Not never, but not now.

The immediate aftermath of the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections seems a long time ago but it was when I started blogging.

Labour had just suffered a devastating defeat in the Scottish Parliament elections, Iain Gray had understandably resigned as Scottish Party Leader and the cry that went up immediately was "We must have a new leader"!

I asked then however the simple question "Why"?

To my mind that question was never answered satisfactorily.

We knew in May 2011 that given the SNP had an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament there would, definitely, be no further Scottish General Election until May 2015.*

Four years ahead, or, more correctly, in the immediate run up to an election four years ahead, Labour would have needed a candidate for First Minister. We did not however need that candidate selected with declared finality in a process conducted over the Summer of 2011.

Yet that is what we got.

At the time I backed Tom Harris but I concede that Tom, as a Westminster MP, would undoubtedly have had difficulty in time management between Westminster and Holyrood over a four year period. It seemed to me that there was however no adequate candidate (or at least no adequate candidate willing to stand) within the rump Holyrood group. Time proved that indeed to be the case.

I'm not yet ready to fully engage with the mess the Scottish Labour Party is in but it seems to me that the lesson of four years past learned through harsh experience by the Scottish Party should be being paid more attention by the Party as a whole.

Why are we rushing to select a new UK Party leader when in Terms of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, and in the context of increasingly Presidential General Election contests, that person will not actually be a candidate for Prime Minister until May 2020?

I have simply no idea.

Certainly we need a leader of the Parliamentary Group but why couldn't the Parliamentary Group not simply select such a person? That might be a task pretty thankless outwith the ranks of the Party itself but internally the individual involved could expect considerable gratitude and goodwill.

They could easily take Prime Minister's Questions and deal with the operation of  "the usual channels" for the next two or three years.

It's clear that the Party needs a much more honest discussion about what went wrong a week past on Thursday and how to put it right than that which took place in the immediate aftermath of 2010. Wouldn't that more honest discussion be aided if it didn't involve challenging and, potentially, "undermining" a leader already in post?

But there is another and more fundamental reason to commend this approach.

It is clear that the Labour coalition of the organised working class roped to the liberal middle class and minorities: ethnic, national or indeed other, simply isn't enough any more.

Never mind that the organised working class is not, numerically, what it was. In voting intention, the "liberal" adjective is increasingly subordinate to its subjective clause "middle class" and minorities clearly think they have other options. In Scotland have exercised these options in spades.

All of this makes the way ahead increasingly difficult for the Labour Party.

Yet the selection of a new leader here and now will not be dominated by consideration of how to rebuild that coalition and/or how to expand it.  Rather it will be dominated by who best would aid internal Party factions in a struggle over the next five years.

For all the repercussions that flowed from it, the principal point on the agenda at the famous Blair/Brown Granita meeting was "Who will best beat the Tories". By the Spring of 1994 minds had already turned to an election that, under the prevailing rules at the time, might have been as little as two years away.

And when Blair emerged from that internal leadership contest he really was something "New".

Over the period up to the election Blair could create the impression of an insurgency, of being the "coming thing", in a way that would have been altogether more difficult over a five year long haul. A significant part of that was that Blair himself was "new"; change made flesh if you like.

The Americans get this. After the defeat of McCain and then Romney it would not have occurred to the Republicans that they immediately needed a different "alternative President".

More to the point so do the Democrats. After 2004 an immediate contest could never have delivered what remains the archetypal insurgent progressive campaign of our time: Obama for America. Even if somehow it had, it is difficult to see how that momentum could have been maintained for four years.

That's what Labour needs. A contest in 2018/19 from which hopefully a candidate "for Britain" would emerge. A candidate not selected based not on who the Party membership most wanted but  chosen with regard who the electorate most wanted. And not a platform and then a candidate or indeed a candidate and then a platform. Rather a candidate AND a platform emerging together.

So no harm to Andy or Yvette or Liz or Mary or anybody else yet to declare, asked for my vote  in the next three months my response would be to each: "Not never, but not now".

