibility of the MSPs themselves for making sure that they are above board and following all the rules. Ignorance of Parliamentary rules, like ignorance of the law, should be no excuse.

It remains to be seen what will become of Wendy Alexander. She can't realistically return to the frontbench. She could always return to a Committee Convenership - if I were a Minister, I'd hate to have to face her on the Audit Committee, for example - but I can't see how she can contribute beyond that now. The only roles she hasn't filled in Parliament are First Minister (which is now out of the question), the Corporate Body (why on Earth would she want to do that?) and Presiding Officer (No. Just no.). She's been a Minister, a backbencher, an Opposition frontbencher and Leader of the Opposition. Perhaps her Parliamentary career has come to a logical conclusion and the boundary changes would make 2011 a fitting time for her to head for the private sector, or to set up a think tank. She'd probably suit either of those: she'd almost certainly put more into and get more out of either those positions than she could by remaining an MSP.

But there has been one surprising casualty of this whole affair: Hugh O'Donnell, the Committee LibDem representative. He has been replaced by Robert Brown, while O'Donnell is now languishing on the Siberia of the Holyrood Committee system: Equal Opportunities. The MSP for Central Scotland will not get another day in the sun for a while, sadly. And given the fact that 70 MSPs voted against sanctions to 49 in favour, it's clear that O'Donnell's support for sanctions did not translate to the rest fo the Group. He seems like a very isolated figure tonight, perhaps even more isolated than Wendy Alexander herself.

Scottish Labour is indeed now without a Leader

Well, I siad I'd believe it when I saw it, and I've just seen it: Wendy Alexander has just resigned, on the grounds that she has "become the story" regarding the donations scandal.

She had become the story in December, but the whispers have got too much. The referendum row didn't help, and her performance at FMQs made things worse. The one-day ban turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

So who now?

Cathy Jamieson could have a tilt. Andy Kerr's chance may have passed, but might have a go. Margaret Curran screwed up earlier on in the year, but still may have a go. Malcolm Chisholm may stand, perhaps.

Finally. Nigel Griffiths is huffing that she's been hounded out over a trivial matter.

She broke the law, Nigel. The Electoral Commission said so. She then went on to break Parliamentary rules.

Are those trivial matters?

Could Scottish Labour be without a Leader?

The BBC thinks so: Wendy Alexander is preparing to make a statement at Scottish Labour HQ, where she is expected to quit. Glenn Campbell reckons that she's had enough, saying:

"There was the decision the other day by the standards committee of the Scottish Parliament to take action against her for failing to register the donations that her campaign for the leadership received, and then the decision to suspend her from parliament for one day, which has pushed her to a point where she has had to seriously consider her political future. I think she has now decided to stand down from that post after less than a year in charge."

Hmmm. I'll believe it when I see it. We were expecting a statement like this all the way back in December: she made a statement which said she was carrying on. She's taken blow after blow but kept coming back. So unless the men in grey suits have been to see her, I just don't see why the crappy little slap on the wrist she got from the Standards Committee would finally push her to do what she didn't view as necessary when she was caught breaking the law.

Paisley North will be without an MSP for a day

With the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee deciding that Wendy Alexander should have registered the donations to her Leadership campaign with Parliamentary authorities, and deciding that sanctions did need to be applied, we have the result:

Wendy gets a day off work.

Well, that's not quite fair. The best analogy I can find is the one-match ban in football, that you might get for two bookings. Straight red-card offences usually involve lengthier suspensions. And here's the thing: we know - and the Electoral Commission agree - that Wendy Alexander did break the law on the donations to her campaign. She then went against Parliamentary procedure (though she claims she was told otherwise). So there are Wendy's two bookings.

Now, of course, it's tempting to ask when breaking the law stopped being a red-card matter, but frankly, there's no point. If she gave a shite about the law, she'd have resigned in December. If the Electoral Commission gave a shite, they'd have thrown the book at her.

And bluntly, I'm not overly impressed with the Committee's response: it's neither one thing nor the other.

You could argue that the Electoral Commission viewed the whole matter as a waste of time, and you could also point to the advice that Wendy Alexander received, and say that yes, she did break the rules but there's no point in taking this further. It involves giving up on people being called to account for breaking rules, but booting her out of the Chamber for any length of time only serves to keep her out of the Chamber. Now, if Wendy were a good parliamentary performer, this would be advantageous. Thing is, she isn't. How many blows has she landed in Holyrood? What has she said in there that you remember? "Bring it on" first appeared on the Politics Show so that's ruled out. That leaves her ramblings about John Swinney being a caterpillar. So if I were feeling vindictive, my sanction would be to force her to speak in every debate at Holyrood, not stop her from taking part. A ban is pointless.

Then there's the idea that a one-day ban is too limp. You can point out that she did break rules and people who break rules are supposed to be punished. One day should be two weeks. Or financial sanctions should be put in place. Basically something that shows our authorities take rule-breaking seriously.

One day isn't a meaningless slap on the wrist. But it's not something that makes you stop and think. When Colin Fox, Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie and Frances Curran brought FMQs to a standstill, the Standards Committee met that day and by that evening they were suspended for the entire month of September. And too right! They demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to treat Parliament with respect, and behave properly in the Chamber. As such, it was right that they should have been barred from it for a time. Problem is, all their expenses were taken away as well. And that left their staff without pay. That was unduly harsh, but it was seen as the consequences of breaking the rules. Wendy just won't be in the Chamber for a day, and someone else will take her place. How pointless is that? If you're going to punish her, punish her seriously. If you're not going to punish her seriously, don't bother punishing her at all.

And that is why the political argument, that this will hang over her for the Summer, is reading too much into things. No one will notice, save Wendy. No one will care, save Wendy. And it's one of two reasons why the ban on its own won't be enough to damage her Leadership. The only way the ban can make that happen is if her replacement does so much better than the Labour Leader herself has done over the past year - in that case, there will be a credible replacement for an ineffectual leader - but otherwise, this is just one for the procedure wonks.

And the second reason? Simple. Wendy Alexander has lurched from poor performance to poor performance, been put through the mangle over her Leadership Campaign funding, and faced brickbats for her rapidly-changing policy on the Referendum, not least from Labour MPs. She should be politically dead. And yet, every time she takes the seemingly fatal shot, things just seem to blow over. The only thing close to that is the Terminator. I half expect Wendy to melt during FMQs following a verbal roasting, only to re-form, and ask a new question. Like Arnie, she's relentless, and she seems unstoppable (this, incidentally is why I favour just letting the matter pass now - anyone who thinks that this will take her down is letting hope triumph over experience).

But remember, Arnie was on the losing side at the end of the first film. So maybe it's in everyone's interests for things to blow over, and for us to start again. The fatal blow could fall in June 2009, some time in early 2010, or even as late as May 2011. But the Terminator lost, and if she continues as she has done up to now, then eponymous villain of the first film, she will be defeated.

And unlike him, she won't be back.

A Triple U-Turn, Double Salchow and Back Flip

Wendya Alexander's latest announcement: she will not stand in the way of the SNP's Referendum Bill in 2010. That to me suggests that Labour will abstain, guaranteeing passage of the Bill. However, she can still amend it to death, as - and the Tories' David McLetchie has confirmed this - the SNP's proposed wording on the referendum question is just about legal, insofar as the Scottish Parliament would ask it. Wendy currently favours "Do you want Scotland to be ripped out of the UK kicking and screaming?", or something like that. This would be ultra vires. So she could strangle the Bill by making it breach Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act: she could, by getting Tory or LibDem support, support the Bill in such a way that she destroys it. So although she could let the Bill through, we have to wonder in what state it will complete its passage. Any welcome should be cautious.

