Working class hero

Labour in Scotland: cowards, trying to be bullies, and failing.

Yesterday in parliament, soi disant working class hero Neil Findlay was rebuked by the presiding officer for using unparliamentary language. The word "attributed" to him, which it was alleged he had used to describe the First Minister, was "liar". Many watching proceedings on television (and immediately commenting on it in social media) heard the term "lying whore".

Findlay's subsequent account to parliament was a remarkable example of trying to get out of a hole by digging it deeper. He didn't actually admit to anything, referring only to a term "attributed" to him, before blatantly politicising what should have been a matter of procedure. But then Findlay has form here: consider his interventions in James Kelly's hilariously abortive attempts at making a "point of order" last month.

Perhaps in order to deny using the term "lying whore" he will finally have to admit to using the term "liar" instead. Perhaps not. You wouldn't expect an apology from a bully.

But Labour in Scotland are not even bullies any more.

Certainly, they are still habituated to getting their own way, despite being punished repeatedly at the ballot box. But now their problem is no longer policy. It is basic credibility. Now, even if they were to announce the most enlightened policy initiative ever, our automatic response would be that it is a folly intended to ingratiate themselves with the electorate, motivated purely by cynical self-interest and an ousted dictator's nostalgia for past grandeur.

And certainly, Labour in West Central Scotland still retains that patronising, misogynistic element that must be appalled at having to deal with a "wee lassie" as First Minister, someone who should be idolising them as big men instead, as working class heroes.

But it turns out there is something worse than a bully.

They are cowards. Now, rather than bully, they mock and deride the victim from the sidelines. This is what they are reduced to.

As the Scottish Government, in the Smith Commission negotiations, tries to secure the best possible deal for Scotland from a fiscal trap set by the UK Government, one in which Labour have openly colluded by their abstentions at Westminster, Labour's response is to belittle and abuse, to shout "liar".

Labour is no longer in a position to insist on the hegemonic status in Scotland to which it feels entitled. So now they merely obstruct and deride, indulging in suicidally short-sighted sniping, aiming for targets across the chamber but succeeding only in shooting themselves in the foot, and then holding that foot up in triumph as if it was some sort of trophy.  

At Westminster, Labour have tied the Scottish Government's shoelaces together and at Holyrood Labour point and laugh when they fall. Labour crouches down behind the Scottish Government as it confronts the UK Government and then points and laughs when the UK Government pushes them over.

Labour in Scotland. Not heroes. Worse than bullies. Cowards.