Perth observed from Kilsyth

You’ll be expecting this to be about the SNP Conference and in the end I've decided to live up to that expectation.

The reason for my hesitation is (on this occasion) no personal animus towards the SNP but rather a wider view that the importance of Party Conferences can be over-rated. They are of course hugely enjoyable events for their participants, as I have already written myself,  but the general public regard them with a mixture of indifference and bemusement equating to their view of Star Trek Conventions. And unless something truly memorable happens, such as Kinnock denouncing the Militant in 1985 or Cameron bursting on to the Tory and then national stage in 2005 then they are forgotten almost as soon as they are over. I'm already struggling to remember much of what happened at our own Manchester Conference two weeks ago and I am hardly an average observer when it comes to these matters.

So, asked honestly what happened in Perth my answer is “not much”. The SNP didn't win the Referendum but they didn't make closing the gap in the polls any more difficult than it already is.

As a seasoned conference goer, I really enjoyed the NATO debate. Although I didn’t have a dog in the fight, had I been there, I would have been tempted to toss a coin for “sides” and then get up and make a barnstorming speech myself. But the 95% of the population who had no idea where the SNP stood on NATO before Friday still have no idea today. And few of the other 5% will be other than of already fixed conviction on the national question.

It was great entertainment for those of already interested in the minutiae of Scottish Politics but for everybody else it ranked alongside discovery of lost footage of “The Wrath of Khan”.

But, this being my blog you’ll be expecting a bit of revanchist unionist diatribe. So here it is.

I simply do not understand the strategy of Yes Scotland. From this distance, one thing is clear in relation to the October 2014 UK political situation with regard to the May 2015 UK Election. Either there will be no economic recovery, and thus Labour will remain well ahead in the polls, or (most improbably in my opinion) there will have been an economic recovery in which case the current Coalition government won’t be nearly so unpopular as it currently is. Even in Scotland. A strategy based therefore on voting for Independence to eject the (unpopular) Tories from Office presumes that, remaining unpopular, they are nonetheless somehow going to be re-elected. That is a logical fallacy.

Secondly, the bizarre promise of both tax cuts and better public services based on this 9.3/9.6 statistic simply lacks all credibility. It makes Independence look like a leap of faith rather than a seriously thought through economic proposition. It might gain support from the SSP (the tax cuts bit aside) but they’re voting for you anyway. I suspect, on the other hand that if you allow the campaign to develop in this way not only will you lose the Referendum, you will lose a good deal of your current Poujadist support in what are, truly, the Tory heartlands. For all the empty name calling of Johann since her “something for nothing” speech, support for Labour has increased and the Tories are now ahead of you in Westminster voting intention. A slightly smaller deficit is still a deficit that needs addressed and even potential Yes voters know that.

Finally, there is simply the question of tone. I didn't think much of Salmond's speech but it shared a common thread with others, even that of Nicola, who remains (Question Time aside) your most persuasive advocate. It simply isn’t good enough to claim that having chosen “voluntarily” to ask a question, it would then be disastrous for the wrong answer to be given. It's like the man who puts a pistol to his own head and then observes it would be very messy if he pulled the trigger. It prompts the response: “Well, who’s fault is that?” Further devolution isn't currently off the agenda but even I accept that it will be in the event of a decisive “No” vote. But, I repeat, “Who’s fault is that?” Having protested that this referendum is exactly what you always wanted it lacks credibility (again) to try and moan that you've been painted into a corner.

I have thought carefully about the word to choose to describe the current SNP rhetoric and it is “stridency”. The danger for you is that it slips over into the word I have currently rejected; “Desperation”.

So that’s all. And I’ve finished in time for Downton Abbey. A programme who’s first series, let us not forget, was not shown by STV because it was all about English Lord Snootys and thus, it was assumed, not likely to be of interest to us here in Scotland.

Why I got it wrong

Alright, it does appear now more likely than not that there will be a referendum.

I am finally forced to make that concession by a single sentence in the Memorandum of Understanding signed today. It's in paragraph 4


"The date of the poll will be for the Scottish Parliament to determine and will be set out in the Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government." [my empasis].