Of course, it's doubtful that the Tories or LibDems would play ball: the Tories (with the exception of Michael Forsyth) are saying a flat no, just as they did in 1997. The LibDems are so opposed to a referendum that they refused even to sit down and discuss Coalition with the SNP, ostensibly on the grounds that they didn't want a referendum to be discussed. And this whole debacle has soured relations between Labour and the other Unionist parties. It's also made the Calman Commission an exercise in pointlessness.

And we don't even know if Wendy will be the Leader by January 2010? What stance would Andy Kerr take? Or Iain Gray? Or Malcolm Chisholm?

Nor do we know what Labour's view will be tomorrow. Any bets on a quadruple U-turn?

That shiver is still looking for a spine to run up

Wasn't it Winnie Ewing who said that a shiver went across the Labour benches, looking for a spine to run up? Well, it's as true today as it was when she (or whoever) first uttered that line. Wendy Alexander has caved in to Gordon Brown, and gone off the boil as regards a referendum.

It turns out that they won't be supporting a referendum because the SNP want to hold one on their terms. Seeing as the SNP are the Government, this is quite natural. The fact that the SNP position is the same as it was right the way back at the start of the 2007 Election campaign - that there would be a referendum in 2010 - has not stopped Labour from accusing the SNP of breaking a manifesto promise, by planning for policies to take place in the future in accordance with, er, the SNP manifesto. Compare and contrast this with Labour, whose policy appears to have changed hourly.

This, incidentally, is why I disagree with Kez's comparison with events leading up to the SNP's support of the 1997 Devolution referendum. Was there a tactical element to the SNP's considerations? Of course! Just as there were tactics involved in Labour's decision to hold a referendum in the first place. But implicit in invoking points in history when the other side did something you're being accused of is an admission that you find the action distasteful, and that you're only doing it because the other side did it. If an action is wrong, they shouldn't do it, rather than carry it out then blame the other side for doing something similar in 1997. "Well, that lot did it!" is an argument deployed most often by seven year olds in the Primary School playground. I think it should be left to them.

Besides, tactics are always going to come into it: every announcement, every policy, is carefully weighed. How is it to be presented? When is it to be presented? How is it to be delivered? Those questions are big ones in politics, and we ignore them at our peril. Why? Because if you get the tactics wrong, you never get the chance to put a policy into practice - you don't get that support at the ballot box in the first place. So for my part, I don't have a problem with Wendy Alexander trying out new tactics - rather, I think that's her job: she's supposed to challenge the Government, she's supposed to look like a potential First Minister, and if doing one thing isn't working she absolutely has to try doing something else - but for me, the problem was that the tactics were, well, awful. And so it proved.

But in any case, the comparison with the SNP in 1997 is invalid. At the heart of the choice facing the SNP then - back or attack devolution - was a major ideological question: should the SNP accept it as some autonomy coming to Scotland, a marker of progress on a road to independence; or should it reject it as a lousy halfway house, an attempt to sate Scots and deny them full self-determination? It had to be considered, had to be discussed, had to be thought out, and it took a National Council meeting to confirm that yes, devolution is an acceptable stepping stone and the SNP would support it as welcome progress. The only tactic used was to leave the decision until there was a clear proposal from the new Government after the election, rather than annoy one wing of the Party just a couple of months before their help would be needed.

Wendy Alexander, on the other hand, had an inconclusive phone call with Gordon Brown, obviously had someone leak it to the Sunday Mail what she was thining about, and then blurted it out on BBC Scotland.

And now, after a week of discussing it, of the position shifting so rapidly, we now have the Labour position, which can be summed up as "the SNP don't want to play our way, so we're not playing at all".

But here's the thing: for all its risks, for all the chaos that surrounded it, support for the referendum was the right thing. I've been saying all this time that if Labour (and the others) really believe that Scots support the Union, then they should take the issue directly to the people and settle it for a generation. Wendy Alexander looked like she agreed with that, and I can't knock her for it now: the tactics may be poor but the principle is entirely correct. The problem is that she's met the Clunking Fist that was supposed to beat David Cameron... it's beaten her instead.

As soon as Gordon Brown made it clear that he was less than enthralled with the idea, it was never going to get off the ground. The notion that he has 'lost control' of Scottish Labour is a nonsense: what has changed is that he has other matters to distract him, so he has taken to slackening the leash. But he can still yank it back at any time and this is what happened this week. Alexander's plan was doomed from Wednesday lunchtime - that was predictable. It was also predictable that they'd try and blame the SNP, whose response has been to say nothing other than, "We're glad you want a referendum, we promised one in 2010 and we'll stick to our promise!" It's the right thing - the only thing - to say.

I'm sad - but not surprised - that Wendy Alexander has been beaten. I'll be even sadder - but still not surprised - if she ends up having to quit over this. She probably has to go, even though she doesn't desrve to: she's been slapped down in a rather humiliating fashion, she's found herself unable to hold down a specific policy for longer than an afternnon, and she's allowed what could have been the most radical plan to come out of Scottish Labour for years turn into a self-destructive squabble. But for everything that has gone wrong, the idea was entirely the right one. It's just a shame that the rest of the Labour hierarchy didn't agree with her.

Bear with me on this one

Once upon a time, I had a cheap, crappy joystick attached to one of my previous computers, the one (obviously) with the game port that came with my soundcard. The joystick was a bit rubbish, quite frankly, but it did the job. It was plugged in, the computer recognised it and it worked on all the games I wanted to use it on.

One of those games was FIFA 97, and I duly instructed it to use the joystick. Until I got bored with the game - as, sadly, is my way; I am a fickle thing when it comes to computer games - and decided to play Transport Tycoon or something.

Then, of course, I went to Uni, and took the computer with me. Though I decided that the joystick was taking up box space that could be used for RF signal booster and 5,000 SCART cables that I took up to Edinburgh with me. I have to be honest: I did not initially miss the joystick.

But one day, I was going through the Start Menu, and remembered that I still had FIFA 97. So I decided to run it, to pass the time.

Disaster! I could load the menus, and start a game, but for some reason, I simply couldn't control the virtual players. They were running around like digitised headless chickens, bumping into one another, unable to respond to any instruction I issued, from either the keyboard or mouse.

Then I realised. The game was still working on the basis that I was using a joystick. The joystick wasn't there. It was seeking commands from a controller whose absence it wasn't prepared for.

In the past few days, Gordon Brown has been too busy with Labour's embrassment in the local polls - and I maintain that it's not the meltdown it's perceived to be - the 10% tax row and detention without trial (to name just three things in his in tray) to get down and dirty with the complexities of Scottish Labour. This weekend, the joystick was, in effect, disconnected from the party.

Then someone decided to load Wendy Alexander and click "Run"...

I think I've got the details of how things have progressed since Sunday, but I fear I may have lost track. From what I can tell, she said she wanted a referendum to spook the SNP on Sunday morning, as I blogged before she went on the Politics Show. Then, I thought it was the stupidest thing she could do.

