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Jim Murphy is new Scottish Labour leader.

I am no lover of Murphy, or of the Labour party in Scotland, but, I love Sturgeon, and her band of merry halfwits even less.
 
The Boy said:
Have you been drinking?
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Why not try answering the question? Tell you what, an easier one, as the first is obviously too difficult. They passed one piece of legislation that actually enabled people to do something they previously couldn't. What was it, and why did they do it?
 
The Boy said:
That's not really an excuse to embarrass yourself by talking shite like 'SNSP'.
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That is how I view them, I don't ask you share my view, just as I probably don't share yours, however, I am not so arrogant as to feel that you are not entitled to your view. In this at least, I am considerably more libertarian than you.
 
Sasaferrato said:
As I thought. You have no idea. The uninformed criticising the informed. How quaint.

Why not just admit that you cannot answer the question, through lack of knowledge?
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Yes. The reason I have not answered your daft question is because I have not a clue of what I speak, while you, as you rightly point out, are 'the informed'. It has nothing to do with not wanting to enter into a debate with a swivel-eyed, old goat who bandies terms like 'national socialist' to refer to the SNP.

Kindly stop quoting my posts now, ta.
 
The Boy said:
Yes. The reason I have not answered your daft question is because I have not a clue of what I speak, while you, as you rightly point out, are 'the informed'. It has nothing to do with not wanting to enter into a debate with a swivel-eyed, old goat who bandies terms like 'national socialist' to refer to the SNP.

Kindly stop quoting my posts now, ta.
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Ad hom = equals lost argument, hardly surprising as you launched in never thinking you might actually have to provide some evidence to back up your argument.

The only piece of non-restrictive legislation (that directly affects people), was those aged 16 and 17 being allowed to vote in the referendum. Even this deeply cynical ploy; an attempt to capitalise on the naivety of children, backfired.

The referendum was lost. Rejected by the people. It is time Sturgeon was forced to recognise this.
 
Abolished prescription charges
Abolished tuition fees for higher education
Removed tolls on the Forth and Tay Bridges
Increased payments for free personal and nursing care
Got 1 million more people registered with NHS dentists than were under the previous Labour parliament
Abolished Right To Buy (you'll probably say that's a bad thing, of course)
Built or refurbed 330 schools
Expanded free nursery education
Extended Free School Meals
Violent crime down by a fifth and knife related crime down 30%

Fucking nazis, eh.

I'm not an SNP fangirl by any means (Police Scotland being pretty much unfettered alarms me for a start) but really comparing the SNP with naziism is completely ridiculous.
 
Sasaferrato said:
Ad hom = equals lost argument, hardly surprising as you launched in never thinking you might actually have to provide some evidence to back up your argument.

The only piece of non-restrictive legislation (that directly affects people), was those aged 16 and 17 being allowed to vote in the referendum. Even this deeply cynical ploy; an attempt to capitalise on the naivety of children, backfired.

The referendum was lost. Rejected by the people. It is time Sturgeon was forced to recognise this.
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You silly oaf :D.

Evidence for what argument? That your use of 'national socialist' was crass nonsense of the sort spouted by dribbling pub bores ? It is, and no amount of bleating from you changes that. Take issue with the SNP all you like, they ain't my mob and I couldn't give a fuck. But banging your fash drum *is* an embarrassment.

That last sentence is gold though.
 
Just to clarify -- because I'm not in or from Scotland, I've been posting very cautiously.

My earlier posts were purely about electoral predictions/speculations. And about whether (or not) Murphy (as an experienced machine politician) has a somewhat better chance of getting Labour's shit back together in Scotland than some in this thread are assuming.

In other words -- Labour aren't 'finished' in Scotland yet -- necessarily.

Contradictions/discussions I'd welcome, posting as a Wales-dwelling outsider ...
 
Sas, there's a reason we need to be accurate with language. We owe it to the victims of the Holocaust, to history and to humanity to take it seriously. A Nazi is not "someone with whom I disagree", it's not some handy hyperbole to fling at folk, it's not a term that means "they wanted to dissolve the UK and I despise them for that"; it means something.

You're entitled to disagree with the SNP. But they're not Nazis.
 
danny la rouge Sasaferrato

I'm pretty annoyed by these distractions and Sas's rubbish hyperbole -- I'd rather there was a practical, analysis based discussion about Scotland's/Murphy's/Labour's/the SNP's/everyone else's political and electoral prospects.