Not that anybody is likely to listen. Any more than they listened in 2011.

*Later the Fixed Term Parliaments Act extended the Scottish Parliament term to May 2016.

I disagree

I've been blogging for the last few weeks on the implications of a hung Parliament and the effect of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

Today a much more distinguished lawyer has entered the fray, Professor Adam Tompkins.

I commend and agree with much of Adam's blog but in one critical aspect I think he is fundamentally wrong.That is on the issue of whether, in light of the terms of the Act, a Government can resign without the consent of the opposition either to take office themselves or to dissolve Parliament.

The figures Adam posits for the election outcome are broadly in line with my own previous hypotheses: A Tory Party clearly ahead of Labour in Commons seats but without, even with the Liberal Democrats, an absolute majority in the Commons.

I agree entirely that the starting point then is that David Cameron gets the first attempt at a continuing administration.

But where I disagree with Adam is as to what happens if that administration fails to secure a Commons majority on its legislative programme.

Adam suggests that the Government would resign and the Leader of the Opposition would be invited by the Queen to attempt to form an administration. Now, if it was known in advance that the Leader of the Opposition had the willingness to form an administration, or at least to try, I agree that is what would happen. But to my mind Adam misses one central point.

The day to day administration of the Country requires a Government and a Government requires a Prime Minister. We are in an election period and there are no MPs but David Cameron is still the Prime Minister and his Ministers are still Ministers of the Crown. From day to day they will still be called upon, necessarily, to exercise executive functions.

So what if the Governing Party offers to resign but the principal opposition party is either absolutely unwilling or at least as yet undecided as to whether even to attempt to form a Government?

It seems to me that in that circumstance the current Government can offer to resign but the Queen is not obliged, indeed could not, accept that resignation.

I illustrate that with an obvious example.

The purpose of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act is to prevent the current governing Party, in the person of the Prime Minister, having the effective right to require the Queen to call a General Election at a time of their choosing.

The Act is quite clear. Only two things now can trigger an early election. The first is the House of Commons voting for one by a two thirds majority. The second is the House of Commons passing a motion specifically declaring itself to have no confidence in the current Government AND no motion declaring confidence in an alternative Government then being passed within a fourteen day period thereafter.

Resignation of a Government is not mentioned in the Act but if resignation did effectively also trigger an election then the Act would have no meaning.

For, logically, a Government with a comfortable overall majority desiring an early election could simply resign. By Adam's argument the opposition would have to (?) take office and the majority party could then simply use that majority to pass a no confidence vote and achieve their objective of a dissolution.

That can't be right. Surely in that situation the Queen would refuse to accept the Governing Party's resignation.

And, in my opinion, if the coalition government sought to resign before Ed Miliband was sure he wished to attempt to form an administration, a similar scenario would ensue.

That's not to say the Prime Minister, or particular departmental ministers could not resign as individuals but in the case of the former development the Queen would simply invite another member of the governing Party/ies to serve as her Prime Minister pro tem. Of course you could get the absurd scenario of nobody being willing to be Prime Minister but before that point was reached I suspect there would be the two thirds Commons majority available for a dissolution.

This is where the Nats get lost. Their assumption is that if Labour plus the SNP have a Commons majority then somehow Ed would be obliged to become Prime Minister and, in the process, Labour be obliged to form an administration.

But we wouldn't.

Again, I illustrate that with another obvious example.

Suppose it was not the SNP but UKIP who were enjoying a surge. And suppose Labour had fewer seats than the Tories but Farage announced he would, for reasons of his own, be prepared to support a Labour Government. Would we take office on that basis? Not for five minutes.

Now, the SNP say that in real life Labour would grasp any chance of power. In that, in my view, they are simply wrong. Whether the Nats like it or not, even protest it to be unfair, much of the Labour Party finds their politics as distasteful as those of the Kippers. And, to flatter the SNP, supposing their prominence in Scottish politics is a permanent one, such would be the likely electoral backlash in England to the "losing" Party somehow winning "their" election,  that it would be likely Labour would lose ground in England without recovering it in Scotland. Never mind forever losing the argument in Scotland that if you want a Labour Government you need to vote Labour.

