 | 'The SNP is already to the left of New Labour, but then who isn't?.' Jimmy Reid, 8 th August 2004. |  |
| 'The SNP is already to the left of New Labour, but then who isn't?.' Jimmy Reid, 8 th August 2004. | |
THE contenders for leadership of the SNP vied to show their left-wing credentials at a major hustings in Glasgow yesterday, with Alex Salmond and his running mate, Nicola Sturgeon, claiming the endorsement of Jimmy Reid, the veteran Clydesider.
Mr Salmond produced an open letter from Mr Reid to SNP contenders, endorsing his joint campaign with Ms Sturgeon as depute. The former shipyard union leader and Labour candidate, who has increasingly made pro-independence remarks, wrote that as a man steeped in the Labour movement it was now time to support self-determination.
His letter added: "The SNP is already to the left of New Labour, but then who isn't? I know Alex Salmond as a man of the left, a natural Social Democrat. "It is the restoration of social democratic concepts, as embodied by the welfare state and the NHS so brutally undermined by Thatcher and Blair, which must be at the top of any progressive agenda for Scotland. All of this places a great responsibility on the SNP as the second party in Scotland and on the leadership of the party."
Mr Salmond said: "We come from different political traditions but Jimmy has been a towering influence on Scottish politics for the last generation. I am a left-of-centre politician. I don't do right-of-centre. If it comes to a defining issue such as tax cuts versus public services, I am for public services." He defended the "penny for Scotland" and pointed out that a special conference had endorsed that policy. Every generation had its litmus test which showed whether people were "for the commonweal" on the left or for de'il tak the hindmost on the right.
He stressed he was "back as a team-player in a team game to mobilise talent to bring a new team and a fresh start". Roseanna Cunningham, the Perth MSP and current deputy leader, is widely seen as the contender most to the left and again played that up to the meeting of well over 200 activists at the Central Hotel.
"We must put the whole social justice agenda back to the fore," she said, claiming that by failing to stress these policies the SNP had allowed others to move into that vacuum when the party should be leading the opposition to Labour and Liberal Democrats. She invoked the radicalism of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the past and won applause for saying SNP leadership of a campaign against nuclear dumping at Coulport on the Clyde would bring fresh blood into the party.
"When the G8 summit comes to my constituency next summer I want us outside the barbed wire campaigning, not cadging invitations to champagne receptions inside. There must be no losing of our radical roots, and an end to trying to be pale imitations of the establishment parties."
Michael Russell stressed the need for a new approach to teamwork, particularly among SNP MSPs who should all be invited to participate more and should be whipped into line less.
The first beneficiary of this new consensual approach within the Holyrood group could be Campbell Martin, the MSP expelled from the SNP for continued attacks on John Swinney's leadership and urging electors to vote for other parties during the European poll to hasten his demise. Mr Russell and Mr Salmond both hinted at an amnesty, speaking of a blank sheet of paper. But Mr Russell did say Mr Martin's behaviour had been beyond the pale.
Mr Salmond referred to the systematic undermining of Mr Swinney as a dreadful thing, but said he planned a clean slate and a fresh start, with no grudges. Only Ms Cunningham was unequivocal: "Campbell Martin had an opportunity when he was suspended and regrettably he did not take it. To that extent he got what he deserved."
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