Now that is very significant for it means that if the Bill becomes an Act, as it surely will, then there can be no turning back. Having been instructed to proceed by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, Returning Officers will be obliged to proceed and no second thoughts expressed by the (mere) Government of Scotland would allow or permit them to ignore what the Parliament of Scotland had resolved upon. Of course, the Parliament could always pass another Act to cancel the event but that would surely be more politically suicidal than then proceeding even in the face of certain defeat.

Now, as you'll know, I predicted this wouldn't happen and in consequence will shortly be obliged to dispatch  an ex gratia bottle of Dalwhinnie to Roseanna Cunningham, who remained a consistent true believer. At least, if she can resist opening it for two years, she'll have something then  in which to drown her sorrows.

But, beyond that, I am obviously obliged to consider why I'm eating humble pie rather than enjoying a lost malt.

And there are two reasons. Firstly, that, as my own Party has done before to its cost, I underestimated David Cameron. For he realised that the only possible response to Salmond's stated desire, and undoubted electoral mandate, for an Independence Referendum was to reply "Bring it on". If only Gordon Brown had been as decisive in 2007 then Wendy Alexander would probably today be First Minister of Scotland. Then again, decisiveness was never Gordon's strong point.

But Cameron also realised that he was up against an opponent who wanted anything but his stated preference and his genius was therefore to give that opponent everything he publicly said he wanted. The date, the single question, even votes for 16 year olds (despite the best efforts of both sides to work out how). The only thing Cameron was determined upon was that there would definitely be a vote. Even the number of questions was secondary to that, although a useful achievement to knock off on the way. And despite his best efforts, faced with such an apparent willingness to "help", in the end even Eck couldn't come up with a convincing reason to put it off. And thus the key things in the Agreement are the sunset clause and the single sentence I quote above, which I'm certain doesn't appear on the initiative of the Scottish Government.

But I also overestimated another politician, Alex Salmond. He gave us a doing, in a sort of Manchester United against St Mirren reserves sense in May 2011. And electorally successful leaders usually have an iron grip on their Party. But the SNP have always been a rebellious lot and the one thing that united them is a desire for Independence, even while disagreeing about why or even what it might mean. Now, I don't doubt that Eck also believes in Independence but he's perhaps a bit more realistic about whether it can be realised in 2014. Support for political parties goes up and down but opinion polling, even in the abstract, shows consistent two to one opposition to the idea of Independence, even before the economic truth (as I would have it) or the fear factor (as he would concede) starts to have its effect.

I suspect that he wouldn't privately hugely disagree that, if we voted next month, the Yes vote would be about 28%. And that's an awful lot of ground to make up in (even) two years. And he sees the inevitable schism in the Nationalist movement that would follow a failure to make up that ground.

But even he couldn't work miracles. We were all much entertained when he was booed at the Ryder Cup but, let's be honest, large numbers of well to do golfers, able to travel the Atlantic to support a multi-national European team were never likely to be a natural constituency for the First Minister. Unfortunately for him, the SNP Conference this week was equally unlikely to be receptive to the message that their life-long project had had to be postponed for technical reasons, never mind that it had negligible chance of success.

So when Cameron announced last Wednesday that Salmond would be signing up today he was making an offer which couldn't be refused. As I belatedly realised myself. And as, after a half hearted attempt on the day to insist "nothing was finalised", so did Eck.

And we've all got what we want, more or less. Or at least that's what we're saying publicly. It's certainly what I've wanted since 2007.

Bring it on.

What's going on?

As regular readers will know it has been a recurring theme here that the First Minister (not, for the avoidance of any doubt, the whole of the SNP) is reluctant to hold an Independence Referendum.

The SNP Manifesto made no mention of the timing of the vote and it was the unilateral decision of the FM, four days before polling to decide that it would only be in the second half of the Parliament.

Even then, having won an outright majority matters hardly proceeded apace. Despite there having been the previous "National Conversation" from 2007 to 2011, and, on any view, a clear electoral mandate in May 2011, various puppet figures were encouraged by the First Minister's own staff to suggest there might be more than one question, even in the knowledge this considerably muddied the legal and political water. Eventually a consultation was launched on this very topic, which had formed no part of any Party's election manifesto in 2011, and all further developments put on hold until this had reported;  initially, we were promised, by the end of the Summer and then, for no reason ever given, by the end of October.

