Labour press conference

'The wording was careful but the impression was clear - Labour believed this was an analysis by the SNP hierarchy which would anger and annoy local activists.'
Robbie Dinwoodie in the Herald.

Labour's Press Conferences

On Monday 19th August 1996, while I was enjoying a tour of the Highland's finest castles, palaces, abbeys, cathedrals and distilleries, Labour's Scottish general secretary and 'bronzed beachboy' Jack McConnell surfed into a Monty Pythonesque press conference in the Costa del Glasgow hoping to reveal 'an astonishing SNP gaffe' to the assembled paparazzi. In fact, the gaffe turned out to be an McConnell own goal as Labour's net gains came to nothing and the spin doctor became trapped in a world wide web of his own spinning.

The Scottish National Party, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Socialist Alliance and Scottish Green Party all have links from their www sites to this one. Mr McConnell, arriving at the Scottish Politics Pages via a link from the SNP server, believed that the general election predictions here were official ones written by the SNP hierarchy!

Before television cameras, journalists and press photographers, Mr McConnell claimed he was about to 'unveil embarrassing information which would be devastating for the SNP.'

Well, it was the silly season, wasn't it.....

What the papers said

The Herald Surfing Contest as SNP rides out Labour challenge
The Scotsman SNP catches McConnell in its web
Scottish Daily Express Labour's Net gain is wiped out
SNP Press release McConnell 'a laughing stock' after Internet gaffe
Letters page, The Herald 5/9/96 Information for information's sake

Other Labour press conferences

Scottish Labour's Incredible Disappearing Web Pages

And finally, what have happened to the Scottish Labour Party 's own WWW pages?

First the Scottish Labour Party's web pages at

http://www.thetron.org.uk/SLP.html

were removed in 1996 on the orders of Labour's ultra-Blairite London leadership who were worried that nationalists and left-wingers in the Scottish Party were showing too much independence.

Policy pages were provided on Labour's London-based server, where the party leadership could orchestrate the content, but even these pages at:

http://www.poptel.org.uk/labour-party/policy/scotland.html

were removed as noted in a press release by the Scottish National Party.

The Scottish National Party, Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Scocialist Alliance, the Scottish Green Party, and even the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party all have their own web sites. Scottish Labour are the only party not to have a presence on the web.

On the 10 of July the Herald reported that the Scottish National Party had removed their policy documents from their server as they were preparing a new manifesto for the Scottish Parliament. Ironically, Kilmarnock and Loudoun Labour MP, Des Browne, challenged the SNP to put the pledges back at its website.

Are there no Labour MPs, with the honourable exceptions of John McAllion, Ernie Ross and Michael Connarty who have a knowledge of the web and are are capable of making a statement concerning it without making a gaffe?

I challenge Des Browne and New Labour to do as the other Scottish Parties and reinstate an independent web site for the Scottish Labour Party.

Or is the Scottish Labour Party's 'regional office' (a quote from Labour's own London-based www site) merely, as its critics claim, a telephone exchange taking all its orders from Millbank?

PS In February 1999, Labour reinstated a Scottish Labour Website.

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