Then she said she wanted the SNP to get their arses in gear and publish their proposals ASAP. This was the dangerous bit: goading the SNP, daring them. And, perhaps, saying something that some SNP supporters might agree with, albeit for different reasons. Could she have cottoned on to something?

Then momentum gathered, and Wendy was going to put forward her own proposals for law. And yes, she absolutely had Brown's backing.

Then a Downing Street press spokesman started distancing Numer 10 from her idea.

And Brown appeared to believe that "We want an independence referendum" means "We want to hang around and wait for the Calman Commission to report back, then we'll have a think". Which is actually a completely different sentiment though probably the most sensible one for Labour, who, through Wendy, have now severely pissed on their chips in terms of Tory and LibDem support.

Thn someone checked the Parliamentary rule book, and found that if the Government intends to legislate on an issue, there ain't no Member's Bill. And if an MSP can't get at least one other party for support on an issue, then there ain't no Member's Bill. And seeing as 1) the Government do intend to propose legislation, and 2) a Wendy Alexander Member's Bill on the matter wouldn't secure support from any party except her own, her plans were pretty much dead.

Now they are appearing to claim that it was all just a wheeze to throw eggs at the SNP. Which is probably the truth, but it's confused a lot of people - not least a certain Mr. J. G. Brown of Downing Street, London.

So where do we all stand? For one brief period, the SNP had won the support of the main opposition party for its main policy: an independence referendum. Then the Labour approach seemed to turn from a concrete policy proposal into political blancmange. The Tories can accuse Gordon Brown of not knowing what Wendy Alexander is doing (how can he, when she clearly hasn't exactly got an A1 grasp of that herself?) and judging on his apparent unawareness of precisely what she said, they have a point. Meanwhile, the SNP can point to Wendy Alexander being slapped down by Gordon Brown, citing her return to the old mantra: "The prime minister and I are agreed". They clearly are not, and Brown has said and done nothing to support a referendum - he could arrange one through Westminster if he wanted to - even in the past 48 hours. Therefore, if the two are agreed, Alexander has been forced to backtrack. So to English anti-Labour audiences, Brown looks even more like a blundering oaf who can't even work out what's going on in his own backyard. To Scottish anti-Labour audiences, Alexander looks like a puppet whose strings have got tangled, forcing the PM to take control again.

And all because Scottish Labour's joystick wasn't plugged in.

A response to Change is What We Do

You can find a PDF version of the full pamphlet at the BBC website, and a Labour view on the publication from Kezia Dugdale.

My responses to key points are here:

1. Boldness and Progressive Politics
2. Scottish Labour, Boldness and Change
3. Changing Society, Changing Policies
4. Changing Times, Changing Constitution
5. A Cross-Border, Cross-Party Partnership
6. Scotland's Place in the Union
7. The Union and Scotland
8. Change and the Way Ahead

It will come as no surprise that I am not impressed with her work. I feel that Scottish Labour has at its heart a series of paradoxes, mainly based on the constitutional question and its response to it. The pamphlet places them in stark relief, and does not resolve them. Labour has three years to do so. Will it succeed?

I doubt it.

A response to Change is What We Do: Change and the Way Ahead

These are exciting times in Scotland. There has been for some years a sense of new-found confidence. Walk the streets of Glasgow, Inverness or Dumfries; look inside the offices of Dundee, Stirling and Greenock or the boardrooms of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. You can feel and see the growing confidence. We have more jobs, more modern apprenticeships than ever before, a better infrastructure and fast-growing dynamic industrial and commercial sectors. Our entrepreneurs and their ideas, drive and skills are there for all the world to see.

It is Labour in Scotland, with our strong traditions of radical progressive policies, that has changed this country for the better. Look back at our historic leadership on
land reform, social housing, and hydro power. And in modern times, look at free bus travel, community land ownership, the smoking ban and tackling anti-social behaviour. These are all progressive policies made in Scotland by Scottish Labour, the latter ones only made possible by our championing and delivery of radical constitutional change – the Scottish Parliament.

It's fascinating that this confidence has led to Labour's loss of power, and that she feels that the confidence doesn't and shouldn't extend to the confidence in Scotland to seek independence. It's also fascinating that radical change is acceptable when it's in their hands and only goes part of the way - devolution. Radical change in someone else's hands that goes the full way - independence - is apparently to be avoided at all costs. This pamphlet is riddled with these contradictions, and does nothing to solve the paradoxes at the heart of Scottish Labour. That they are a party of change, that advocated the status quo in 2007. That they see all change as change for the better, unless it involves a change in Scotland's place in the Union. That they don't think Scots really want to talk about the constitution but spend most of their campaigns - and this pamphlet - doing exactly that.

One of the areas where Scottish Labour has to do that is the constitution. We know that when Labour is the party of ideas on the constitution, it typically commands support.

This flies completely in the face of her earlier assertion that:

A better health service, better education, a growing economy with better jobs, safer communities with less crime - these are the people’s priorities.

Why, then, would having ideas on the constitution make you command support?

It means a lot of hard work before the next Scottish election, now only three years away. It means changes in strategies, changes in thinking, changes in policies. That is nothing new for Scottish Labour. Change is what we do.

I cannot disagree with anything there - except the last sentence, as Labour became a party of the status quo before the last election. But Wendy Alexander has to remember that change isn't enough: it has to be the right change at the right time. There are still massive contradictions at the heart of Scottish Labour and this pamphlet only serves to highlight them. They have three years to square the circle. If change is what Labour do, will they have done it by 2011?

Unless Wendy Alexander takes part in the change in thinking she says her party needs, I believe that they will not.

A response to Change is What We Do: The Union and Scotland

In looking at the Union, Alexander waxes lyrical over cross-border partnerships, focusing on banking:

The Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland, both successful Scottish banks, became even more successful and much bigger British banks through takeover and merger with English banks. From that position of strength, born out of the stability of the United Kingdom economy and its lack of internal barriers, the Royal Bank in particular has gone on to become a major force in global finance.

She forgets, of course, that the lack of barriers within the EU has allowed the Santander Group to take over Abbey National, so an EU-based relationship would work just as well. She also forgets that in 1992, Midland joined the HSBC Group - which although headquartered in London, is the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. National barriers are no match for international trade, and if her vision of independence contains fences being erected from Gretna to Berwick, and trade tarriffs put in place, then Wendy Alexander is sadly misinformed.

We reject the narrow Nationalist prejudice which says that working with the other peoples in these islands has become intolerable.

Nor is nationalism about cutting ties and co-operation with its neighbours for good, but simply freeing Scotland to co-operate with England when it is in Scotland's interests to do so. Indeed, if working with the peoples of the British Isles requires political union, she may want to ask Labour members across the UK where they stand on the Irish Question.

The people of Scotland know that in any partnership, there will be good times and bad times, times of prosperity and times of hardship. And when one partner is down, the others reach out a helping hand up. In times of difficulty, the others come to assist. Throughout the three centuries of the United Kingdom partnership, this has been the case, and the reason why the United Kingdom has survived and all its people have emerged from bad into better times.

But this failed during the Thatcher years. Labour politicians will scramble over each other to tell you how Scotland suffered during that time. Where was the help? Why, if we all help one another out, did we need a Scottish Parliament so badly.

"I have never been one of those who believes that, uniquely among the nations of the world, Scotland is incapable of standing on its own two feet. Political and economic arguments rage about whether Scotland, with or without oil, would be worse off if it were dependent on its own revenue base. All the available evidence tells me that even in times of high oil prices, Scotland would struggle to maintain existing levels of public services."