In passing, courtesy of a leak to the Sun, we were informed that the referendum itself would  not take place just in the second half of the current Parliament but in fact in the final third.

Meanwhile, the UK Government had "helpfully" offered to clear up any legal ambiguity by passing express authority to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum by means of a s.30 order but there was hardly a stampede from the Nationalists to nail down the detail and from January to September "negotiations" proceeded at a pretty desultory pace. This despite the fact that the Scottish Government had conceded expressly in their own consultation paper that they needed the s.30 to ask their own preferred question and that legislation in early 2013, as they had promised, meant the terms of the s.30, which then required the approval of both Parliaments and, formally, the Privy Council needed to be agreed by the end of October.

Then suddenly it was all have meant to have changed. On 5th September, Salmond reshuffled his Government and in the process passed responsibilty for the s.30 negotiations from the low profile Bruce Crawford to the much more prominent figure of his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon. This was accompanied by a reshuffle among the SNP's back room troops and a briefing, within days, from both Holyrood and Westminster sources that there had been a step change in the tone and pace of the talks.

Even I began to think that the Nats had decided to go for it, or at least postpone the postponement.

And then, in the week commencing 1st October, the press were briefed that the deal was more or less done and that all that was being discussed was minor detail and the specifics of the "ceremony" by which the deal would be announced.

Now, throughout this there was an important event in the Calendar: the SNP Conference from 18th to 21st October. Surely that would be the place for Eck to go in acclamation to officially confirm the date (which has never been done) and to bask in the adulation of his faithful.

My own view was that the Tories would be mad to give him that opportunity. He'd dragged out the deal and the price he should be made to pay was that it wasn't formally sealed until later in October.

I was therefore initially bemused when David Mundell decided on Tuesday past to announce on behalf of the UK Government that the deal would be signed, this coming Monday, the 15th, in Edinburgh. What were they playing at!

Within 24 hours however things became much clearer. For Alex Salmond himself decided to announce that there was no deal, even in the face of David Cameron repeating Mundell's prediction in his speech to the Tory Conference yesterday.

And then I thought back to where the First Minister had been when  "his" side had briefed "done deal" the week before. And actually we all knew that for we'd seen him being booed. He'd been out of the Country, quite legitimately, receiving his silver putter as the next host of the Ryder Cup.

Now, here's what's happened. Some, most even, within the SNP want a deal. Eck remains less sure. So while the cat was away.........And this gave Cameron, Moore and Mundell the perfect opportunity to call Eck's bluff. The talks have gone as far as they can. The practical difficulties over votes for all 16 year olds can't be overcome but Westminster has given up on its previous all or none stance on this issue. If Eck wants votes for all those aged 16 and 10 months who happen to be on the Register, good luck to him. The campaign finance limits sought by the Nationalists are not going to be conceded if we talk till Christmas 2014 so they'll just have to like it or lump it in that regard. And the date and principle of a single question are, genuinely, agreed, or at least conceded on both sides.

So. its over to Eck. Can even he risk going to Perth having walked away from the table over what the world would see as minutiae? Or will David Cameron get the signature Eck could, after the event,  claim he was always willing to subscribe?  I suspect that calculation will be leading to a lot of agonising between now and Monday but, actually, in the end I think he will sign. After all, he's still got at least another eighteen months to find a different excuse for calling it off.

I finish with two questions:

1. Whatever happened to the Consultation?

2. I trust, that if a deal is done, some journalist will have the foresight to ask if the date of the Referendum will be in the Primary Legislation introduced to the Scottish Parliament and, if not, why not?

Politics gone mad

The United Kingdom is in a financial crisis that is leading to significant cuts in public expenditure.

And a lot of people in no way responsible for that crisis will suffer as a result of these cuts.

Except apparently in Scotland.

For, while the Left throughout the UK is protesting about the effect of these cuts, the one political Party who maintains that they still have enough money to do everything they want is the SNP. Indeed, while public services are being slashed in the rest of the UK, George Osborne, presumably out of the goodness of his heart, has, according to the SNP,  found enough money, through the block grant, for the Holyrood Administration to implement their programme in full. And indeed to freeze Council Tax in the process.

All that's required is apparently prudent budgeting and there need be no impact on the public at all.

