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From the Daily Record<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For reasons of preserving my sanity, I\u2019ve avoided writing about politics lately.\u00a0 That includes the politics of my old homeland, Scotland.\u00a0 However, I feel compelled to type a few words on the topic thanks to the coverage given to a recent interview with Jack McConnell. \u00a0Oops, sorry, I\u2019ve misnamed him.\u00a0 It should be Baron<\/em> Jack McConnell of<\/em> Glenscorrodale<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 The twitter handle he\u2019s given himself is @LordMcConnell<\/em>, so evidently these titles are important to him.\u00a0 Baron McConnell was First Minister of Scotland from 2001 to 2007 and the last First Minister to belong to the Scottish Labour Party.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last week, Baron McConnell was interviewed<\/a> in the Scottish current affairs magazine Holyrood and had plenty to say about the current state of Scottish politics which, since he was nudged out of power by Alex Salmond\u2019s Scottish National Party in 2007, have been dominated by the SNP. \u00a0The Baron is not happy at what he sees. \u00a0He laments that nothing has changed in Scotland since the 2014 referendum on independence (which, of course, his side won), laments that modern Scottish politics has \u2018no public debate and no public accountability\u2019, and pines for the good old days \u2018of ministers doing their jobs well\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Indeed, so strongly does he feel that at one point the interviewer notes, \u201cMcConnell\u2019s voice starts to break and his eyes well up.\u201d \u00a0\u201cSorry,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m feeling quite emotional about it right now\u2026\u00a0 I genuinely feel like we are stuck in treacle and I don\u2019t know how we get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Commentators in Scotland\u2019s (heavily unionist) mainstream media have seized upon the article as both an articulation and confirmation of all that\u2019s ghastly about modern-day Scotland, which has had the SNP in power for the past 14 years now and is currently under the First Ministership of Nicola Sturgeon.\u00a0 In the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times, for instance, pundit Kenny Farquharson wrote, \u201cI challenge anyone, of any political stripe, to read this interview with Jack McConnell and not find themselves agreeing with at least some of his analysis of where Scotland finds itself right now.\u201d\u00a0 And in the New Statesman, Chris Deerin opined about Jack \u2013 sorry, Baron! \u2013 McConnell\u2019s outpouring, \u201cComing from a politician who is known for his optimism and problem-solving approach, and who rarely lacks a twinkle in his eye, the anguish is all the more powerful.\u00a0 And it is very hard to disagree with anything.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Incidentally, Deerin has form in lambasting Scotland\u2019s prevailing political orthodoxy.\u00a0 In 2015, in the right-wing online news outlet CapX, he wrote<\/a> that the place \u201chas become a soft and sappy nation, intellectually listless, coddled, a land of received wisdom and one-track minds, narrow parameters and mass groupthink\u2026\u00a0 It is certainly the viewpoint that dominates our polity and media \u2013 an unholy alliance of Nationalists, Greens and socialists. I\u2019m sure many consider themselves to be all three.\u201d\u00a0 I find it mind-melting that the left-leaning New Statesman saw fit to make him its Scotland Editor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Baron McConnell apparently bewails a lack of vision in modern Scottish politics, though I\u2019m surprised that someone with his broad vision doesn\u2019t acknowledge the fact that in the last decade, by way of being part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has had to deal with the austerity cuts imposed by David Cameron and George Osborne, and then the vote to leave the European Union (powered by anti-European votes in England \u2013 every part of Scotland voted to remain in the EU) and its ongoing, toxic legacy, and the Covid-19 epidemic.\u00a0 Not to mention that the UK as a whole is currently governed by a set of Conservative politicians whose moral compass seems to be the same one that Al Capone referred to in the 1920s.\u00a0 I doubt even a Scottish government with impeccable Unionist \/ Labour credentials headed by the noble Baron himself would appear particularly dynamic having all that to contend with.\u00a0 So, it seems a bit myopic of him to overlook it.\u00a0 Unless, of course, he\u2019s just being disingenuous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From angelfire.