I'm only an outsider and I don't much like the SNP to say the least, but even I know enough to know that 'Nazi'-type talk about them is ridiculous talk.
 
William of Walworth

when i lived in Scotland i would certainly say that part of the drift away from Labour and towards the SNP - apart from Labours' rank, couldn't-find-their-arse-with-both-hands incompetance - was the perception/reality that for the 'big beasts' of the Labour Party, Scottish Labour and Holyrood was a small pond for small fish. a stepping stone, a regional office to be left when the first opportunity to go and run with the big boys at Westminster presented itself. not so with the SNP - for them, the Westminster crew were the second string, with Holyrood being where the quality went.

the Labour people who were left at Holyrood were the complete non-entities, the utter no-marks who were so devoid of personality and competance that if they went to Westminster they wouldn't get to the dizzy heights of Minister of State for football holliganism and listening to the Arts Council winge at the DMCS.

people in Scotland picked up on that pretty quickly, and it went down like cold sick. Murphy, whatever his other failings, is by any definition a 'big beast', or what passes for a big beast in the current Labour party. that will, possibly, and in fact probably, have some effect in revitalising SL as an organisation/party both as it sees itself and how others see it.

Johann Lamont - to quote Mark and Lard - Wwwhhhhhhhhoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?
 
William of Walworth said:
I'd rather there was a practical, analysis based discussion about Scotland's/Murphy's/Labour's/the SNP's/everyone else's political and electoral prospects.
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Hi Will.

Here's the thing. The polls have been consistently predicting Labour in Scotland will do badly. And if the General Election was tomorrow, they would do very, very badly indeed. But it isn't. And Labour is the party of the middle class here in Scotland, and the class will rally round. Murphy will say what he needs to say, and civil society's movers and shakers will do what they have to do to whitewash him, rehabilitate him and paint him as The Second Coming Himself.

But on the other hand, the Scottish Labour Party as an organisation is in very poor health. That may well contribute towards its tumbling support, but is a separate factor from its support. Its membership is low, its branches are inactive, and Murphy himself is a divisive figure. People within the party are unhappy about the way Murphy is said to have engineered Lamont's downfall. And let's not forget he is an enthusiastic supporter of Trident, a member of the Henry Jackson Society, his stance on Israel/Palestine - especially visa vis Gaza - has sickened many ("Israel has a right to defend itself"), he is by all accounts not personally liked even by his supporters, and he comes across badly on TV. He is their most right-wing, least popular leader yet.

However on balance, I think Labour will lose many seats in Scotland next year, but not as many as polls taken now suggest. This will enable the media and Murphy to claim a victory. Things won't be as bad as predicted. (The polls aren't wrong: they're measuring feeling now. They can't measure feeling next May). Remember the Better Together organisation was dysfunctional and had vanishingly small grass roots. But the media and the coordinating class pulled out the stops and the last minute. They'll do the same for Murphy and Labour.

Don't get me wrong: I regard Scottish Labour as the enemy. And Murphy is an example of the worst of them. I hope they go down and go down badly. But I doubt that'll happen. Their electoral demise (to do a disservice to Mark Twain) is being greatly exaggerated. Their organisational demise is being accurately reported. Their moral demise was long ago.

Ian Jack in the Guardian.

Cat Boyd in the Scotsman.

Steven Griffiths of Scottish CND.
 
Thanks a lot for those sets of analysis, kebabking and danny la rouge -- exactly the sort of areas I was interested in seeing discussed.

My interest is pretty much entirely polling/election centred -- I was sceptical myself that current polling was anything more than a current snaphot and was already thinking that it was an exaggerated snapshot.

Not disagreeing with danny about Murphy's politics and him living in an integrity free zone, but I was more interested in the organisational side. There's surely no way a new leader can be any more disorganised/chaotic than a leaderless vacuum for the SLP -- and I reckoned recent polls were heavily influenced as much by recent Labour chaos as other stuff. That's why I stuck my head out a bit, earlier on, and questioned some posters' wild talk of the Labour Party being 'finished' in Scotland. That looked more like hopecasting than analysis to me.

Lets see what happens between now and May.
 
