 | 'The next thing you know, Michael Forsyth will be jacking in his peerage, and trying to get Stirling back.' Iain Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald, 19 th March 2000. |  |
| 'The next thing you know, Michael Forsyth will be jacking in his peerage, and trying to get Stirling back.' Iain Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald, 19 th March 2000. | |
Labour's "Ayr Disaster", as it was inevitably called, was the product of many factors, of which the Section 28 affair was only one - and a relatively minor one at that. Brian Souter, of course, insisted it was Keep The Clause "wot won it", and that the people of Ayr had risen as one against the gay mafia running Scotland. "The party that opposed repeal of Section 28 [the Tories] won, and the others lost", said Souter in triumph. But if you apply that kind of perverse logic, then you could equally say Ayr was a crushing defeat for KTC and the sunshine gang. The majority of voters - 18,895 to be exact, or nearly 60% - voted for parties in favour of repeal.
But there's no doubt Keep The Clause provided much of the background noise to this campaign. The vociferous presence of the moral majoritarians contributed to the sense of disarray, uncer tainty and division which has dogged this first Scottish administration.
Donald Dewar conceded that things had not been going well, and Reid suggested there had been "heightened expectations of change", which is a polite way of saying Dewar had screwed up the first Scottish government in 300 years. In office but not in power, might be another way of putting it. Of course, national factors played a part in John Scott's being elected. Labour is in deep mid-term. There is anger at council cuts and miserly pension increases. William Hague has been scoring points over Tony Blair by accusing him of being "all mouth and no delivery". The delivery phase has become just that, a phase, and the people are getting fed up.
So are Westminster Labour MPs, who made some quite extraordinarily damaging attacks on Dewar during the campaign. They said he'd "lost the plot" and that his administration was "reminiscent of the worst days of John Major". It may have had the ring of truth, but a by-election is not the time for that kind of candour.
But Scottish Labour cannot duck respon sibility for the Ayr disaster, or blame others for its misfortune. It was a by-election which should never have happened in Scotland's most marginal seat. One hopes Ian Welsh, who provoked the contest by resigning after only six months, is suitably chastened. It was a bad campaign fronted by a lacklustre candidate, with no overall plan and precious little execution. Dewar effectively conceded defeat before the polls even opened, which must be some kind of record.
Labour didn't know what to say, and the candidate, Rita Miller, seemed to have little to say for herself either. It's unfair to blame the hapless candidate, of course, for her party's shortcomings. But what ever possessed her to use her question time on the TV hustings debate to ask the SNP about Section 28? As convener of social services on the local council, she was bound to be attacked for the closure of the Carrick pensioner centre, but she did little other than present an easy target.
Labour appeared divided, ideolog ically challenged, organisationally exhausted, tactically inept, and lacking in anything like recognisable leadership. That the SNP came a rather poorer second than they had hoped is little consolation. On their 9.5% swing, the Nats could become the largest party in Holyrood. The Tory share of the vote increased by only 1%, but they are undoubtedly back in business. What everyone remarked upon in Ayr was the way Tory voters were declaring their political affiliations with something like pride. For the first time in more than a decade, "Tory" is no longer a four-letter word in Scottish politics.
Of course, William Hague was talking nonsense when he says that, on this showing, the Tories could be back in office at the next election. But they are back from the grave and looking dangerous. Right now, I wouldn't like to be Jim Murphy, Labour MP for marginal Eastwood. A combination of the rising SNP vote and the collapse of Labour's could hand his seat over to the Tory chairman, Raymond Robertson. Malcolm Rifkind could be back in Pentland. The next thing you know, Michael Forsyth will be jacking in his peerage,and trying to get Stirling back.
OK, perhaps that's a little far-fetched. But the irony of the first Scottish parliamentary by-election being won by the party that opposed devolution is worthy of a Jeffrey Archer novel. Robertson remarked after the result that: "Labour speak the language of devolution, but they don't understand the meaning of it". That is pretty rich coming from the party that couldn't bring itself to utter that language until a couple of years ago. Anyway, I suspect that Labour, from Blair down, now understand the meaning of devolution only too well. And it isn't an easy life.
This is a policy for which Labour expec ted praise but for which they have received no thanks. The dispersal of political power has not led to grateful electorates keeping faith with the party that brought government closer to the people. Instead, it seems to have made them even more hyper-critical of politics and politicians. Devolution has cruelly exposed the weakness of the Labour organisation in what Whitehall used to call the "territories", and it has left the Labour party looking out of its depth in Scotland.
The first Scottish administration was always going to be difficult. There is no instruction manual on how to set up a parliament from scratch. The fact Labour allowed the administration to be called an "executive" rather than a "government" perhaps revealed the extent of their confusion about the creature they had created. "Executive" is a bureaucrat's term, more at home in local government. Governments rule, executives don't.
Of course, Dewar always believed he was the head of a government of sorts. But he had an altogether more modest ambition - to provide accountability for the Scottish Office and carry out some of the reforming tasks which Westminster never had time for. But the people thought they were electing something more akin to a real parliament and a real government. Perhaps we in the media were responsible for over-hyping Holyrood, I don't know. But it is beyond doubt, as John Reid said, that expectations of what the parliament can deliver have been high. Opinion polls confirm that people expect Holyrood to become as important, if not more, than Westminster. Yet it was never geared up to perform that kind of national role. And the lack of fit between what was expected and what has been delivered has led to disillusion, frustration, contempt even.
This was the underlying theme of the Ayr by-election - the "scunner factor", as it's been called. And it has hit the LibDems too. They were humiliated by coming fifth after Tommy Sheridan's Scottish Socialist Party. The inquest in the party has already begun and there will be many LibDems wondering if it is in their interests to persevere with a coalition which seems to be dragging them down. Some may be looking for an honourable way out - perhaps over Labour reluctance to honour the commitment to electoral reform in local government - to restore their identity as a distinct political party.
But there's no way out for Labour. The result has provoked renewed frustration and agitation about Dewar's leadership. He won't listen, doesn't take the press seriously enough, isn't interested in presentation, and won't stop tucking his tie into his trousers. But as far as the Executive is concerned, there is not so much a leadership contest taking place as a therapy group for politicians on the edge. Ministers simply don't know where they go from Ayr. Dewar is not going anywhere - and anyway, he is one of their best electoral assets. Labour has somehow to stabilise his administration and find ways of keeping him out of the line of fire on issues such as Section 28, which he obviously finds deeply uncongenial.
There is talk of a possible reshuffle - a new deputy, spin doctors for individual ministers and other expedients. But the problem for Labour in Scotland is they are caught by the logic of the constitutional settlement they helped to create. The Scottish Executive is not a real, autonomous, national government with a civil service, experienced politicians and extensive resources. It never pretended to be. It is more like an amateur parliament, doing its best, with a number of bright players who haven't quite decided whether or not to go professional. But the trouble is, the punters expect more.
This is what led Ian Welsh to resign his seat. He didn't think the Scottish parliament was a big enough stage for him, so he wrote himself out of the script. But the Executive cannot do that. It is there for the duration, and will have somehow to do more to win approval from the most critical audience in show business.
March 19 th 2000
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