Again, she has contradicted herself: she isn't saying that Scotland can't be independent, but she's saying that Scotland couldn't afford its public services if it were.

Only someone extremely confident of benefit to Scotland from ending that Union would wish to put that [prosperity] at risk.

Well, yes. SNP members do tend to be of the view that Scotland will be better off independent. I could have told you that...

A response to Change is What We Do: Scotland's Place in the Union

Having ignored the fact that by her own logic, the Scottish electorate voted for more powers in the last election, Wendy Alexander asserts:

By implication the Commission should also consider any reasoned arguments for the boundary moving in the opposite direction, for example in national security related matters such as counter terrorism and contingency planning.

This is all a question of how you read the motion establishing the Commission, which calls on it to "recommend any changes to the present constitutional arrangements that would enable the Scottish Parliament to better serve the people of Scotland". Now, seriously, how on earth would taking powers away from MSPs allow them to better serve Scotland's people?

In short, this is not an ideology-driven, but an evidence-driven process.

Except that one option, as set out in the motion, has been ruled out altogether. Wendy Alexander views Nationalism as an ideology. I agree with her, but if Nationalism is an ideology, then so must Unionism be an ideology, and Alexander doesn't seem to recognise that. Further, she wrote previously of a cross-party partnership, but already the cracks are starting to show:

It is a pity that the Liberal Democrats seem to have set their face against the principle of looking at movement in both directions. Clearly in a fast changing world it is no more than woolly thinking to assume that within devolved or federal arrangements movement will always only be in one direction. The right approach is to acknowledge that this is first and foremost a review of devolution in light of almost ten years experience and we should not seek to tie the hands of those involved.

So her act of consensus-building is already faltering, and once again she has forgotten that the Commission's hands are already tied: it has to look at Scotland's governance within the context of its continued membership of the United Kingdom. Has Alexander not noticed that, or is she wilfully ignoring it?

A response to Change is What We Do: A Cross-Border, Cross-Party Partnership

In discussing the Scottish Constitutional Commission, Alexander says:

Only the SNP voted against, a clear recognition by them that the proposal contained within it is a threat to Nationalist goals.

This is misleading. She neglects to mention the National Conversation, the consultation initiated by the Scottish Government on precisely the question of Scotland's constitution. If anything, it is more wide-ranging than the Commission as it considers independence in addition to other options. The Commission is like the Model T Ford: it can come in any shade you want as long as it's Unionist.

The Scottish Constitutional Commission will be expert-led and independent. Its task will be to review devolution in Scotland ten years on, and to develop a more balanced Home Rule package.

No one has informed Gordon Brown or the Scotland Office of this: the UK politicians whose involvement Alexander has trumpeted seem to think of it as a working group reporting to them.

One aspect of a far-reaching approach such as this is that it is not possible to predict the outcomes with certainty. But the process can be open, consensual, and thorough.

We can predict that the Commission will not support independence, as independence supporters have been frozen out of it - the Parliamentary motion passed states that it "would continue to secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom". On that basis, Alexander's assertion that "the Commission’s work will command respect from all those interested in Scotland’s future" seems hollow at best.

A response to Change is What We Do: Changing Times, Changing Constitution

The election of the SNP has pushed constitutional politics back to the forefront. I share the view that the prime concern of the majority of Scots is not the redrafting of the constitutional blueprints of our country. Their major concerns are that politicians should tackle issues such as the ones discussed above. A better health service, better education, a growing economy with better jobs, safer communities with less crime - these are the people’s priorities.

This has been at the heart of the Scottish Labour paradox in 1999, 2003 and 2007. They argue that no one wants to talk about the constitution, and then campaign primarily on why the SNP's vision of the constitution is a bad thing. If people want their politicians to focus on health, education, the economy and crime, and if Labour recognise this, why do they spend so much time obsessing over the Union and trying to head the SNP off at the political pass?

Our strategy has three foundations. Firstly, the weakness in the SNP’s position is that there has never been any credible opinion poll in Scotland which has shown majority support for independence. Two substantial academic surveys undertaken during the 2007 election showed that no more than a quarter of the Scottish electorate supported independence.

Then why not put the issue in full to the people, and win what she must believe would be a massive victory?

Secondly, maintaining the Union continues to command majority support. This is shown not only by opinion polls, but by election results. In 2007, Unionist parties were supported by 65 per cent of the electorate. By no stretch of the imagination is it possible to argue that Scots wish to dissolve the Union.

Thirdly, there is majority support for the present constitutional arrangements of a strong Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom. There is no desire to revert to the pre-devolution arrangements. There is, however, a desire to discuss whether the present powers of the Scottish Parliament are right for our times.

She has to convince Labour MPs of this. And she has to acknowledge that according to election results, "more powers" beats "status quo" and "fewer powers" - an option being considered at Westminster. But there is not majority support for the present constitutional arrangements: rather, election results - with the LibDems and even the Tories supporting further economic powers for the Parliament - show that voters want the Parliament to be stronger than it is today.

Better governance was the reason, and that reason alone, that in opposition we campaigned for a Scottish Parliament, and in government we delivered the Scottish Parliament.

This is an outright lie. Why else would George Robertson make the time to predict - quite erroneously, as it turns out - that "devolution would kill the SNP stone dead?

She then goes on to list some of the flaws in the devolution settlement: the West Lothian Question:

And following the rejection in a referendum of plans for an Assembly in North East England, most within Labour’s ranks have simply ignored the West Lothian Question. This, coupled with Tory sabre-rattling and the SNP’s entry into Government at Holyrood, is helping to fuel English irritations.

I can state quite categorically that the only English irritated by this are right-wing pundits, such as Kelvin McKenzie and Jon Gaunt, with his racist attack on the "Jockocracy". Some people ask why no one in England is proposing the things that people in Scotland are getting, rather than grumbling that the Scots should have them taken away. Most other people don't care as they're too busy trying to live their own life and what happens in Scotland isn't all that relevant to them.

She also explores weakness in the Parliament's financial powers. But her conclusion is fascinating:

Times change and new issues come to the fore – and after an eight-year bedding-down period a reassessment of the settlement’s operation is timely.

Before the election, Labour were saying the exact reverse. The only major change between 2007 and 2008 is the Government. I dispute Wendy Alexander and Labour's motives: this is nothing to do with better governance and everything to do with the current political strength of the SNP.

A response to Change is What We Do: Changing Society, Changing Policies

In which I look again at Wendy Alexander's tract.

What does Scottish Labour stand for? It’s a question people often ask us. Our answer to that has not changed. We stand for the progressive values of justice, equality, and community. These values are the bedrock on which our party was founded and have sustained us ever since. They still do so today.

It's a problem that people are asking them. They never used to. They don't ask the SNP. And who is going to say they stand for injustice or inequality? Besides, even Alexander admits that these words, on their own, are meaningless:

But our task as Scottish Labour is to embody these values, and to find ways of giving real meaning to these values, in our own times. For us, it means constant change, not in our values, but in the policies we use to make them a reality. Just as society is constantly changing, so we must constantly re-assess and renew our policies so that we stay in touch with the changes in society.