Looks like Murphy plans to try and cut the ties that bind between Slab and LabLondon.

In his first major speech since becoming leader, the East Renfrewshire MP will call for changes to the party's constitution to seal its autonomy from UK Labour and emphasise its commitment to campaigning "in the national interest of Scotland".

Symbolically, the new mission statement will be set out in clause four of Scottish Labour's constitution.

The move echoes Tony Blair's decision to scrap clause four of the UK party constitution, a step which ended its decades-old commitment to the nationalisation of industry and was seen as a vital step in the party's modernisation.

The new clause four will define Scottish Labour as a "patriotic party" whose values are rooted in "the ethics of Burns' poetry, the economic vision of New Lanark and the actions of the Highlanders who took on brutal landlords," Mr Murphy will tell supporters in Glasgow.

It will also confirm Scottish Labour's control over policy making, its commitment to a permanent Scottish Parliament and reaffirm its mission to create a fairer society.

In addition, the party will set out in black and white its belief in solidarity with people from the rest of the UK, insisting that "complements" putting Scotland first.

Mr Murphy aims to introduce the changes at the party's conference next Spring, exactly 20 years after Mr Blair ended the commitment to nationalisation.

The new leader will describe his reforms as the "biggest change in Scottish Labour's history," amounting to "the refounding and rebirth of our Scottish Labour Party".

He will tell party members: "This is a clause four moment for a different time and a different purpose.

"Tony Blair rewrote clause four of UK Labour to bring us closer to the centre of politics.

"I want to rewrite clause four of Scottish Labour to bring us closer to the centre of Scottish life."

He will add: "Today Scottish Labour's challenge is that some people feel they can't be Labour and make a patriotic choice.

"The change we need goes deeper than the leadership style of a new team.

"If this is to be a genuinely fresh start for our party we need to make more fundamental change."

Mr Murphy's reforms follow repeated polls showing the SNP are perceived as the party that best stands up for Scotland, a claim Nicola Sturgeon is set to highlight during the looming general election campaign.

Under previous leader Johann Lamont, Scottish Labour rarely made an issue of its patriotism, partly from a belief it could not hope to "out-Nat" the Nationalists.

Mr Murphy won the party leadership convincingly on Saturday, achieving a 55 per cent share of the vote.

In an interview yesterday, he said he would offer defeated rivals Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack jobs when he comes to assemble his frontbench team for Holyrood later this week.

He also said he would look "way beyond Labour, way beyond the trade unions" to fill key roles in the party and would seek to recruit non-party figures and independence supporters to a new "Team Labour".

In comments that will fuel speculation about his future at Westminster, he said he was "not attracted" to serving as both an MP and MSP.

Mr Murphy confirmed he would seek to become an MSP in 2016, if not sooner, and said he will announce early next year whether he plans to stand in East Renfrewshire again in May's general election.

A poll at the weekend put the SNP 20 points ahead of Labour - on 47 per cent support to 27 per cent - in the race for Westminster seats.

Mr Murphy said he was confident and determined to hold onto Labour's 41 Scottish seats, but added: "It's feasible but it's tough.

Urging SNP and Lib Dem voters to back Labour, he added: "We can either protest against the Tories or we can replace the Tories."

ends
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The Herald
 
William of Walworth said:
I was more interested in the organisational side. There's surely no way a new leader can be any more disorganised/chaotic than a leaderless vacuum for the SLP
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Will, the vacuum in Scottish Labour wasn't at the top. There's only a top.

Even locally here, the only activists that Labour could count on during the referendum were their councillors. There seems to be no grassroots supporting them.

That was clear too when RIC and others were mobilising the big estates throughout Scotland. Labour had no organisational reach in those areas. Nothing. The party has atrophied. It can staff a stall in the middle class West End of Glasgow, but it can't staff a stall in Drumchapel or Sighthill.

Why is this? It's due to the fact that it no longer represents the class it was formed to represent. It no longer represents the working class ideologically. And it no longer literally represents them. It is the party of the media lovies, the professional classes, the business elite. The technical term for this is that it's in organic crisis.