My final point is this however. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act has the capacity to "trap" a Party in power. A Labour Government could find its legislative programme regularly blocked by the Nationalists but unable to dissolve Parliament because the same Nationalists refused to vote against us in a confidence vote. Because, I repeat, that Government couldn't then simply resign.

Now all this might yet be academic. Labour might yet have a Commons plurality. Or indeed the coalition a small majority. Barring either however it is increasingly difficult to see past an October re-run. The one and only thing the surge might deliver to the SNP is, if they wish it, a re-run even sooner than that.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

I'm not in favour of Trident renewal.

The rationale of a continuously at sea Submarine launched ballistic missile system (to use the technical term) is rooted in the era of mutual assured destruction. If anybody (actually only the Soviet Union) was tempted to launch a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom the logic is/was that we could promise such a devastating response that they wouldn't try in the first place.

Whether by accident or design, that theory worked. The Soviet Union is no more and thankfully no alternative player would have the slightest intention or even capacity to launch a strategic nuclear attack on the UK.

So who or what would a strategic deterrent be deterring?

Some rogue regime yet to be invented? For it certainly wouldn't deter the various rogue regimes in actual existence. Those "in love with death" are hardly likely to be put off by the thought of .......dying. Mutual assured destruction presumed an element of rational calculation on both sides. That cannot now be presumed to exist among our modern enemies.

Now, that having been said, I am no pacifist and I can see the case for the Nation to have the potential to launch a devastating counter punch in (admittedly) pretty unlikely circumstance but more importantly not to leave itself open to nuclear blackmail. It seems to me however that there are various other, cheaper, delivery systems by which this blow could be delivered.

So, I am not in favour of Trident renewal.

All very conventional thinking by a member of the Labour Party, widely shared by others. Even shared by many Lib-Dems and even a few Tories

But what has any of this got to do with my usual subject of discourse, the constitutional debate in Scotland?

In the course of a twitter discussion last night I replied to @RossMcCaff thus

@RossMcCaff The odd thing is that, without the need to defy the SNP, we'd probably not renew Trident.


This appears to have led to complete apoplexy on the part of the cybernats who seem to think I was suggesting Labour would purchase a weapons system just to spite them.

It seems to me however that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of their own Party.

For all they are posturing at this election as little more than a slightly more left wing version of the Labour Party, even conceding that, improbably, to be true, the SNP is fundamentally something more than that. It is a Party which is in favour of Scottish Independence and, as such, is hostile to the very idea of the "United Kingdom".

Nonetheless, the SNP maintain that they would be happy to lend their support to a Labour Westminster regime and expect everybody else in the Country to be too polite to mention the Nats more fundamental goal.

What they fail to understand is that that hostility to the United Kingdom inevitably has a consequence for any Party relying on them for support in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Labour is scarred by the experience of the 1980s when we paid a heavy price for being seen to be weak on the defence of the Country. So any straightforward Labour majority administration would have to proceed cautiously in the area of the "abandonment" of the nation's strategic nuclear defence. However one legacy of Blair is that it is difficult now to argue that we are not willing to use military force in pursuit of our perceived interests. Some, myself included, might say possibly even seen in some quarters as too willing to fight or at least too willing to perceive these interests.

Given that legacy it would be more difficult to criticise an uncircumscribed decision not to renew Trident as being other than based on the rational, military case I myself start off with. Certainly a lot more difficult than it would have been in the 1980s.

But, of course, a decision made by a Labour administration reliant on SNP support would not be seen as an uncircumscribed decision. It would be seen as a decision taken by the government of the United Kingdom to appease a Party hostile to the very existence of the United Kingdom.

Frankly, if you take off tartan spectacles for two minutes, you appreciate that this would be political suicide in the rest of the Country.

And this is indicative of the wider difficulty that the predicted SNP landslide causes for Scotland. 