If Osborne had any sense he'd surely be inviting John Swinney to stand beside him on the platform at the Tory Conference in Birmingham this week so that Swinney could exhort the rest of the public sector to follow his example. "We've got less money as well!" Swinney could declaim "But is anybody in Scotland suffering? Not for a moment. Indeed, through "prudent budgeting" we can not only maintain all of our frontline services but also afford lots of perks not available to you spendthrift English!"

This is the politics of the mad house.

There will be those reading this blog who will be old enough to remember when a significant faction of the SNP thought it to be an error to advocate a devolved assembly. Anything less than full independence was no better than the direct Westminster rule. Indeed that was the Party's platform, more or less, from 1979 to 1997. They feared that participation in devolution, particularly devolution with little financial autonomy, would lead ultimately to comfortable acceptance of that settlement. In that these Cassandras may or may not yet be right but even they did not anticipate a situation whereby an SNP devolved administration became an apologist for a Westminster Tory Government's public spending settlement. Yet, if we can, as the SNP themselves claim, have everything we want with the money made available by the Tories then, logically, that is what they have become.

Only we can't have everything we want but, for some bizarre reason, the Nationalists themselves won't admit that. So we get the 1000 extra Cops but only at the expense of 3000 back up staff and an overall understaffed Police Service; we have the free University tuition but only at the expense of the slashing of college expenditure and the abandonment to unemployment of the less academically able; we get unrestricted bus travel for the over sixties but only at the expense of the Glasgow Airport rail link; we get "free" personal care but only at the cost of the denial of potentially life saving drugs to the NHS; perhaps above all, we get the Council Tax freeze but only at the expense of school closures, pot-holed roads and unattended child abuse.

Fair enough if these are your priorities, as they are apparently the Nationalists' priorities. But let's not pretend any of this is "free". Or adequate. It comes at a cost, much of it paid by the very poorest and most vulnerable.

And yet when Labour suggest that this is precisely what is happening we are met by flat denials from the Nationalists and, in the mad world of Scottish politics, it is we who are accused of being apologists for the Tories.

You couldn't make this up

A Good Word for the Leadership

I've never seen my role on this Blog to be to act as a cheerleader.

One of the privileges of having been in the Labour Party for so long is that no matter what you say you can't be accused of disloyalty to the cause even if you might from time to time be legitimately accused of being less than enamoured of some of its fellow adherents.

So, when I say that I unconditionally welcome Johann's speech on Tuesday nobody could say that this is but yet another example of sycophancy on my part. I've been very critical of the direction of travel of the Party since Wendy's fall and I am still sufficiently cautious to say that for Tuesday's speech to have a real impact on Scottish politics it will, over the next few months, need to prove to be more than words.

But, in the first blog I ever wrote here Ten Reasons Labour Lost , the very first reason I gave was that Labour had nothing relevant to say about why we should be running, particularly, the Scottish Parliament. Johann's speech on Tuesday was finally an attempt to start answering that question.

For too long our whole appeal to the electorate as to why they should choose us to govern at Holyrood has been that "If it's not us, it will be the SNP" and that's been it. It's not much of an argument and indeed it has had a steadily declining echo of support.

It has however been largely reciprocated by our principal opponents: "Vote for us and nothing much will change". That sentence used to go on "until we get Independence" but increasingly it appears to finish: "even if we get Independence!"

The problem is that things are changing whether either the Labour Party of the SNP like that fact.

We have a crisis in the public finances. For what its worth that originally at least was undoubtedly the fault of the Labour Party. Not because our pre-crash levels of public expenditure were unsustainable; indeed pre-crash, the Tories were committed to matching them, but because the crash was caused by our failure, as the governing Party, to properly regulate the banks. It is no excuse that our principal opponents, both in Scotland and Britain, actually complained at the time that the banks were over-regulated. We were in power and we cocked up.

But, real life is not a computer game where, when disaster strikes, you can go back in time to an earlier saved version and start again. We are where we are and any British Government (or, for what it's worth, independent Scottish Government) would need to address the current gap between expenditure and income. And while, macro-economically, that need not  be at the current speed of reduction of public expenditure (where I stand); or as dismissive of increasing government income by higher taxation (again where I stand); or, least of all, whether it should be as dismissive of growth as a key part of the equation (above all, where I stand), even accepting all these other possibilities, public expenditure is going to shrink. And Scotland cannot magically escape that. At current levels of expenditure, over the next sixteen years there is a £39bn funding gap (not my figures, John Swinney's) Therefore if we here in Scotland want to look at where we might wish to increase public expenditure, or even defend particular expenditure from an across the board cut, then we need to look at what might be cut instead or where additional income might be raised within the current powers of the Scottish Parliament.

