 | 'With just over one year to go before the elections to the Scottish Parliament, is Labour to continue allowing the Lib Dems to claim all the credit for what little good has come out of devolution, yet blame them when things come unstuck? If they do, they might well find that this cuckoo in their nest will oust them completely.' Alan Cochrane in Scotland on Sunday, 12 th February 2006. |  |
THE one obvious thing that should happen - but probably won't - in the wake of that groundbreaking result in Dunfermline is that the ludicrous coalition that purports to run devolved Scotland should come to an end.
That way we might return, at last, to a bit of honest politics.
Nice guy and able candidate that he is and brilliant by-election fighters that they are, the truth is that Willie Rennie and the Liberal Democrats fought an entirely fraudulent campaign based on a wholly bogus prospectus.
At this juncture I should confess that, yes, I have lost a £10 bet on the result with Sam Ghibaldan, Nicol Stephen's special adviser, which means that my bairns will have to go without shoes.
But that is not my only reason for calling for change this morning. The plain fact is that, while that perennial curse of governing parties - the fed-up factor - as well as general disillusionment over things like the Iraq war played a part in turning voters against Labour, the big issues were local issues.
And whereas in the past the Lib Dems' 'pavement politics' enabled them to cash in on these local gripes they were, in those cases, a party of opposition. In Dunfermline and West Fife they were in part responsible for the causes of these local gripes. They are a party of government in Scotland but they pretend, when it suits them, to be something else.
The deciding role on the Forth Road Bridge tolls and the downgrading of Queen Margaret Hospital is the responsibility of the Scottish Executive, yet the Lib Dems come over all hurt and innocent - who us? - when you remind them that their ministers play key roles in that administration.
The writing was on the wall for this disaster for Labour last May when the Lib Dems finished second in 15 Westminster constituencies. I wrote then that Alistair Darling, for one, was getting mightily fed up of Holyrood Labour's accommodations with the greatest bunch of chancers Scottish politics has ever seen.
With just over one year to go before the elections to the Scottish Parliament, is Labour to continue allowing the Lib Dems to claim all the credit for what little good has come out of devolution, yet blame them when things come unstuck? If they do, they might well find that this cuckoo in their nest will oust them completely.
They must tear up the partnership agreement as soon as possible, form a minority administration and bring back some plain dealing into our political life. That way might threaten Jack McConnell's continued tenancy of Bute House, but it would also get the Lib Dems out of their limousines and back on the buses.
I suspect the pressure for this sort of draconian action must be ferocious right now from the likes of Mr Darling and his boss, Gordon Brown. Devolution is killing off what we used to know as the Scottish Labour Party.
Westminster Labour and Holyrood Labour is the real coalition in Scottish politics now. It's not a proper party any more, merely a loose grouping of disparate politicians all pulling in different directions and held together by an increasingly distant folk memory of how things used to be. Devolution did this to them. And don't let them say they weren't warned. Only scrapping their dirty deal with the Lib Dems can save them.
And the Scottish Tories? Another total farce. They strutted their stuff but, frankly, just didn't work hard enough. Why did so few MSPs turn up to support Carrie Ruxton (pictured below)? If I were David Cameron, I'd have nothing to do with them.
Return to home page