In a rather unexpected move this week, shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran publicly backed her Westminster colleague Jim Murphy to be the next Scottish Labour leader.
Ms Curran, who previously said she would not be publicly backing a candidate due to her shadow cabinet role, wrote an email to Labour supporters this week saying that she was backing Jim as “we need someone with ideas for how we can take Scotland forward”.
Jim has certainly been full of ideas of late. You almost wouldn’t recognise him. But maybe that is the point.
He campaigned against more powers for Holyrood but now wants Devo Max (his version of it anyway) within Scotland but not for Scotland within the UK.
He didn’t want income tax devolved but now he does. He wants to raise the top rate of income tax to 50p in the pound, then says he wouldn’t tax the middle class more. He condemns the Tories, yet stood shoulder to shoulder with them in the No campaign and has taken a £10,000 donation from a Tory donor.
We have no idea what his ideology is, or what drives him but he has never lacked ambition. As his colleague Anas Sarwar said yesterday: his party have been acting as managers when they should be reformers.
One of the main reasons Labour has ended up in a mess is precisely that it became a party focused on power, not people, principles and policy.
The leadership result is being announced this weekend, with MSPs Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack also standing alongside Murphy. The winner replaces Johann Lamont, who stood down after revealing in her explosive resignation letter that Westminster colleagues treated Labour in Scotland like a “branch office”.
Now one of those colleagues is set to take her job. The votes are now closed and Jim Murphy is tipped to pip Neil Findlay to the post, despite a strong campaign by Mr Findlay that appealed to the traditional Labour vote and won major union backing.
However, I’m still in the camp that thinks it isn’t necessarily a shoo in.
I’ve heard from Labour party sources that they have seen increased membership of around 1,000 post-referendum, many of whom have joined to vote for Neil Findlay. If this and his union supports pulls him through, we could see a repeat of an Ed Miliband-style victory. This prospect has certainly worried Jim Murphy enough to use the phone-a-friend option and draft in Margaret Curran.
The East Renfrewshire MP has pledged to unite the party and unite Scotland after the independence referendum I think it’s the Labour Party that needs uniting, not Scotland. The real questions are, however: Is Murphy the man to put Labour back on track? Can a Westminster MP, who is widely seen as a Blairite, reach out to Labour’s disaffected Scottish heartlands?
A look at his voting record reveals a lot. He voted strongly to support the Iraq war, and voted against an investigation into the Iraq war on 11 of 16 occasions. He voted to replace Trident with a new nuclear weapons system, when a majority of his Scottish Westminster colleagues did not. He campaigned against the Bedroom Tax but missed five votes on it.
Last November, Labour heavily trailed that it was supposedly standing against the Tories to oppose it, yet 46 Labour MPs including Jim Murphy missed the vote. Mr Murphy was actually spotted lunching in a restaurant in Glasgow that day by rock band Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite. He voted against devolving more powers to Holyrood and didn’t even vote in nine out of 13 divisions on the Scotland Bill. That is nearly 70% of the votes on it.
It was also reported that Jim Murphy was involved in downgrading Labour’s Devolution Commission status and its proposals. But now he wants his self-styled form of devolution, Murphy Max. And, let’s not forget, this is a man who actually helped introduce tuition fees.
But this doesn’t mean that he isn’t a capable politician. He has spent his life in politics and it has been his only job. Jim Murphy is a man with drive and ambition and is an experienced campaigner who will run a tight operation. He may not help Labour regain its traditional support and its position as the main party in Scotland with his reheated version of Blairism but he will steady the ship.
The fact of the matter is that it is bad for democracy if Scottish Labour continues on a path to annihilation. Every parliament needs strong opposition and Labour needs to get its act together if it is to fulfil this role in Holyrood and reconnect with voters.