In terms of the current challenges facing Scotland, any Constitutional change is irrelevant to this. Even if the Nationalists succeed to the extent of their wildest dreams, Scotland will not be Independent till 2016. And, even then, if that does lead to some miraculous explosion of growth, any additional income will not filter through for at least another two years beyond that. If anybody thinks that period can be managed by slashing local government expenditure and expecting that in turn to be managed by "efficiency savings" then they are living in cloud cuckoo land. Yet that is precisely John Swinney's current strategy.

So choices, proper choices, should be being made. And that is what Johann was saying, no more and no less.

The idea that universal benefits, once awarded, can never be taken away is an absurd one. Free bus travel for the over sixties dates from 2006, before which Scotland was hardly in a state of barbarism or indeed, the over sixties even notoriously housebound. Free prescriptions date from 2007, since when the country hardly seems obviously more adequately medicated. There seems no evidence at all that the abolition of the Graduate Endowment has improved willingness to participate in higher education and while no one is more keen on free personal care than I, everybody truly accepts that the current funding model is unsustainable against the anticipated 61% increase in people aged over 75 in the 25 year period from 2002 to 2027.

And finally, on the other side of the ledger, there is, how shall one put it politely, an inconsistency between asserting that Scots uniquely value these public services while at the same time ruling out any of the means available under the current system to raise revenue to continue to fund them: not just local government taxation but the variation of income tax rates or even modification of the small business exemption from non-domestic rates! That again however is Swinney's position.

Now the Nationalists are crowing that Labour is making a terrible mistake. No-one will ever vote to give a perk up. I'm not so sure. The electorate aren't stupid. They know as well as anybody the realities of the age. And, anyway, the current budgetary orthodoxy is unsustainable. So when it falls apart who's likely to get the credit: the woman who predicted that as inevitable or the people who accused her of talking rubbish at the time?

Well done Johann. Right call. And that's not something you hear me say every day.

The Madonna del Parto

I promised on twitter earlier this week that my blog tonight would not be about politics. And it's not. Really.

But it would be right if I started with a bit of context.

This will be a big weekend for "the women". Tomorrow sees the Labour Party Women's Conference which now attaches itself to the main event in a sort of "paralympic" relationship, albeit in reverse. And then on Sunday, in Stirling, we will see the launch of "Women for Indy".

When I was much younger, thanks principally to a book, "Beyond the fragments" by Sheila Rowbotham and others, it was very much flavour of the age that women's politics and traditional left politics could learn much from each other. The sisters could bring their experience of collective, non hierarchical  decision making to the table while the left (i.e. the men) could teach lessons as to the importance of organisation. All such trends have a long term significance and there is now doubt that the Stella Creasys, Rachel Reeves and the like are long term beneficiaries of these ideas, albeit developed while they personally were still at school. The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

But, in the end, it was the politics of organisation that won out over the politics of co-operation. Our own "Women's Conference" will, I suspect,  be no more "off-message" than the main event, although perhaps more engaged with candidate selection processes. Equally, Sunday's event is unlikely to be more than the usual "seen the light" type occasion that categorises current Nationalist politics, although at least not featuring Dougie McLean singing Caledonia; that being left to.............a woman.

Maybe if people really wanted to see what lessons of the women's movement might bring to Scottish politics they should be looking at neither of these events and instead at what happened in Portobello a week past tonight. But that is another story.

Anyway, on to my main topic, The Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca..

This is one of my most favourite paintings.

It is located in Monterchi, a very small village between Arezzo and San Sepolcro. Wikipedia describes it as the town's "most famous cultural attraction" but in reality it is the town's only attraction of any sort. When I first saw it it, the painting was still located in a rather decrepit Church but it has since been moved to a more antiseptic, if less perilous, environment in a converted primary school. And, in the process, it has attracted an entrance fee. But it is, in my experience, the only entrance fee which is waived in favour of one particular category; pregnant women. For that, for those of you not possessed of sufficient Italian, is the subject of the painting. The Madonna del Parto means the pregnant Madonna.