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Also, when I think back to the supposed golden age of public debate, and public accountability, and ministers doing their jobs well, and not being stuck in treacle \u2013 i.e., Baron McConnell\u2019s tenure as First Minister \u2013 I can\u2019t remember much that was outstanding.\u00a0 Well, apart from the ban on smoking in public places, the first such ban implemented in one of the constituent nations of the UK, which made life pleasanter and healthier for non-smokers like myself who liked to visit the pub sometimes.\u00a0 But otherwise, I just remember him making an arse of himself by wearing a pinstriped kilt<\/a> to a charity fashion show in New York in 2004.\u00a0 (Even my old Dad, not normally one to get worked up about Scottish politics, exclaimed, \u201cChrist, what an embarrassment!\u201d).\u00a0 Oh, and a stushie about him and his family holidaying<\/a> in Majorca with Kirsty Wark, a senior journalist at the supposedly impartial BBC.\u00a0 And his enthusiasm for promoting Public Finance Initiatives which, by 2016, were projected<\/a> to cost Scottish taxpayers some 30 billion pounds during the decades to come.\u00a0 And the fact that one year he returned<\/a> 1.5 billion pounds of devolved money to the London treasury, when there were clearly things<\/a> in Scotland he could have spent it on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, Baron McConnell must have fond memories of those years.\u00a0 A staunch Blairite<\/a>, he had the satisfaction of knowing his smiley, warmongering hero was ensconced in Number Ten, Downing Street.\u00a0 Also, the Labour Party was massively powerful in Scottish local politics, and it held the lion\u2019s share of Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament too.\u00a0 Labour were the top dogs in Scotland.\u00a0 This was their<\/em> territory.\u00a0 No wonder political commentators joked that Labour votes in Scotland were weighed rather than counted; and in Glasgow you could stick a red rosette on a monkey and it\u2019d get voted into Westminster.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Actually, looking at the evidence, the red rosette \/ monkey scenario must have actually happened in a number of cases.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking of such specimens as Lanark and Hamilton East\u2019s one-time Labour MP Jimmy Hood, who once declared<\/a> he\u2019d oppose Scottish independence even if it made the Scottish people better off \u2013 the fact that as an MP he was busy claiming<\/a> \u00a31000-a-month second-home expenses in London no doubt had something to do with his keenness to keep Westminster running the show.\u00a0 And Midlothian\u2019s David Hamilton, who in 2015 did his bit for the battle against sexism by describing<\/a> Nicola Sturgeon (and her hairstyle) as \u201cthe wee lassie with a tin helmet on\u201d.\u00a0 And Glasgow South West\u2019s Ian Davidson, who charmingly predicted<\/a> that after 2014\u2019s referendum on Scottish independence the debate would carry on only \u201cin the sense there is a large number of wounded still to be bayoneted\u201d.\u00a0 This shower became known as the \u2018low-flying Jimmies\u2019 because of their lack of ambition in anything other than being cannon-fodder for Labour at Westminster and enjoying all the perks that came with being MPs.\u00a0 And with numpties like these populating the Westminster opposition benches during the 1980s and 1990s, it\u2019s no surprise Mrs Thatcher\u2019s Tories had a free run to do whatever they liked in Scotland.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yes, I know, in 1999, early in Blair\u2019s premiership, Labour did<\/em> set up the devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.\u00a0 But I\u2019m sure it was seen as a means of keeping additional numbers of loyal Scottish Labour Party hacks in lucrative employment and was designed not to rock the boat in any way for London.\u00a0 The Scottish parliament was organised so that no party (i.e., the SNP) could never win an outright majority in it and its ruling executive would always have to be a coalition.\u00a0 And the biggest party in any coalition, Blair and co. assumed, would always be the Scottish Labour Party.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was a shock for Labour when in 2007 the SNP won the biggest number of seats in the Scottish parliament, eschewed coalitions and ran Scotland for the next four years as a minority administration.\u00a0 It was an even bigger shock for them when in 2011 the SNP achieved the impossible and managed to win an overall majority of seats there.\u00a0 Hadn\u2019t Labour\u2019s finest minds arranged things so that this would never happen?\u00a0 And things got even worse in 2015 when, with the Scottish party led by the hapless Jim Murphy, Labour lost 40 of its 41 MPs to the SNP in a Westminster election.\u00a0 Yes, it must\u2019ve been tough for poor old Labour to witness all that.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing worse than having a sense of entitlement and then not getting what you believe you\u2019re entitled to.