POLITICAL AGONY
Licking wounds over referendum call
Published:
IT IS TORTUOUS viewing to watch Wendy Alexander writhe in political agony as she struggles to escape from the referendum fiasco with her dignity intact. Dizzy from U-turns, the leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament must be counting the days until the summer recess and a chance to hide from the intense scrutiny that has built up around this issue.
If it was not of her own making she could blame others for her predicament. Sadly for her, it is all her own fault.
With so few opportunities to deflect the Scottish National Party from running an effective, if largely untested, government, the temptation to call a bluff must have been irresistible.
The scenario is not new to politics. An eager team of advisers, keen to project their leader up the opinion-poll leagues, probably dreamed up a strategy that could not fail because it promised to call a bluff.
This tactic has been used to great effect in the past, but it relies on two key components – there being a bluff in the first place and everyone being in on the action.
Clearly, the SNP was never going to give up the good position it has earned in government by accelerating its plans for a referendum on independence and anyone familiar with Gordon Brown’s career would reject any notion that he could openly support a referendum, particularly one called for by his own party.
So, Ms Alexander is left to lick a considerable number of wounds as some in her party bay for more of her blood to be spilled. In the meantime, the sun is shining and Alex Salmond and co continue to make hay.
Time for Labour to dust down their drawing boards.
Readers' Comments
It seems that Labour have no real political position or credibility left in Scotland. On comparing them to the progress that the SNP have made on sticking up for Scotland on domestic as well as a European matters, they seem rather one dimensional .When in power in Scotland they did what ever their Westminster masters said. They and their Lib Dem cohorts would not fight for our fishermen, or question Westminster about the Money that was lying in English banks that was rightly due to Scotland. If they hadn’t bent over so freely they might still be in power. Labour has had its chance, and blown it. It’s time to go it alone instead of being feed Labours political spin and lies. Most Scots realise that the world is a far smaller place now, and to be heard you have to shout, but as long as we remain the way we are, we will be but one small voice in many. An independent country, like so many of the former eastern block countries enjoy their voices being heard loud and clear. That’s why so many other countries will now stop and listen to them, and take stock to what they have to say. This is helped by them either having strategic importance or oil, both by the way Scotland has. I think it is the older generation we have to convince. You now the post war group that were fed better in the Union than out, and by the way here’s the Poll Tax, Nuclear waste and weapons to look after, because we don’t want anything happening down here. I hope like so many of those who have not been asked by the pollsters, we vote for what is right at this time, and our voices are heard over our loud neighbours.
grame tran
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