So society is in a constant state of change. However:

The concerns of Scottish families have not greatly changed over the years. They are to get on in life and improve their circumstances, to make sure their children get the best possible start to their lives, and to live in safe and friendly communities. These are the priority issues in homes up and down the country.

The Leader of the Opposition is now rebutting herself. Everything is changing, but the attitudes of families are staying the same? No, it turns out that things are getting better so we're getting greedier, apparently. Alexander earnstly believes that we want second homes, two cars, and an entertainment system to rival that in our local cinema. But we've also got greedier about the NHS:

Ten years ago, an urgent priority in the National Health Service was to build new hospitals and health centres fit for the 21st century. Scottish Labour led on meeting those challenges – new hospitals, new health centres, shorter waiting lists and faster treatments. Now, rising aspirations mean that people are looking for better and more personalised services from the NHS. They want to be able to see a doctor and get treatment when it suits them, and not when it suits the doctor. They want to get more of their health care needs met locally in their community and not at a distant hospital. How we meet those aspirations without compromising standards of health care and while ensuring taxpayers get value for money is the challenge for the future.

Yes, and every hospital was built on tick, waiting times increased and waiting lists were only shortened by bumping patients onto new ones. And it took an SNP Government to put the principle of localism into practice by shelving the proposed A&E closures at Monklands and Ayr.

Ten years ago, after decades of neglect, there was a crying need for new schools fit for modern purposes. Scottish Labour has gone a long way towards fulfilling that need, and today hundreds of thousands of pupils enjoy learning in new or substantially refurbished buildings that meet modern standards. Sadly, however, the SNP, because of an ideological fixation against private finance, is slowing down the rebuilding programme. While Scottish Labour will maintain the pressure to ensure that all pupils enjoy education in modern buildings, the political agenda for schools must now also look beyond a bricks and mortar programme.

And again, we see the Labour view that Private Finance is a panacea. It's more of a placebo: the school is built, but at a greater cost than would otherwise have been the case and the collapse of a private finance company saw school building projects thrown into chaos. And PFI isn't just opposed by the SNP - Trade Unions such as UNISON oppose it as well. UNISON is affiliated to Labour.

Debate has become too fixated on setting targets for class sizes. For the SNP, it is class sizes in p1, 2, and 3. While class size is a factor helping to determine educational outcomes, the evidence suggests that the quality of teaching in a class and the quality of leadership in a school is more important. Yet where is the public and political debate about the curriculum, now being re-shaped under A Curriculum for Excellence, and whether it is fit for the future? Is our leadership in schools the best it can be and does it have the power and support to shape effectively the school ethos and staffing?

Well proposals on the curriculum are emerging, and class size targets were a part of Labour policy for a decade. Indeed, they were the first to do so, and are responsible for any fixation on the issue.

Instead, we have the easy populism of class size promises (which are increasingly unlikely to be fulfilled) winning out over evidence-based policymaking. The same is true of university and college education. The SNP got elected on the promise, now exposed as entirely empty, that all graduates would have their debt written off even if they were in a well-paid job. Their financial situation has been put above those of classmates who may now be without the hope of a modern apprenticeship to escape from unemployment.

This is simplistic drivel based on the false premise that getting a degree is an easy path to lifelong employment, prosperity and luxury. It can have a benefit, but with more and more graduates entering the labour market, the field is becoming too crowded and there are losers. Quite a few of them, in fact. Now, a degree can boost prospects but that's no guarantee to success. Nevertheless, even if Alexander were right, how many people have been put off applying for University through fear of debt, thanks to Tory and Labour HE policy?

All of us have a duty to take part in debating and formulating the policies that will renew our connection with the Scottish people.

The SNP have a different starting point. They came into being for one reason and one reason only: to achieve independence for Scotland. Everything else is secondary. Having achieved office their goal remains unchanged. It means that the decisions they make are invariably characterised by short-term populism.

This is inevitable given that their overriding priority is whether any decision will help deliver a yes vote in an independence referendum rather than whether it will serve the long-term needs of our nation and its people.

I am determined that we will stand up for what we know to be right. I know that Scottish Labour will have the courage to put in place the type of actions and policies that will benefit us all, now and in the future. One of those areas for action is the constitution.

Again, more of the same. Brave words and beautiful dreams punctured by her own needle. She forgets that the SNP have reasoned that doing the right thing, that showing that Scotland can govern itself, and govern well, is the key to independence: in short, any wrong decision, any decision that rebounds in the medium to long term takes Scotland one step back. In short, SNP Ministers realise that they have to get things right. Labour have, meanwhile, pursued favourable newspaper headlines and on winning their first term in office, started talking about their second. On winning their second, they started talking about a third. After ten years, they started talking about how to stay in Government for another decade. Populism and the pursuit of electoral victory at any cost, this is Labour's territory. Will she risk defeat for the sake of ideological purity?

A response to Change is What We Do: Scottish Labour, Boldness and Change

Continuing my response to excerpts of Alexander's tract.

Scottish Labour needs no lectures on how bold policies win support and can make life immeasurably better for people. But, occasionally, it is good to remind ourselves, and others, of just how much has been achieved by those who went before us. Under the SNP, a dishonest and manipulative re-writing of history has begun. It has commenced with the SNP claiming to be the mother, the father, and the midwife of the Scottish Parliament that we now have. It is manifestly untrue, but that won’t stop the Nationalists seeking to claim credit for much more.

First I've heard of this! Besides, the SNP have always found it a trifle fishy that it took the party's rise in the 1970s to put Home Rule back on the agenda. And let's not forget that Labour originally favoured Home Rule. However, it made no progress under Ramsay MacDonald, no progress under Attlee and no progress under Wilson 1. It only gathered momentum under Wilson 2 and Callaghan, once the SNP were on the scene. Labour did make the policy, and enacted it. But look what it took for that to happen. Besides, Conservatives would argue that Labour began their own rewriting of economic history since 1997 (arguing that the election of the Labour government triggered the economic revival that conservatives argue had already begun). It does seem odd that a Government which stuck to Conservative spending plans for two years should then say that it alone was responsible for post-1997 progress, and ignoring all of the difficulties, such as house price inflation and a recession in Scotland in 2002.

Sustained pressure by the Labour movement brought first rent controls and then an Act putting duties on local authorities to produce plans for building houses for working people. But it was only the election of a Labour government in 1924, and the arrival of a Clydesider, John Wheatley, as Minister of Health and Housing, that a quantum leap forward occurred. Wheatley’s Housing Act is widely acknowledged as the central legislative achievement of Ramsay MacDonald’s government. It provided central government funds to local authorities to build houses to approved standards for rent.

Ironically, in the last decade, it was a series of Labour Ministers, who went around Scotland asking tenants to vote in favour of the Councils giving up their housing stock. What would Clydesider John Wheatley think of that?

Labour’s creation of the National Health Service in 1948 is rightly credited to Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health in Clement Attlee’s Labour government, and to William Beveridge, who wrote the report bearing his name advocating the NHS. But they knew it would work because, in all but name, the NHS was already in being in Scotland.

The credit for that goes to Tom Johnston, a Labour Scottish Secretary in Winston
Churchill’s wartime national government. He had the inspiration to see that civil
defence hospitals, being set up to treat the military and civilian casualties of war, were meantime mostly empty. They could be used to give free treatment, initially to civilian war workers, and then to the population generally. Compared to conditions today, health care was then truly terrible. For the few with money, there was private care. The many were dependent on voluntary hospitals run by councils and funded by charity. Waiting times of two years for hernia operations were usual. Even severe cases of appendicitis could mean a six-month wait. Johnston put the new military
hospitals into action and by 1945, he could say not only that the waiting lists had been cleared, but that he had blazed a trail for the NHS.