Now, if you think about it, this should be a common subject. What is known, even apocryphally, about the life of Our Lady? That she was born to Saint Anne (more than a few paintings); the beneficiary of an immaculate conception (many more); that she became the mother of God (even more still); that she received the body of Jesus at the foot of the Cross (yet more); and that she was eventually assumed up to Heaven (post Reformation, in virtually every Church in the peninsula). But that's about it. So you would have thought the panoply of Renaissance artists would have been looking for some variations on that theme. And none surely more obvious than what transpired between the immaculate conception and the point where she is resting the Christ child on her knee.

Yet, while not a unique example, Piero's painting is but one of a very few. And easily the most famous. And, within a few years of its composition, it had disappeared as a subject altogether.

Why? Well the answer is in Piero's picture itself. In Catholic doctrine, Mary was not only impregnated while remaining a virgin, she also, thereafter, in the face actually of significant biblical counter-authority, remained a perpetual virgin. Just as their was no grunting and groaning in the conception of the Christ child, equally there was no grunting and groaning in his delivery, or indeed at any point in between. And that's where Piero, doctrinally, goes wrong.

Now, this is early Renaissance Art. Fifty years before Rafael; a hundred before Caravaggio. So, technically, there is room for improvement but, nonetheless, this Madonna is a real woman. No innocent maid but someone bearing fully the trials of their "condition". A sore back; a tentative but not obviously affectionate hand resting on the belly; a facial expression that suggests that she just wishes  it was all over. If the technique of the age allowed its depiction. you would no doubt see her swollen ankles.

So this kind of depiction of a real woman. in the real later stages of pregnancy simply did not fit with the Church's belief in the semi-divine status of Mary and that's before you even start on the more general difficulty of coping with sexuality in general and women's sexuality in particular.

But is it sacrilegious?  Not at all. The key to that is the angels with the curtains. Now, if you look this up in the academic literature you are given big licks about whether all of this is allusion to the renewal of the Ark of the Covenant. Fair enough, what do I know? I do know that Piero liked painting drapery, indeed tents. And that we've all seen, in this age as surely than in the 1450s, that curtains part at the opening of an "event".

So what are the angels doing except performing such an opening? The drama is yet to come. But what a drama! And the woman on the stage? Every woman and any woman. Not "Stella Maris", as she became by miraculous mistranscription, but stilla maris (a drop in the ocean) as she was described originally by St Jerome. And the child? Any child.................so maybe it is sacrilegious after all.

Real women were as problematical to the Renaissance Church as they are too often to the demands of politics today. And, if that was true of so many of the early female Christian martyrs, so much more so was it true of the mother of God.

So pregnant Madonnas disappeared. And women's equality in politics became simply the chance to play the men's game on the men's rules. Never mind, there's nothing like a good Pieta.

Postscript

You'll be expecting a restaurant recommendation. Locanda Il Castello di Sorci on the road to Anghiari. Set menu. Antipasto di prosciutto; two pasta  dishes; griglia mista; contorni di stagione; vino rosso. Buon Prezzo. That's all.

At Last! My weekend blog (It's a holiday Monday)

I start with a wee foreword.

I joked yesterday on Twitter that  the first draft of this blog had been stolen. I meant simply that the original draft had been pre-empted by two other pieces that appeared yesterday morning. Its topic is the fallout from changes that took place in the personnel at the top of the Scottish Labour Party last week. The first half of my original "copy" turned out to be summarised more expertly by Paul Hutcheon in yesterday's's Sunday Herald. And then, Kate Higgins, the estimable SNP blogger, effectively ran off with the other half in her most recent Burdz Eye View blog..

Needless to say, I don't agree with everything either of them write but I commend what each of them has to say as important to be considered by partisans of my own Party.

With that to my own effort.