That landslide, if it happens, will undoubtedly deserve a response from the rest of the Country. But that response would need to be a collective response. It couldn't conceivably be seen as the self interested response of one Party seeking to secure the support of those hostile to the Country's very existence. If Labour voters in England and Wales gained the impression that the Labour Party is selling out the interests of the Country to secure the temporary, but essential,  support of those who don't even want to be in the Country then it wouldn't be long before they took their electoral support elsewhere.

That's what the Nats don't seem to grasp. Or perhaps, despite their surface rhetoric, they do. For nothing better would suit the interests of Scottish Nationalism than the emergence of a significant English Nationalism.

That's also why, perfectly logically, a Labour Party that had not won the election in England and Wales could not conceivably take office based on the support of the SNP. Not spite, or pique, or contempt for the views of "Scotland". Simple electoral calculation.

The decision on Trident renewal is only one obvious example to demonstrate that.

If Labour is the largest Party we will take power. If we are not, but the Tories can't construct a Commons majority, there will have to be another election. And if we get a repeat result? It would be up to the Unionist Parties to devise a solution.

The SNP can be a British left social democratic Party or an anti British separatist Party but if it remains the latter it can hardly expect to be an essential pillar of the "British" government. The key is in the title.

You can't have your cake and eat it. Even in today's Scotland.






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More Numbers

In my last blog I tried to explain the crucial question of numbers of seats in a post election situation.

One person who does not underestimate that precise issue is Nicola Sturgeon.

Her question to Ed in Thursday's debate was whether Labour would join with the SNP in "locking David Cameron out" even if Labour was not the largest Party in the Commons.

The second part of that formulation is key. I said before that if Labour is the largest Party in the Commons then whoever else wants to support us becomes a matter them. Given the unconditional statement of the Nationalists that they would never (again) vote with the Tories to bring down a Labour Government and assuming they stand by their word, if Labour is the largest Party, then their support or abstention would amount to the same thing. We could effectively ignore them. As indeed we could largely ignore the Lib-Dems on important votes. Having lost (it appears likely) more than half their MPs as a result of coalition, I doubt if they'd be anxious to face the Country any time soon on the basis of having "no confidenced" an incoming Labour administration.

So while, if Labour is the largest Party despite an SNP landslide in Scotland, that will undoubtedly raise strategic problems for the Labour Party, it is unlikely to make any great difference to Ed or indeed David Cameron's decision making on 8th May.

Cameron will resign, Ed will accept the Queen's offer to form an administration, and we'll get on with running the Country. No doubt from time to time we will lose the occasional Commons vote when the Tories and Libs make common cause and the Nats abstain but we'll still be the ones exercising Executive power.

But, if there is an SNP landslide, how likely is it that Labour will be the largest Party and, if we are not, what are we likely to do then?

Let me answer each of these questions in turn.

In 2010 the Tories won 306 seats and Labour 258. All other things being equal therefor Labour needs to win 25 seats from the Tories to become the largest Party. But 41 of Labour's seats were in Scotland. Suppose we lose all but a handful of these, say 35. Suddenly that 25 figure becomes 42. And then let us assume, I think not unreasonably, that the Tories gain disproportionately in England from the travails of the Libs. That figure creeps up towards 50. Not impossible but a pretty big task.

Let's however assume we do well. Better than any poll currently suggests even. Forty five gains from the Tories and (say)  five from the Libs, coupled with Thirty five losses in Scotland  brings us out at perhaps 273.

However forty five  losses to us but twenty gains from the Libs still leaves the Tories on 281.

Now, even if the Tories can somehow corral the Liberal rump and the DUP into alliance they are not back in happy coalition land. With fifty seats or thereabouts The SNP would  genuinely hold the balance of power.

The arithmetic is easy. Our 273, their 50, the SDLP, Plaid and a couple of odds and sods and there is easily the basis for an administration.

The problem is not the arithmetic.

The SNP does not believe in the continuation of the United Kingdom. Many of their elected representatives don't just wish to quit this country they positively hate it. Is it realistic to expect the good people of England and Wales to have the Government of their Country dependent on the good will of those who quite openly maintain that it shouldn't exist?