The post referendum tumble is because of that - it has nothing organisationally to stem the haemorrhage with. But it is haemorrhaging in the first place because of the sight of Labour politicians standing shoulder to shoulder with Tories on TV debate after TV debate. Laughing with them at each other's jokes. Watching each other's backs. Supporting each other's arguments. Top Labour politicians who were on boards of companies got those companies to make threats about job losses if Yes won. And so on and so on.

Whether they voted Yes or No, people were disgusted. Labour became toxic. More toxic even than it had made itself by the Iraq War and the Blair/Brown attack on the poor, the disabled, the single parents, the working class.

Their vote will rally from the extremely low polling it is at now, because it can't go any other way. We had polls suggesting only 2 Labour MPs in Scotland if the election were held at the time of the poll. Of course it will go up from there, electorally speaking. And it'll rally because the media and the coordinator class will get behind it. And it'll rally because the middle class will want its champion back. But it will not recover its rank and file. That's gone.
 
Sasaferrato said:
the Scottish National Socialist Party
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Oh look, a Godwin! :rolleyes: Would you explain, please, in what ways the SNP resembles the Nazis?

...
from holding the balance in Westminster, which would be absolutely dreadful.
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I think it unlikely that the SNP (or SNP, Plaid Cymru and possibly Green) will hold the balance of power, but I'd like to know just how dreadful that would be

Opposing attempts to privatise the NHS, preferring renewable energy sources to nuclear, opposing university tuition fees, preferring not to go and bomb the shit out of any random country just because the USA wants to have a war and invites the UK to join in, recognition that immigrants are not the devil incarnate, but actually quite good....

Yes, utterly dreadful.

The SNSP lost the referendum, this needs to be hammered home.
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Oh, Godwin again.

"Hammered home" seems to have a vindictive tone to it that I don't quite like.

What form should this hammering take? Who will do this hammering? Does this hammering apply only to the SNP or to each and every party that you don't like?

And just why, anyway, should there be any hammering at all? I'm pretty sure that Nicola Sturgeon is aware of the referendum result already.
 
Celyn said:
I'm pretty sure that Nicola Sturgeon is aware of the referendum result already.
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This comes back to something I was asking Quartz about in the big indy ref thread. He said that people had opined that the SNP wouldn't "accept the result" of the referendum. He wasn't able to answer what that meant. Sass belongs to that camp, too. The SNP should "accept the result".

The SNP does accept the result. They, like all of us who voted Yes, know that No won. There was no majority for independence. We haven't got independence. We're still in the Union. We know that.

But I don't think that's what Sass and others meant. They wanted the SNP to dissolve. Now that their goal of independence has been defeated, they should go away. But that isn't how it works. When Labour lost the last Westminster general election, they didn't give up and go home, take up gardening. Nor, when they lost the Holyrood elections in 2011 did they shut up shop and put "closing down sale" in the window in Bath Street.

The SNP and its members will still continue to believe what they believe in. And support them or not (and I don't), they are still the elected government in Holyrood. They won that election. They might lose the next in 2016 (though I doubt it), but even then they wouldn't disappear. Why would they?

What Sass also means is that the SNP should be punished for having the referendum. They should be punished because No won. But it's Labour who are being punished. They're being punished for their alliance with the Tories. And for the ideological ease with which a lifelong Tory like Sass can join Labour without having to shed a page - not even a sentence - of his principles. Because the Labour Party are the vehicle he thinks can best deliver those principles. And they're being punished because of the threats made to ordinary Scots if they voted Yes. Oh, they voted No. But they didn't like the threats. Not one bit.
 
Sasaferrato said:
... those aged 16 and 17 being allowed to vote in the referendum. Even this deeply cynical ploy; an attempt to capitalise on the naivety of children, backfired.
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Extension of the franchise to people aged 16 and 17 was a SNP policy of very long standing. It would have been pretty bad and hypocritical NOT to allow this when they were in a position to do so.

It is (or was, 'cos god alone knows what their policies are now), a long standing policy of the Liberal Party then the Lib Dems, it is policy of the Green Parties, and it was also stated policy in the Labour Party's manifesto for the 2010 general election. I think the Tories are against it, and I don't know offhand what are teh policies of various smaller parties.

If they can work and pay taxes at 16, have sex, get married, join the army at 16, then why not allow them to vote at 16?
 
If you looked at the post referendum polling 16-17 was one of the strongest supports of Indy Scotland, hard to see how you would say it backfired
 
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