The topic of this blog is the way forward for the Scottish Labour Party and it has been an exceptionally difficult one to write because it is a proposition to which there is no obvious answer. It is prompted by the fact that there is a vacancy for the post of Scottish General Secretary, a position to which, I suspect, I would have little hope of appointment. But, to be honest, were I to be, and then granted dictatorial powers, (in the Roman meaning of that word) and, as a latter day Coriolanus, invested with a benign autocracy over the whole of the Party's affairs: to choose my own lieutenants; to write the policy platform myself; to select every candidate myself and to appoint the leader myself. Even with these powers I'm not sure I could turn things round. External factors and errors past may simply be too overwhelming.

That having been said,  I certainly know what I would do in that circumstance, and so do those in charge of the appointments process, That's why I won't be wasting my time by applying!

And of course and in any event you can't make bricks without straw. In May 2011 we could have had Leo McGarry as General Secretary and Josh Lyman and C.J. Cregg doubling up to do Rami Okasha's job; even then there would have been no prospect of Iain Gray being elected as First Minister of Scotland. That's just the truth of it. David Plouffe in his masterful history of the succesful 2008 Presidential Campaign "The Audacity to Win" starts and ends by emphasising that it was not he or David Axelrod who won that Campaign. It was simply that they made it possible for Barack Obama to do so.

But, let's just assume we are back in Chicago deciding whether to run. What would need done if the contest was, say, for the Scottish Parliament Elections in 2016?

I want to start with something contributed by someone else earlier this week past week which fell right at the top of "Things I wished I'd said myself". Simon Pia, formerly Iain Gray's chief spin-doctor, appearing on Scotland Tonight, observed that the problem with the Scottish Labour Party was not simply that Scottish Parliamentary Elections were second in our order of importance, for many they were actually third, after retaining control of our Council strongholds, particularly Glasgow.

Let's be honest, there are many in the Labour Party who have never loved, or even learned to love, the Scottish Parliament. That's not a majority view but it remains a significant minority view. And that hesitation of commitment has been reflected most starkly in the Party's organisational commitment to elections for that Parliament.

You see it everywhere. Simply in terms of "effort", I defy anybody not to notice a difference in the atmosphere in a Labour Committee Room on the Saturday before a General Election as opposed to a Scottish Parliament Election. In the former circumstance there will be more Posters; more leaflets; more activists;  more activity. And, frankly, there will also be more money.

But it also applies to candidate selection. In various Machiavellian ways the Leadership finds ways of installing favourite sons and daughters in safe Westminster seats to ensure we have sufficient front bench talent while the whole Party commits to making sure that marginals are contested by those best placed to win them. Nobody at the top or bottom of the Party seems to care less who gets elected or (as it turned out) not elected to the Scottish Parliament.

And to policy development. Sure at Westminster we have to undertake the day to day grind of opposition but we are also working publicly and otherwise on developing our own policy initiatives, both in the immediate term and in what might form part of our future election manifesto. Chatham House terms meetings take place with policy experts; think tanks publish reports to greater or lesser acclamation; and official and unofficial seminars and conferences take place at which the Party's Parliamentary front bench are expected to play a significant part, to teach but to learn as well.

And then, finally, for UK Elections backroom "talent" is brought in specially for the period of the campaign. For Scottish Elections, while we might get some full time staff on secondment from South of the Border, that's it. Apart from that it's just another aspect of the normal staff's day job.

Now, here's something you might think that I'd be the last person to say. If the Party has to choose an Election to prioritise then common sense says that it should be UK Elections. Labour is a devolutionist Party. We believe that the most important decisions regarding the economy should (indeed, can only) be taken on a British basis and, if we were currently in power at Holyrood, we would still face many of the same problems as the Nationalists in coping with the current state of the UK's overall financial performance. And if we lose a UK Election, we lose to the Tories. If we lose a Scottish election it is only to the SNP who (whisper it) aren't truly as bad, particularly if actual Independence remains such a remote possibility.

But does that mean we are right to treat Scottish Elections as less important? Actually the central problem the Party faces is that some, at least, believe we need to make that choice. They are wrong.

It should not be beyond an organisation with such deep roots as the Scottish Labour Party to fight two major campaigns over five years. In 1974 we fought two General Elections in one year!

But of course it is not as simple as that. For of course, nobody, will ever be given the powers of benign autocracy I refer to above. Political Parties are living breathing organisms and the day one does defer to an all-powerful, all-knowing, leader is a day we'd all be very worried about. Even if it wasn't our own Party. So the best any Party can hope for is a modus vivendi between its leading figures and factional interests. And agreement on common objectives, the single most important of which must surely be to win elections.