It is nothing personal (alright it is not just personal). "Scotland" would not have been snubbed. Those who wanted to breakup the United Kingdom against not only overwhelming objection of England and Wales but, as recently demonstrated pretty clearly, the objection in Scotland itself, would have been snubbed. Think about it even briefly indeed, given that weight of opinion on the continuance of the Union, it would be political suicide for Labour to get into any other situation. Never mind reaction south of the border, in Scotland, having been squeezed from the nationalist side in 2015, we would almost certainly find ourselves squeezed on the unionist side in 2016. Ruth Davidson might even end up as leader of the Holyrood opposition.

And then there is the question of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

Once a Government is formed it can't just resign. It remains in office until a vote of no confidence is passed against it or until statutorily dissolved FIVE YEARS LATER.

The opposition, in whatever combination or even simply as a result of the minor Parties sitting things out, can vote against that Government as often as they like, preventing effective law-making or even the exercise of executive power. The principal opposition Party, however, unless able to see how they might form an administration of their own, would be likely to trigger a confidence vote only if they saw likely victory at any subsequent election. Even then, assuming the Governing Party was not willing to, absurdly, abstain on such a motion against itself, the minor Parties could actually keep that Party in office essentially against its will and, more importantly, against the perceived desire of a large part of the electorate. But, let's not forget, that is the precise effect of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. To prevent a government, once formed, resigning and triggering an election.

Nonetheless you can't help but conclude that a hostage government of that nature would eventually face a horrific electoral reckoning.

So I return to what I said in my last blog. If, as appears, I entirely concede quite possibly, that, as a result of results in Scotland, neither of the big Parties, even with the Libs, can form a stable administration, then the Tories will remain in caretaker office over the Summer and, when it suits us, Labour will, with, apparently, the support of the Nationalists whether they like it or not, use the self same Fixed Term Parliaments Act to trigger another election.

Dogs can't be wagged by ther tails. It's as simple as that.

Numbers

From my perspective the polls continue to bemuse.

But the one thing we have all learned over the last few years is not to underestimate the SNP. One of the more amusing events of the last week or so has been various members of the Yes Alliance waking up to the fact that many of their "grass roots community organisations" were actually no more than SNP fronts. All credit to the Nats, I say. No matter what you think of them, they are not stupid. These Yes people may have been idiots but on any view they proved for a time to be useful idiots. 

But that is as nothing compared to the achievement the Nats are in sight of pulling off in eight weeks. To get people to vote for them at a Westminster election without it being clear what they are voting for. 

To be fair, there appear to be one thing they are not voting for. There will be no coalition between the SNP and the Tories. This is hardly surprising given the Electoral tsunami that would be likely to follow.

What the Nats would like to happen is that Labour would win a plurality but not an absolute majority in the Commons and then be kept in power by Nationalist support or abstention. In some way, they maintain, this would allow them to extract concessions although it is far from clear what the Nats would want by way of these concessions. On any view the pre oil price crash GERS figures produced this past week have, the cleverer ones know, killed Full Fiscal Autonomy stone dead. The Nats themselves clearly have doubts (to say the least) about an early re run of the referendum but in any event, even on their own narrative, that is a decision to be taken at the 2016 Holyrood election rather than the 2015 Westminster one. And beyond one or other of these objectives? No idea. I don't mean I've no idea, they've no idea. 

Even the one other thing they could mention, Trident Renewal, seems much less of a red line even if it was always a pretty blurry one anyway. If a Labour Government opts for renewal who exactly were the SNP planning on rounding up to defeat that from happening? For what conceivable alternative British Government was ever going to act differently?

So what lots of Nat MPs would achieve in a positive sense is unclear. What can however be said with absolute arithmetical certainty is that the more SNP MPs there are the fewer Labour MPs there will be and the more chance therefor that the Tories will be the largest Party in the Commons.

And when you think that through, that is important. 

