Jim Murphy is new Scottish Labour leader.

[xslavearcx]

I think they'll stay until this side of the GE - and have a leadership contest if they do badly and he won't resign.

thanks.

 

[Sue]

I think they'll stay until this side of the GE - and have a leadership contest if they do badly and he won't resign.

Eh? Who'll have a leadership contest?

 

[articul8]

Scottish Labour, if they do really badly under Murphy in May

 

[Sue]

Can't see that at all. It'll be like all the New Labour stuff -- it's not the message that's wrong, it's the way it's been communicated and Murphy just hadn't had enough time to communicate the message. Besides, given what a careerist Murphy is, do you really think he'd take this on unless he'd been given the very strongest assurances that he's there for the duration?

 

[articul8]

Who could give him those assurances? I guess he'll try to blame Miliband and suggest moving further right. That way could spell a split

 

[Sue]

Who could give him those assurances? I guess he'll try to blame Miliband and suggest moving further right. That way could spell a split

A panicking London Labour who still don't get it. Imagine half of Scottish Labour hate his guts but don't see many other options at this point. Why would there be a split?

 

[weepiper]

There are three problems with Jim Murphy. This first is that he is tied so inextricably to Labour's past decade. At a time when it's clear to everyone that Scottish Labour needs to dramatically break from Blairism, he is a well known supporter of the Iraq War, Trident and austerity. Whatever pretty words he uses to pitch himself to the left, he's got a voting record at Westminster going back 17 years showing otherwise. Labour's problem isn't so much that they say the wrong things, but that people have come to the conclusion that they don't really believe anything. It's not that they need better policies (though they do) it's that they have to actually believe in them.

The second is that he is inextricably tied to Labour's recent past. If the problem facing the party is that a significant portion of its base voted yes, then one of the most prominent and, in some ways, aggressive figures from the No campaign is perhaps not the person best placed to win them over.

The third is that he is tied to his own past. Scotland's a small country, and social media has shrunk it further. Whether or not the tales of bullying and nastiness dating back to his time in NUS are true, they keep appearing in my Facebook and Twitter feeds from disgruntled members of the Labour party whose dislike of him is more personal than political. They needed a unifying figure, and they got a man who seems to have spent a lifetime making enemies.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/adam-ramsay/raising-blue-labour-saltire-on-sinking-ship

 

[Sue]

Only three?

 

[weepiper]

Only three?

The fourth main problem is.... Dammit! I'll come in again.

 

[articul8]

A panicking London Labour who still don't get it. Imagine half of Scottish Labour hate his guts but don't see many other options at this point. Why would there be a split?

There would be a split *if* and its still an if, a significant minority of the Scottish labour left thought the party's name had become irredeemably tainted with the Westminster parties and the right that it couldn't recover.

 

[Sue]

There would be a split *if* and its still an if, a significant minority of the Scottish labour left thought the party's name had become irredeemably tainted with the Westminster parties and the right that it couldn't recover.

I'm not convinced there's much of a Scottish Labour Left left tbh. Think that ship sailed quite a long time ago.

 

[brogdale]

I'm not convinced there's much of a Scottish Labour Left left tbh. Think that ship sailed quite a long time ago.

The Survation monthly poll for the Daily Record is due for release...should be interesting to see what, if any, effect Murphy's elevation has on the numbers.

 

[xslavearcx]

I'm all for being allowed to have a drink at the football match but when Jim Murphy suports the general principal of 'working class people being Able to have a drink at the fitba' and that the ban should be lifted on a trial basis it all comes across as a bit desperate and populist really....


http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ed-lift-ban-alcohol-scottish-football-matches

 

[Sue]

Jim Murphy, desperate and populist?

 

[danny la rouge]

Jim Murphy, desperate and populist?

Monkey tennis!

 

[Pickman's model]

Jim Murphy, desperate and populist?

desperate anyway

 

[brogdale]

desperate anyway

"...youth hosteling with Chris Eubank?"

 

[Pickman's model]

"...youth hosteling with Chris Eubank?"

tell you what, i'd pay good money to see eubank whack murphy round a boxing ring.

 

[brogdale]

tell you what, i'd pay good money to see eubank whack murphy round a boxing ring.

..or arm wrestling with Chas & Dave?

 

[Pickman's model]

..or arm wrestling with Chas & Dave?

no, unlikely to result in serious head trauma.

 

[Trendy Lefty]

I am no nationalist but it's no surprise that we've seen the rise of the SNP in Scotland. Voters are fed-up of Labour's shift to the right and see them just as much a part of the Westminster, out-of-touch elite as the Tories. There are people voting for them who don't even want Scottish Independence, but just find the more left-leaning views of the SNP on social/economic issues to be more appealing.

 

[William of Walworth]

Trendy Lefty : I agree, so the answer for Murphy should be obvious then. come up with some left-leaning policy -- not as if he has to be a full on socialist to win back a few votes (and he's never going to be one), but some basic stuff about housing, wages, etc would be a start.

On a pragmatic, poll-focussed level alone, left leaning policy wouldn't lose votes in Scotland.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Trendy Lefty : I agree, so the answer for Murphy should be obvious then. come up with some left-leaning policy -- not as if he has to be a full on socialist to win back a few votes (and he's never going to be one), but some basic stuff about housing, wages, etc would be a start.