OK, so let's assume that Scottish Labour did provide inspiration for the NHS. Hospitals today are riddled with infection - MRSA - and waiting lists increased, and the Executive started measuring waiting times, which also increased, with some patients being kept off the official lists to keep the figures down. Just registering with an NHS dentist is a nightmare, and NHS estates are now in the hands of private contractors following PFI programmes. And again, if you have the cash, you can still sidestep the NHS and go private. Yes, the NHS was in a state in 1997, but Labour, rather than making things better, just blamed the Tories for ten years. The legacy of Johnston and Bevan is in tatters.

It was Donald Dewar who accepted the idea of the Constitutional Convention and worked to turn its ideas into a legislative reality, while Alex Salmond, far from helping, stood aside and led the SNP in opposing it every step of the way. Labour, Salmond said, could not deliver a pizza, never mind a parliament. Dewar did not only deliver, he produced such an exciting example of new democracy in action that politicians from across the world have come to Scotland to learn from it and enhance their democracy.

Labour's track record on this issue was one of total inaction until the 1970s. And then, the plans were botched, with Labour MPs frustrating the process by introducing the 40% rule to the 1979 referendum, where more people voted in favour of devolution than against it, only to be thwarted by the Cunningham Amendment. It took the rise of the SNP, the fiasco of 1979, and 18 years of Tory government for Labour to get devolution on the statute books. And let's not forget that Dewar did work hard to get the SNP on board for the referendum campaign - and succeeded! So the SNP asked its supporters to back the Constitutional Convention's ideas at the ballot box - hardly opposition every step of the way.

Once in the new parliament, Dewar continued with bold action. Wheatley’s vision of decent housing for all had, sadly, suffered during the long years of Tory rule. Neglect meant that far too many council-owned houses in too many areas were well below modern standards. I was proud to play my part in beginning the transfer of those houses to community ownership. Firmly in the traditions of John Wheatley, Dewar sought a modern means of renewing Scottish Labour’s long-held ambition of decent and affordable homes for working people.

Except that it took the housing stock out of the hands of local councils who could at least be ousted at the ballot box. And the proposal didn't impress the tenants of Edinburgh, Stirling or Alexander's local patch of Renfrewshire. And let's not forget the spiralling cost of buyin a house, to say nothing of Labour supporting the right to buy for ten years, which had the effect of reducing municipal housing stock. From Alexander's own synopsis, Labour's actions appear to run counter to Wheatley's vision, rather than applying it in a new way.

And Jack McConnell also took forward the biggest step forward in improving the health of the nation since perhaps the creation of the NHS – the ban on smoking in public places. Where we in Scotland led, the rest of Britain has followed.

Though Scotland was, in fact, following the Republic of Ireland, and Jack McConnell was following an SNP MSP, Stewart Maxwell.

None but the most blinkered Nationalist could argue that in these decades Home Rule for Scotland, though it was one of Labour’s founding goals, was a priority of the Scottish people. But at the end of the 20th century it became clear, under Tory misrule, that centralised government was not fit for Scottish purposes. A Scottish Parliament was both the priority means of providing for the many in Scotland and, in John Smith’s words, the settled will of the Scottish people.

This is rather curious as Home Rule had originally been a part of Labour's policy in its early years, particularly the 1920s. Why did it take Thatcher for Labour to realise that a Scottish Parliament was an effective means of effecting social progress in Scotland? And devolution had been the democratically expressed will of the people in 1979, though an amendment proposed by a Labour MP meant that a certain number of Scottish people had to democratically express it, and that certain number wasn't reached, the plans had to be shelved. One more thing: the 1999, 2003, and 2007 Labour campaigns have all focused on how independence would be awful. Surely if none but the most blinkered Nationalist could see Home Rule as a priority in the 1950s, then none but the most blinkered Unionist can see the preservation of the UK as a top campaign priority in 2007?

But we now have the Parliament, and many of the things we promised. And in putting those promises into action we somehow lost the connection with too many of the people who gave us their support. We now have to rebuild that connection again. We have to debate the way ahead, not for and with ourselves, but for and with the people of Scotland. And we have to have that debate, not just with the people who support us, but also with the people who do not support us, and with those who may even be hostile to us.

For in the Scotland we now have, a Scotland where there are at least five significant political parties, and many more which may seek to be significant forces in the future, no party can rely on one section of society in order to win power. Scottish politics in the 21st century is about building coalitions of support in all sections of society, and constantly refreshing and renewing those coalitions.

I do not believe that people have lost faith in Scottish Labour’s values. But they
have questioned our ability to deliver the practical policies that match those values, and to make the changes that turn those values into reality. If we are humble enough to listen, wise enough to engage in debate, and brave enough to renew, we can win back belief in our ability to deliver. And, as those who went before us did, we must be bold, be united, and be Labour.

It is difficult to disagree with those sentiments, and I will not seek to. However, I suspect that the problem may be slightly deeper than Wendy Alexander thinks: people (myself included) now wonder what Labour's values actually are. Alexander therefore has to begin at first principles and set out what Labour is for. She has it in her to do that, and talking about debate and building coalitions is all well and good, but all we've heard from Labour and Alexander to date is bitching and carping about the SNP. That's not the same thing. "Isn't Alex Salmond a bastard?" is no substitute for engagement with the people. Her paper, so far, is more of the same. This paragraph, while worthy, while entirely right, is at odds with the sentiment expressed time and again in the first two chapters. "The SNP will eat your babies" is not good enough, and in her paper, Wendy Alexander, so far, is failing to set out a positive vision for Labour.

A response to Change is What We Do: Boldness and Progressive Politics

The following is my response to Change is What We Do, Wendy Alexander's attempt to look at the Labour Party and its future direction. Alexander is, of course, stuffed to the gills with qualifications. I have a 2:2 in Linguistics. All the same, let's try some rebuttal.

We in the Labour Party have been fortunate to live in a time when politics in the English-speaking world have been dominated by three of the most gifted politicians of the centre-left – Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown.

Already there's a problem here: Clinton and Blair got to where they did by 'triangulation', by moving their respective parties further towards - and perhaps even beyond - the Centre. Further, Clinton lost his hegemony over US politics in 1994, when the Republicans took control of Congress, and even now, his chosen candidate for President - his wife - is trailing first-term Senator Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination. Blair, meanwhile, had to put up with speculation over when he would leave politics from, well, virtually day one. Labour in 1997 got fewer votes than the Conservatives did in 1992, the 2005 Labour Government was elected on a smaller share of the vote than any Government since the Reform Act, and under Blair, Labour came second in Scotland for only the second time in fifty years (though Jack McConnell apparently isn't one of the most gifted politicians of the centre-left so that must be his fault). And Brown's performance in the hot seat has been less than inspiring: his earlier solid handling of the various crises that marred his first months in office has been undermined by the botched election, he is facing a Cabinet split over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, and he has been missing in action while major economic problems have left his successor as Chancellor Alistair Darling look impotent.