There always has to be a Government. Even when there is a straightforward election change from one Party having a Commons majority to another, there are a few hours while the defeated Party remains "in office". When an indecisive result emerges the current administration remains in office for a longer period. If you think about it for five seconds you appreciate that's what happened in February 1974 and May 2010. Heath and Brown were still sat in Downing Street for days after they had lost their Commons majorities. They both only actually went when it was clear an alternative administration was prepared to be formed but, even had they resigned before then, it is likely they would have been asked by the Queen to continue in a caretaker capacity. For reasons of National security, never mind a myriad of other more mundane functions, executive power must be capable of being exercised by somebody.

So even if Cameron has no conceivable route to a Commons majority he won't go immediately. More to the point however is what happens if nobody else has a clear route either? 

Which of the two big Parties has the more seats then becomes critically important. 

If it is Labour then we can expect the formation of a minority administration. At least initially, if everybody but the Tories sits on their hands, such a Government could function as the SNP did at Holyrood from 2007-11.

But if it is the Tories? 

I can't see how Labour could attempt to form a government in that circumstance. Every vote of importance would be dependent on factors we couldn't control. Obviously the SNP could be held hostage to some extent but the critical thing is that their abstention would not be enough. Since any straight Labour/Tory head to head vote would lead to defeat, one or other minority Party would always be required in our lobby and not just sitting on its hands. There is no conceivable attraction to that and, in any event, the long term electoral cost of such a guddle would be just too high. While I think Ed is right not to rule out anything if we "win", but do not have an absolute majority, it seems to me that he would lose nothing by saying that if we are not the largest Party we will not attempt to form an administration. He would only be coming to an obvious conclusion in advance.

So, what if Labour doesn't attempt to form an administration? 

That's when incumbency comes back into play. 

Cameron is Prime Minister and could only be removed by a vote of no confidence being passed in the Commons. Depending on the arithmetic, and the position of the remaining Lib Dems, it might well be within the capacity of Labour and the SNP to pass such a vote. In terms of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act,  if no alternative administration could secure a vote of confidence within the next fourteen days then a further election would be required.

But would Labour or the SNP actually, immediately, want to trigger such another election?

This is where you need think a bit ahead.

Firstly, there is the practicality issue. In terms of the fixed term Parliaments Act the timescale for a no confidence vote and the fourteen day interregnum would require another General Election before the Summer. Would any political Party (never mind, not unimportantly, the electorate) really want that? 

Secondly, Labour would at least want the opportunity for a change of leadership. If Ed hadn't won once many would argue he'd had his chance. But an immediate election re run would make that impossible.

Thirdly, on this scenario, people in Scotland would, inevitably, have woken up to the fact that the reason we didn't have a Labour Government was because Scotland hadn't voted Labour. Without any opportunity for their MPs to "show their worth" or benefit from any incumbency factor would the SNP really want to immediately (re) face the electorate in that circumstance? 

So on any view the Tories emerging as the largest Party means almost certainly there would  be a caretaker Tory administration at least until the Autumn.

But then?

That administration would have no "working" majority enabling it to pass anything but the most anodyne of legislation. And the no confidence route would suddenly look a lot more attractive, anyway, to a Labour Party under new management.

So actually, if you think it through, the most likely outcome of a "SNP surge" is Labour promoting a post Summer recess no confidence motion leading to another election in October. Which the SNP would need to vote for. Because if they didn't there would be no doubt who was keeping the Tories in power and Labour's 2016 prospects would suddenly look very different indeed. Sometimes you should be careful what you wish for. No matter how not stupid you are.

Cometh the hour?

You may have noticed that I've gone off the blogging.

From May 2011 until Christmas past I wrote a blog pretty much every week and while initially I ranged over all sorts of political subjects, and occasionally even non political ones, for most of 2014 I devoted my efforts to the Scottish Constitutional question.