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From unsplash.com \/ \u00a9 Serena Repice Lentini<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Baron McConnell is a good example of a particularly rotten aspect of the Scottish Labour experience.\u00a0 Secure a seat in the London or Edinburgh parliaments, follow orders, doff your cap to your masters, and after a few decades of loyal service you\u2019ll get the ultimate reward \u2013 a peerage.\u00a0 Scotland was meant to be not only Labour\u2019s stomping ground, its fiefdom, but also its station of departure for a gravy train running all the way to the House of Lords.\u00a0 These days, in the Lords, the second largest legislative chamber in the world after the Chinese National People\u2019s Congress \u2013 which is about as democratic \u2013 the good Baron of Glenscorrodale gets to rub ermine-clad shoulders with such other Scottish Labour luminaries as Baron George Foulkes of Cumnock, Baron George Robertson of Port Ellon and Baron Alastair Darling of Roulanish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No doubt he also enjoys a chinwag with the Margaret Thatcher-worshipping former Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth, who was supposedly booted out of power in 1997 \u2013 I can\u2019t remember his title, but I assume it\u2019s something like Lord Freddy of Krueger \u2013 and another of Chris Deerin\u2019s heroes, the former Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson, whom I believe nowadays calls herself Baroness Colonel Davidson of Jar-Jar Binks<\/a>.\u00a0 Obviously, there are plenty of former Conservative Party treasurers<\/a> to fraternise with as well.\u00a0 Accountability, eh?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the Holyrood interview Baron McConnell talks about how in the Labour party \u201cthere was an absolute commitment to the redistributive nature of the UK.\u201d\u00a0 But isn\u2019t that the real reason for mediocrity and poverty of imagination in Scotland?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it the message that Scots have to stay in the UK because their country is a basket case and their wealthy neighbour \u2013 well, part of it, London \u2013 has to continually redistribute money to them?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be wiser in the long run to remove the dependency set-up, through in<\/em>dependence, and give Scots the powers to make their own decisions, implement their own courses of action, make their own mistakes and hopefully learn from them?\u00a0 But that would necessitate dismantling the cosy British constitutional system that the Baron and his friends currently do so well out of.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ironically, there is a part of the UK where the local Labour Party doesn\u2019t feel obligated to kowtow to London and is prepared to do its own thing.\u00a0 I refer to the Labour Party in Wales, whose leader Mark Drakeford bucked the dismal losing trend set by Labour in England and Scotland and won the biggest number of seats in the Welsh Senedd<\/a> election earlier this year.\u00a0 During the Covid-19 pandemic, Drakeford has won plaudits by refusing to work in lockstep with London \u2013 which I suspect Baron McConnell would have done, had he still been Scottish First Minister.\u00a0 Instead, Drakeford has followed his own instincts and implemented health measures he thinks are appropriate for Wales.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From wikipedia.org<\/a> \/ \u00a9 Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just the other day, it was announced<\/a> that Drakeford\u2019s party has come to an agreement with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh pro-independence party, so that legislation can be passed smoothly in almost 50 policy areas.\u00a0 Could you imagine a similar agreement being reached in Edinburgh?\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 Not with the idiotic \u2018Bain Principle<\/a>\u2019 still holding sway, and Scottish Labour being so obsequious to their head office in London, who would frown on any moves by Labour in Scotland that might not play well with voters in England.\u00a0 \u00a0Plus, some Scottish Labour members would sooner chainsaw off their legs at the knees than have anything to do with the hated SNP, those frustraters of their sense of entitlement, those derailers of their gravy train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Daily Record For reasons of preserving my sanity, I\u2019ve avoided writing about politics lately.\u00a0 That includes the politics of my old homeland, Scotland.\u00a0 However, I feel compelled to type a few words on the topic thanks to the coverage given to a recent interview with Jack McConnell. \u00a0Oops, sorry, I\u2019ve misnamed … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/B-JM-of-G-kilt-115x300.jpg\")
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