That’s why Scottish Labour can learn from Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown. They did that work, they won that respect and support, and we should learn the lessons. For the bitterest lesson of all is that the SNP have certainly done so. The slogan that headlined the Nationalist campaign that defeated us was “It’s time for change”. They managed to capture a mood in Scotland that wanted change. It was the same mood that we in Scottish Labour caught in 1997 and 1999. We stayed in tune with that feeling in 2001, 2003, and 2005. But we lost it in 2007.

Wrong. Firstly, the SNP slogan was "It's time", but the word change wasn't in the slogan. No, the sentence was completed with an SNP policy, or at least an aspiration. Yes, there was a change inherent in that, but the SNP campaign stated what the change would be, which Labour did manage in 1997. By contrast, "It's time for a change" was the Labour 1992 slogan, which was unsuccessful. Further, the Labour message in 1999 was "Divorce is an expensive business" - i.e. aren't the SNP horrible? - the message in 2001 was "Don't go back to the Tories!"; the message in 2003 was a combination of going back over the last four years and scaremongering about independence and the 2005 slogan was the meaningless "forward not back" (forward to where?) and "If you value [the NHS, schools, etc.], vote for it" - implying that the Tories would rip the heart out of "it" (and to be fair, on the 2005 manifesto, they probably would have done) if they got their hands on the levers of power. Therefore, the 1997 campaign is the aberration, and the 2007 campaign was entirely in keeping with what came before. The difference is that this time, the Opposition had something to match - and better - it.

The truth is that change is at the heart of progressive politics and must be at the heart of Scottish Labour. We are the party of change. We want to change the institutions, the practices, the beliefs that hold our society back. If institutions are not working to make Scotland a better place, our job is to put something better in their place. If there are practices that are holding Scotland back, our task is to sweep them away. And if there are beliefs that are checking progress, our aim is to challenge and defeat them.

Firstly, change for the pure sake of change is risky. Change has to be justified: there has to be a reason for change (the status quo is flawed) and the change proposed has to be the best one available. That is why it's difficult for a government to maintain office for long periods and at the same time propose, support, deliver and sustain constant change. Sooner or later, you have to change things you already changed. Why? Did the last changes not work? Why should we trust you with these changes? And in any case, the Labour manifesto owed more to the status quo than any of the other major parties. Alexander is correct: Labour have become the party of the status quo. And you could argue that the Unionist stance of the Labour party is at odds with their professed desire for change and progress. Why, then, is the one Labour member advocating that Unionism be challenged (but not necessarily defeated) - former First Minister Henry McLeish - being discredited by George Foulkes in today's press?

Bill Clinton memorably told the Labour Party conference in Blackpool in 2002 that for politicians of the centre-left, even those in power, the phrase “it’s time for a change” should not be a threat, not even a challenge, but should instead be a constant theme. For those of us on the progressive wing of politics, it is always “time for a change”, because change is why people vote for us.

Well, Labour did forget this - they offered no change in 2007 - but consider: if people want change on its own, regardless of what the change is, why are governments re-elected? If people wanted "change" in 2001 and 2005, why did they vote Labour and not Tory? If they wanted "change" in 2003, why did they vote Labour and not SNP? Alexander is in effect proposing a "permanent revolution" (sound familiar?). What happens when the revolution becomes the status quo? Alexander has picked up on the buzzword, sunk her teeth in, and she won't let go. But what will she do with it now?

It is no coincidence that our principal opponents have historically been labelled “conservatives”. At heart, they wish to conserve what already exists because that is how the privileges enjoyed by them and their supporters are maintained.

In key respects, the Nationalists are worse than the Conservatives. The Nationalists seek to disguise their conservatism in the language of radicalism. But at heart, they are deeply conservative. They want to turn the clock back 300 years to a past that never was in order to achieve a future that never can be. Nobody on the centre left
should be in any doubt that if the Nationalists ever came close to achieving what they want, the winners will be few and the losers will be many.

So firstly, there is confusion in this section as to who Labour's principal challenger actually is in Scotland. It's obviously the SNP (though the LibDems will make a case based on their second-place in the 2005 Election). Then there's the logic of conservatism being disguised as radicalism (is that possible?). The past that Alexander claims never was, actually was: Scotland was independent. We know this. Isn't ruling out an optimistic, positive vision of Scotland's future (the "future that can never be") counter to Alexander's earlier calls for change? And Alexander's accusation that independence would benefit the "few" will come as a surprise to those on the left of Scottish politics such as the SSP, Solidarity and the Greens, who are in favour of an independent Scotland. Independence on its own won't favour the few or the many: it will be the independent government of Scotland that decides that.

Tony Blair taught Labour to put internal division aside and to seek power. Our job as a party of the centre-left is to ensure that power is used for the benefit of the many and not the few. We learned also that we must encourage the creation of wealth. But it is our job as Labour politicians to make sure that wealth is not just created, but is also put to work to create jobs and opportunities for everyone, not to stagnate in the hands of select and fortunate individuals.

In many ways, this is part of the problem: Blair had Labour seeking power for power's sake. What, other than being in Government, does Labour stand for? We don't know. And wealth is still stagnating in the hands of select and fortunate individuals. The difference is that now, they're Labour peers.

Devolution in Action

Declaration of interest: my father suffers from a mental illness and is in sheltered employment, working at the Remploy Depot in Preston. As such, this story touches a nerve.

Wendy Alexander is calling on Alex Salmond to force Aberdeen City Council to reconsider its plan to close the Glencraft factory, which employs blind and disabled workers.

She is quite right to make the call - at a time when the UK Government wants people off Incapacity Benefit and in work (not a totally unreasonable viewpoint), to close down any option of sheltered employment would be a huge mistake.

However, the UK Government owns Remploy, a nationwide sheltered employment scheme. Remploy have unveiled plans to close 28 factories, at a cost of 2,000 jobs for disabled workers. The plan is to get these 2,000 onto Interwork, basically an employment agency for the disabled. The problem is that while Interwork is supposed to find jobs for the disabled in mainstream employment, but that no assurances have been given that disabled employees will be able to actually get those jobs. The Unions - naturally - are spitting mad, and the only saving grace in the current situation is that the plans originally saw 43 factories close.

It's also worth noting that in the original plans, the Remploy factory in Aberdeen would close as well, along with plants in Hillington and Wishaw. Remply Aberdeen has since won a reprieve, as has Wishaw. Plants in Clydebank, Cowdenbeath, Dundee, Edinburgh and Stirling were never under threat.

Nevertheless, the revision of the plans came after huge pressure on the DWP from Trade Unions, particularly the GMB. And what has Wendy Alexander had to say on behalf of disabled workers in Hillington? What did she have to say on behalf of those in Wishaw, and the Remploy workers in Aberdeen? That#s right, not a dickie bird. While the GMB were busy driving this issue home at the Labour Conference, she was too busy grovelling for Labour's defeat in May. While she is no doubt right to put pressure on the First Minister in this instance, any attempts to lobby Gordon Brown to protect Scottish workers were either far too subtle for the likes of me, or completely non-existent.

Now, this could be that Remploy is in the hands of the UK Government, so Wendy Alexander has opted to leave it in Westminster's capable(?) hands, and pursue a line more conducive to social justice and full employment in the case of Glencraft, where the Scottish Government could help change Aberdeen City Council's mind. Or it could be that Remploy's owners are the Labour UK Government, while Glencraft's are the LibDem-SNP Aberdeen City Council.