And to be honest that's the main reason I have stopped. It's over. There was a referendum, there was a decisive result and notwithstanding the desire of some, by no means exclusively on the separatist side, to re-fight old battles nobody is suggesting there is going to be another referendum any time soon. Even in the eventuality of a SNP landslide this May or even a return to majority government for the nationalists in 2016. For before they'd even attempt another go the Nationalist leadership, at least, appreciate that their prospects of success would have to be considerably better than a marginal opinion poll narrowing (if there is that) on a ten point defeat. The "45" can rant away all they like. The key to their problem is in the very name they've adopted.

But of course there is another big political event,  now just more than two months away; the General Election. 

You might think I'd have something to say about that.

The problem is that what happens at that General Election, in the UK but in Scotland as well, is not now a matter over which anybody now can have much influence excepting one man. Ed Miliband.

I thought this very brief blog from Mike Smithson had it well. The election is a choice between a relatively popular leader of a very unpopular Party and the very unpopular leader of what remains a relatively popular Party. Three of these things are unlikely to change in two months but one just might.

It should never be lost sight of that in 2010 the Tories, facing a clapped out Labour administration that had been in office (at least) during the worst recession in living memory and was engaged daily in internal warfare, still couldn't secure a Parliamentary majority. The demographics of the country were simply against them. And nothing they have done since then in their presentation of  themselves to key sections of the electorate (ethnic minorities; sexual minorities; anybody living more than 150  miles from London, most of the people actually living in London!) has changed that. At no point in the last 57 months has an incoming outright majority Tory administration looked remotely likely. 

Yet Labour hasn't closed the deal. Instead, if anything, the anti-Tory vote has fragmented in directions as diverse as UKIP and the Greens and, obviously, latterly, towards the Nationalists in Scotland.

But the Labour Party itself is not unpopular. Indeed, ironically, what many of these voters claim to want is a "real" Labour party. 

Yet what is a "real" Labour Party? Even the now sainted leadership of Attlee had its contemporary critics from the left. Herbert Morrison, Ernie Bevin, Stafford Cripps might have been great men in our history but revolutionaries they were not.

What I suspect these discontents really mean by a real Labour Party is a Labour Party that understands them and appears to have a clear idea of where the country should be going. That's what Wilson achieved in 64 and 66 at least, and it is, whether people want to acknowledge it or not, exactly what delivered Blair his 1997 landslide and his 2001 canter back into office.

That is Ed's challenge and it may just be that starting from where he personally is now might even prove a slight blessing in disguise. 

Outwith election times most voters get their impression of non governing politicians from only the most limited of exposure. And the "meejah" has an important interlocutory role which undoubtedly significantly disadvantages those faced with a hostile press. 

But at election times people are inclined to look for themselves. Frankly, as Labour in Scotland found out in 2011, that is a high risk game. But the very fact that Ed's current transitory perception is one of a hapless and hopeless klutz might just play to his advantage in that, once people take a better look, it would almost be impossible for him to fall below current expectation.

We can't avoid the fact that he is a professional politician in an age where professional politicians seem held in particular contempt but we might expect that his undoubted (and yet unappreciated) intelligence will come as a surprise to many, previously only casual, observers. On the really big card however, the ability to empathise, the abiilty to get across not just that you care but that you understand.....in the end that will be down to Ed himself.  No blog advice can give that to him.

And in Scotland? 

My own hunch is that if there is an enthusiasm for a Labour Government in the rest of the country then there will, in the end, be that enthusiasm in Scotland. And if there is not? We'll get gubbed. Not much I can do about that either. 

Over to you Ed.

Reasons to be cheerful.

Well, first of all, a big thank you to Lord Ashcroft. Really.

He has on any view performed a public service with his constituency polls and anybody in the Scottish Labour Party consoling themselves that ignorance was bliss has surely had a rude awakening.

I'm not even certain that it wouldn't be a good thing if much of what is predicted came to pass. And that's for four reasons.

For what would an SNP landslide mean?

It certainly wouldn't mean independence, for the Nats  have painted themselves into a corner on that by conceding that a referendum win is the only route to that goal. Setting aside for the moment the constitutional obstacles to another referendum, that at the very least depends on what happens in May 2016 and not May 2015.