On a pragmatic, poll-focussed level alone, left leaning policy wouldn't lose votes in Scotland.

tbh I wouldn't be surprised if he did come up with some interesting policies on wages, housing, and energy bills there's plenty of Progress types up for that.

 

[Celyn]

I think I'd like to know Jim Murphy's view on this:

THE leader of cash-strapped Glasgow City Council is facing criticism after spending thousands of pounds of public money to have his closest aides accompany him to Labour Party conferences.


Gordon Matheson is under fire after almost £4000 was spent on hotels, flights, train tickets, cab fares and restaurants for his adviser Paul Kilby and principal policy officer, Dominic Dowling.

The cash, which was spent attending four conferences, was hinted at in an obscure public record but only fully disclosed after freedom of information requests by the Sunday Herald.

Taxpayers forked out £2250 to send Kilby to Scottish Labour gatherings in Inverness and Perth in April 2013 and March 2014 respectively, as well as UK Labour conferences in Brighton and Manchester in September 2013 and September 2014.

In addition, almost £1500 was used to send Dowling to the same two conferences in Scotland and the UK Labour conference in Brighton.

The public purse covered delegate fees for both men, dining out at the conference, rail travel and flights for the Brighton 2013 conference.

The biggest expenditure was on hotel bills, which cost a total of £2125, of which £894 went on putting the two men up at Brighton's Regency-period Topps Hotel for three nights.

Although Matheson went to all four conferences, the council insisted it "did not incur any costs" in relation to his attendances.

In October, Matheson warned the council faced more cuts to bridge a £28.9 million budget gap next year.

He blamed the Scottish Government for "subjecting the people of Glasgow to year after year of disproportionate cuts" while boasting of the council's "clear political leadership and sound financial planning".

Both Kilby and Dowling have longstanding connections to the Labour Party.

Kilby, an adviser to Matheson since May 2012, was previously a researcher to ex-Labour MSP Cathy Jamieson from 2000 to 2008.

...

http://www.heraldscotland.com/polit...l-to-send-aides-to-labour-conference.26133563

because surely that cannot be the normal way to do things? Or is that the way all councils carry on? I'm inclined to think Glasgow City Council is the most awful shitheap of dodgy behaviour, but that sort of thing could be normal, for all I know.

It's possible that Murphy, Matheson & Uncle Tom Cobleigh have responded to that article, but I'm being disorganised and might not have seen their responses.

 

[Trendy Lefty]

Trendy Lefty : I agree, so the answer for Murphy should be obvious then. come up with some left-leaning policy -- not as if he has to be a full on socialist to win back a few votes (and he's never going to be one), but some basic stuff about housing, wages, etc would be a start.

You'd think so. Got a feeling he's too Blairite to achieve that.

 

[weepiper]

 

[danny la rouge]

David Miller isn't a fan...

http://thepeopledemand.org/?p=690

 

[weepiper]

David Miller isn't a fan...

http://thepeopledemand.org/?p=690

Murphy the War Hawk

Honestly read that as 'Murphy the shitehawk' first time.

 

[danny la rouge]

This is how dire and desperate Jim Murphy is:

Labour pledges 1,000 Scottish nurses funded by English mansion tax
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ish-nurses-funded-by-English-mansion-tax.html

It's a General Election 2015 pledge.



More nurses. Great. But here's the thing - Scottish Labour has admitted they don't know how many nurses the SNP will pledge. Just that, whatever it is, they'll top it by 1000. So, if the SNP says "OK, one nurse per person. That's 5 million nurses", Labour will still say "1000 more". (And pay for it with the English mansion tax).

That's nuts. How do they know the Mansion Tax will cover it? How do they know people in England won't want it spent on something else?

This isn't about saying how great having more nurses would be, it's about saying "more than them", no matter how much they pledge. (What if the SNP say "1000 more than Labour", or "infinity +1"?).

Furthermore, it's a Westminster General Election pledge. But Westminster doesn't set the number of nurses the NHS in Scotland has - Holyrood does that. So they can't even deliver on the pledge if they win in May (supposing it was deliverable).

And yet another thing, it's not even clear that it's allowed under the current devolution legislation to fund Scottish Government expenditure in the way proposed - the allocation of funding is for the devolved government to determine; Westminster can't ring-fence (that's the point of devolution), and anyway, budgetary provision is via the Barnett Formula, which decides what proportion of Westminster Treasury money goes to Holyrood. Now Labour are saying "that plus whatever the nurses will cost, from English Mansion Tax take". It's chaos. And pathetic.

Is any further demonstration needed of how utterly at sea Scottish Labour are? Or of how they no longer have any direction, except to try to outflank the SNP, no matter how nonsensical a position it puts them in? This isn't principles, it's desperation.


(Edited to try to make room for the formatting of the embedded tweet).

 

[danny la rouge]

Electors of England, what is your view on mansion taxes raised in England being used to provide the Devolved NHS in Scotland with 1000 more nurses than whatever the SNP will subsequently pledge?