The thing that Labour hasn't got its head round is that a devolved Parliament must mean a devolved Party. But the thing that those shouting that Scotland must be "in charge" within that devolved settlement haven't got their heads round is that this approach actually runs contrary to where we stand on the Constitutional position of the Country itself. If we want to be both Scottish and British in terms of our Government, then logically we should want to be Scottish and British in terms of our Party!

So that's where we need to start in filling the position of General Secretary. We do not need somebody whose first loyalty is to Johann, or her successor, any more than we need somebody whose first loyalty is to Jim Murphy or Douglas Alexander (or Gordon Matheson). It may sound trite but it is nonetheless true that we actually need somebody whose first loyalty is to the Labour Party. And that means they must be their own person: nobody's placeman or woman and somebody who is a big and confident enough figure to have the option of walking away if they are not listened to. Whose very job is not to favour one interest but to treat all with equal respect and be accepted by all as a neutral referee. Not a pawn but a player.

And as to who get's Rami's job? Nobody. The Party's job is, first and last, to organise. We do not need a "Head of Policy, Communications and Strategy". That's the job of Johann and Paul Sinclair at Holyrood and Ed and a whole phalanx of support troops at Westminster. What we need is a Scottish Organiser to go out there and put a rocket up the complacent, self serving and, too often minute in number Constituency Parties. No matter what the MP, MSP or would be MSP might think. And to do that immediately and with the unconditional support of the Leadership, Westminster and Holyrood.

A good start would be to suggest that in any constituency where there is, say, fewer than 400 members, the Candidate will simply be appointed by the Scottish Executive, If you don't want that you've got till January 2014 to sort it.

And then finally, for it seems to me that the money available would easily fund three jobs out of two, I'd make a third appointment. "Official intellectual stirrer up in chief" or , I don't know, "Head of external liason" if it needs a pompous official title. This person's job would just be to go out there and network. To speak to the research departments at the various professional bodies: The EIS;  The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland; the Royal Colleges; the Law Society etc...; and to the charities and special interest groups; Citizen's Advice; SCVO (there's always a place for a lost sheep); Children First; CPAG; Age Concern; Alzheimer's Scotland.........and to the business organisations......and to the Universities...........and, yes certainly and importantly the Trade Unions and to......stir them up. To tell them we're looking for ideas and invite them to provide them......to offer them liason........off the record if desired  and with nothing off the table between them and our front bench team. To eat a lot of lunches and drink a lot of coffees. To agitate, in the proper sense of that word. And to head hunt for those whose ideas might be useful to encourage. Post Devolution in house policy development has been a disaster and since 2007 we've not even had the civil service. If we want to get back to being the rational voice of liberal civic society (as we were for ten years) then that's going to need to be a two way process. And it's not happening now.

So these are some of the things I would do if this was my call. Which it's not. In practice, none of this will happen. There are already candidates getting lined up for the two vacancies and there will probably be a factional trade off in their appointment. I'm sure somebody will be found to write a manifesto but otherwise the Party retains a heartfelt anti-intellectualism: "If someone wants input to policy they can go along to a Branch meeting". Anyway, new ideas inevitably imply the old ideas were wrong and that's not a concession this leadership is prepared to make. We still haven't moved beyond blaming the electorate and that evil Svengali, Alex Salmond, for our defeat. Strategy beyond that is that the SNP will either bottle or decisively lose a referendum and that will be enough to return us as a default option. Indeed, various dead beat councillors are already eyeing up the SNP Constituencies they believe they might inherit in that circumstance. Nothing is being done to disabuse them of that presumption because I suspect it's a view shared at the very top. Indeed, it appears to me to be the only hope held at the very top.

So, no matter how you slice and dice this you come back to David Plouffe's wise observation. Back room staff don't win elections, they only make it possible for viable candidates to do so. Until we face up to that everything else is academic.

So, as my various SNP readers keep getting annoyed about my predictions that Eck has no intention of holding a Referendum, here's something to cheer you up. No matter what happens on the Constitution between now and 2016, I currently see no reason that you will not be comfortably re-elected at that time. Unless, of course, there's a Tory revival!