Secondly, it would almost certainly mean another Tory Government not, this time, because Scotland had voted Labour and England otherwise but rather because Scotland had sat out the contest. Now, if that was on the basis that Scotland (now) was clearly in favour of independence we would have a problem but nothing in other polling suggests that. So it's difficult to see how the Nats would go forward. Even if, after a gubbing, Labour was inclined to the offer of a coalition partnership and the Nats to accept (both most unlikely scenarios) it's difficult to see that coalition having a Commons majority. SNP seats gained off Labour don't affect the number of Tory (or English and Welsh) Lib seats at all. Even the failure of either big Party to construct a Commons majority leading to a second election doesn't change that. It would only demonstrate the futility of voting SNP at a Westminster Election. And who'd bet on the SNP repeating their putative "achievement" in that circumstance? Common sense says they'd have to end up backing one or other big Party, if only by default.

Thirdly, and arguably most importantly, it would give not just the Scottish Labour Party, but the whole Labour Party, a well deserved kick in the arse.

For far too long we have taken the electorate not just in Scotland but in our safe seats elsewhere elsewhere for granted and in the process treated them with contempt. Partly, it has been that all the focus has been on small numbers of swing voters in marginal seats and on their concerns, mainly in the realms of personal taxation. The assumption has been that traditional Labour voters have nowhere else to go. Well, if that was the assumption it can no longer be that. People, even traditional Labour people, need reasons to vote Labour which go beyond stopping the Tories (or indeed the SNP). And if the strategy to attract these swing voters is premised on us being not too much different from the Tories then perhaps it's not unreasonable for our (past) more committed voters to take us at our own word and query whether that's what they signed up for.

But there has also been another factor. Actual Party activity in these safe areas has been regarded as altogether secondary to running (or trying to get elected to run) the Country. Or at least to running the Cooncil. So local Parties have become moribund., consisting largely of Councillors, would be Councillors, and their families. But it didn't really matter, was the argument, for "the community" was Labour. So, come election times, all sorts of local leaders in trade unions, community enterprises, voluntary organisations and the liberal professions could be relied upon to send out a subconscious message that voting Labour was just "what you did". We never however tried to tie these people more firmly to the Party not least because, between elections, the view of too many of our elected representatives was that they would prove "more trouble than they were worth". The one historic exception to this was in regard to the trade union movement but, to put it mildly, that movement is not what it was and indeed what is left of it no longer feels that Labour is, automatically, its Party. So neither "the community" nor the Unions can now be regarded as a secret army. Indeed, in many cases their attitude to perceived Labour complacency and arrogance has become part of the problem rather than its potential solution.

If we need to actually win (back) our safe seats then the starting point has to be to look at selecting candidates suitable to that task; not just to "working" the seat but to rebuilding the Party. If we can achieve that then that would surely be some sort of silver lining to these very dark clouds indeed.

And finally, there is this. How far May 2015 affects an equally important election in May 2016. Scotland currently exists in a kind of political alternative reality where Independence is somehow imminent. It's not. But as I pointed out in an earlier blog, the Nats have to maintain the illusion of progress to avoid their bubble bursting. I wonder however how a result in May this year will play out for them if it transpires that their success has nothing but a disruptive consequence as they attempt to force upon Scotland something we have only too recently rejected. And if it has any other outcome? The current SNP vote clearly couples traditional independistas with those expressing the "anti politics" sentiment that manifests itself across Europe in support for Parties as diverse as Syrzia and the Front National. But, as Syrzia are about to discover, it is one thing to travel hopefully, quite another to arrive. The minute an anti politics Party becomes a participant in government they are inevitably drawn into the compromises and disappointments that entails. Traditional Party support appreciates that. I'm far from certain that the anti politics wave does. And if disillusionment does follow from the SNP wave not so much changing nothing as not changing much except the politicians faces?  Then the very point at which that would fall to be expressed would be at an election the Nats really need to win.

Always darkest before the dawn.