I would just love to believe that the former were the case, but I can't. I think she's turning a blind eye to Labour closures and still screaming blue murder when someone else is doing them.

She's saying the right things, but far too late, and for all the wrong reasons.

And you can find out more about the GMB's campaign to defend Remploy, and fight the UK-wide closures, here.

No Score Draw

That is my assessment of the Electoral Commission's findings on Wendy Alexander's donations. I direct you to Kezia Dugdale, who graciously restrains herself to publishing the Commission's report verbatim, when she could have launched a cry of 'In Your Face!' at those among us (including myself), who had visions of Wendy wearing a rather fetching white suit with charming black arrows all over it.

However, things may not be quite over with yet: the law is vague, and just because the Electoral Commission won't be taking things forward, doesn't mean no one else will. Scott at Love and Garbage notes that while the Commission will take no further action, an offence has been committed, and the report effectively states that.

To sum up, the Electoral Commission is not reporting Wendy Alexander to the fiscal, but believes that although she did not set out intentionally to break the rules, she didn't set out intentionally not to break the rules either, and consequently, rules were broken. Further, it may or may not believe that there was an attempt to cover up what went on, but can't prove matters either way.

So this report doesn't really do anything either way. While opponents of Labour can point to the Commission's acknowledgement that an offence has been committed, the Electoral Commission considers further pursuit of this matter to be pointless. While Labour can say that their Leader avoids further difficulties on this front, any notion that the findings serve to prove Alexander's honesty and integrity are wide of the mark: she has not been exonerated and she does not come out of this without a stain on her character.

It is therefore 0-0, and the final whistle has been blown. However, this is a knockout game and must be played to a finish: extra time must begin and if necessary, will be followed by a penalty shootout. What can we expect?

Firstly, the fiscal does have a report on Wendy Alexander from the Standards Commissioner. What will come of that? My initial hunch is very little - even if the case were watertight, the PF may wish to avoid this one like the plague.

Secondly, Labour's political tactics are coming under the spotlight once again: a nation is bewildered by the party's handling of the SNP Government's Budget, and the Constitutional Commission has failed to impress anyone in Labour ranks, with the exception of MSPs. Of course, Alexander is Leader of the Labour Group in the Scottish Parliament rather than Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, so no one else matters in theory. But she can still drag the MPs and Councillors down if she performs poorly, and they realise this.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Charlie Gordon is still the wildcard. If he ends up being cleared, he resigned from the frontbench for no reason and will have an axe to grind against Wendy. If he's criticised but stays as an MSP, he's hanging around like a bad smell, still able to taint the rest of his party. If he's damned, and resigns his seat, he triggers a By-Election, and Wendy Alexander faces her first major electoral test. Whatever the outcome, therefore, Charlie Gordon will have a profound effect on Wendy Alexander's fortunes in the short to medium term.

As always, we wait.

Administrative Oversights

Well, well, well. The Standards Commissioner, Jim Dyer, has reported Wendy Alexander to the procurator fiscal over her failure to place her campaign donations in the Register of Interests. Now, she maintains that the Clerks said she didn't have to, as the donations were to the 'Wendy Alexander Campaign'. Dyer disagrees, and the matter is in the hands of the prosecutors now.

She may be right on this one: she may not have broken the letter of the law, and the only clear evidence that she has done so at this stage is the £950 donation from a Jersey businessman. The Fiscal may see things differently though.

However, the whole campaign stinks of evasion: think of all the donations in the higher £900s. Close to the £1,000 limit where they would have to be declared, but not quite there. Money for her and her political activities going to a body with her name, but not, technically, her. Paul Green's donation is indeed the only law broken, but the fact is that the campaign as a whole seems designed to sidestep the rules altogether.

Of course, Jackie Baillie wants Alexander to stay on and try to salvage her reputation, while the Shadow Cabinet is making a point of accosting members of the press to tell them what a wonderful job Wendy Alexander is doing. Let me ask them a simple question: with the Electoral Commission umming and ayeing over what rules she has broken, and her file now on the Fiscal's desk, how can she hold anyone successfully to account, as is her job as Leader of the Opposition?

And Alexander's reaction is political suicide: to compare it to other Leadership campaigns in the SNP, LibDems and Tories. Alex Salmond, Roseanna Cunningham, Mike Russell, Nicola Sturgeon, Fergus Ewing, Christine Grahame, Nicol Stephen and Mike Rumbles all put their hands in their own pockets rather than get the begging bowl out. And mentioning the Tory campaign is idiocy on Alexander's part: like Wendy Alexander, Annabel Goldie was the only candidate in that election and was returned unopposed. Unlike Alexander, Goldie raised no money and spent no money. Why does being the sole candidate in a Labour election require so much money, when you can be the sole candidate in a Tory election for free?

Then there's Andy Kerr, who neglected to mention a £1,000 gift from McDonalds until it was too late. No, it wasn't a free degree, but a trip to the FA Community Shield. However, it should have been registered 30 days after it was received. Kerr was the only one of the group of MSPs who benefitted that failed to do so, missing the deadline by four days. Dyer has passed this on to prosecutors as well.

Now, Kerr has blamed an administrative oversight, which it probably is. However, the last person to use that phrase was Derek Conway, who has been suspended from the Commons, had the Tory Whip withdrawn and is now announcing that he won't seek re-election on account of the fact that he gave his sons Parliamentary money for work which appeared to be limited to poncing about in a fur coat and attending "F*** off, I'm Rich" parties. Conway himself said, "I am not a crook". The last person to say that was Richard Nixon, I think.

Rather difficult times for the Labour Party: Kerr managed to mess up the rules (it does look more like a cock-up than anything more sinister, and he did register it after all, albeit too late), but ended up comparing himself to Conway, who has inadvertantly compared himself to Nixon. And Wendy Alexander seemed to try and evade the rules.

Perhaps I should seek advice from Mr. Higham, the author of that ever-readable blog, Nourishing Obscurity. Don't the Russians have a proverb, comparing the law to a door in the middle of a field? Isn't the idea that you can go through it, but that you can also go around it?

Has Wendy Alexander sought advice from United Russia, Vladimir Putin's political party, perhaps?

Wendywatch: 9th December

It had to happen, really, didn't it?

Anyway... in today's papers:

It turns out that Wendy's list of fundraisers was sent from her Holyrood office - a party political campaign being run on Parliamentary facilities is a no-no, and with Wendy not declaring donations on her Register of Interests, the Standards Commissioner is wading in.

Key Labour donor Willie Haughey is now refusing to give any more money to the Party until the mess is cleared, and as well as losing an important fundraiser - which won't go down well - Wendy has lost another spin doctor, this time Kerron Cross, who was to be Number 2 to Gavin Yates.

Oh, and a local ally in her political backyard is in the soup, with Renfrewshire Councillor Tommy Williams suspended from the Labour group and sacked from his post with Glasgow City Council for financial irregularities, after allegedly falsifying his time-sheets. One wonders if her election agent will be the next one under the spotlight of shame.

I think my response is predictable: she's lost a donor, she's losing employees, her allies are crooked, she's broken the Alastair Campbell "two weeks in the Sunday papers and your position is untenable" rule, she's facing the same drip-drip of allegations that did for both Henry McLeish and David McLetchie, everybody that can investigate something now appears to be doing so, and Charlie Gordon has opted not to go quietly into the political night. Labour need someone, anyone, else at the helm.