Fly away Wendy - but why did she really go? UPDATE OF EARLIER POST

UPDATE: Since posting this I have been contacted by someone who knows Wendy and the Labour Holyrood group very well. The source confirms what I say in the blog, indeed goes further. "Wendy was telling everyone who would listen that she was going to be the next Finance Minister.  This is a classic flounce." The only thing that remains uncertain is whether Andy Kerr or Wendy herself put an ultimate to Gray. Either way it is evidence that Labour in Scotland are not a happy bunch.

 

 

 

It wouldn't be a political village without MSPs clucking away about each other. So while we all wish Wendy Alexander well in her forthcoming role as school gate mum extraordinaire....perhaps a little surface scratching is in order. According to the Holyrood gossip mill, Ms Alexander, having tasted blood as chair of the Scotland Bill Committee, hoped for high office again. There were whispers that she had confided to friends  she was to be anointed Finance Minister in a Labour government led by Iain Gray (that was before this week's IPSOS MORI poll put the SNP ahead). Naturally - so the story goes - this didn't go down well with Andy Kerr, the party's actual finance spokesman. So as way leads on to way, some claim Kerr told Gray it's me or her. He chose Kerr and suddenly it's fly away Wendy.

Scurrilous...but that doesn't mean it's untrue. Perhaps Ms Alexander's hand was finally forced by that poll showing Salmond set for a second term. It came at the end of a dreadful period for Labour.  See Iain MacWhirter's analysis. Cracks were beginning to show and it may be that Alexander is the first casualty. She and Kerr are said to have been united in one thing - they wanted Labour to vote for the SNP budget last week that promised to deliver a record 25,000 modern apprenticeships. But the story is that Iain Gray did not attend the group meeting at which they made their pleas for political maturity - he was at a dinner and could not be contacted. So he lead the group to vote against a budget that more than met all their earlier demands for investment in jobs. As was later reported, there is considerable frustration within Labour about this.  Some senior MSPs complain Gray is an easily lead boy, and tends to run with a rather wild element in the group. This would not have given Ms Alexander much confidence either. So embarrassed was she by the whole sorry debacle that she couldn't bring herself to mention the budget in her speech about...the budget.

Suddenly, it's all going wrong for Labour in Scotland. First the news that Brian Souter is donating £500k to the SNP campaign, then the Ipsos Mori poll, now Wendy's departure.

There was already disgruntlement among a few Labour backbenchers dismayed at the decision to man the barricades for the supermarket barons. The £30m raised by the Tesco Tax would have employed 1000 nurses and merely increased their rates to he same level as England and on a par with smaller retailers. Some very loyal Labour supporters, including a former aide to Gordon Brown, have questioned the  Gray's bizarre and irresponsible social justice policies that demand mandatory six month jail sentences for knife carrying and oppose the SNP move to replace short 3 month sentences with community orders. And many wonder why Gray and his justice spokesman kept condemning the Lockerbie Bomber's release which their party colleagues did everything to effect it. They must have know but said nothing. The charges of organised political hypocrisy will stick and are already being applied to other examples of Scottish Labour's general approach.

The party is showing signs of serious division. According to The New Statesman, the May manifestos is being rewritten hastily because it was uncosted. They are getting only one extra pair of hands to help with the election campaign - Tom Greatrex MP, best know for his mastery of the black arts. He was responsibile for leaking a story about paths on the Queen's Balmoral estate - an attempt to embarrass the environment minister Roseanna Cunningham which only succeeded in alerting the world's terror cells to the best way to get to the Royal Family. He refused to resign even when revealed as the source of the leak by cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell - who also exposed Labour's duplicity re Lockerbie last week.

I suspect even Mr Greatrex's black ops cannot save his hapless Holyrood colleagues now. But it's not just in Scotland that Labour politicians are tearing each other apart. In the latest New Statesman, the journalist Kevin Maguire reports of a London Labour fundraiser where the newly appointed shadow chancellor Ed Balls was openly challenging the authority of his  leader Ed Miliband by naming his own preferred cabinet. This Fantasy Football fair annoyed former Scotland Secretary and now shadow defence spokesman Jim Murphy, who was not part of Balls's dream team.

 

 

 

Comments

[Joan]

@peter I can see you're not bitter :-)

[Peter1958]

We shall all miss Wendy, but, I can assure you, the Labour Party in Scotland will get along quite nicely. Unlike the SNP, the Party is much bigger than any one individual and always will be. Leaders come, leaders go - they are but mere custodians of a position.

As for MacWhirter's so-called "analysis", from his spittle-flecked diatribe on Newsnight it was clear for all to see that he did not enjoy what you might refer to as the confidence of La Wendy.

Bon soir Wendy - I loved you even if no one else did. Perhaps one day you might even "pull an Alex" - swear blind you will not stand for office under any circumstances, make it known that one of the declared candidates is not your cup of tea, and then throw your hat in the ring moments before the deadline and after said candidate has stood aside for "the sake of the party". Alex Neil, what a pure sap you are! Nice one Alex.

[CassiusClaymore]

Joan

The update is interesting - I can well understand why she quit. Imagine being second choice behind Andy Kerr for anything!! Total humiliation.

CC

[frankly francophone]

I am fascinated by your update. It does appear, then, that the lady is going off in a huff.

What happens now? The Labour Party presumably won't want her flouncing about in a state of permanent disgruntlement. I wonder what would put her in a nice mood and repair the rift within the lute.

"It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute."
(Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

Would the usual peerage be in order? One knows how much peerages seem to mean to some Labour politicians. Once upon a time one would have sworn blind that Lord Jack of Glensorrydale or whatever wouldn't have cared to be seen dead in ermine. But look at him now.

[CassiusClaymore]

Enjoyed the typo Joan. It put me in mind of legendary American investor T. Boone Pickens, who famously said "a hundred million here, a hundred million there.....pretty soon you're talking real money"

CC

[Iain]

Another excellent article.

Alibi, now that made me laugh!

[Barontorc]

Most things touched by Jim Murphy is going belly-up and by the law of lessening risks - his reputation in Wastemonster when further compounded by the fact that he is a Scot, albeit and ironically, of the very apologetic North British camp, seems to be disappearing like snow off a dyke. For the latest opinion poll check out what the new kid on the block Michael Dugher, a protegee of Ed Balls, thinks of him. Maybe Rami will come to his aid?

[Alibi]

I await with interest the revelations of the real reasons behind her sudden resignation. My money is on some sort of financial scandal which will be revealed when she is reported to have amassed 100,000,000 Tesco Clubcard points.

[Father MacKenzie]

Good article but one slight correction:

Had the Tesco tax been implemented the level of rates for those businesses affected would still be 0.7p in the pound lower than the equivalent English rate.

I believe Calum Cashley has a full breakdown of the figures on his blog.

[rosne]

No doubt Labour will be using every dirty tactic they can think of to gain power, from postal votes to disinformation.

also, the EBalls vs EMiliband rival manoeuvrings is definitely something to watch closely over the next few years.

[frankly francophone]

I agree with you, dramfineday, but then I am not so well informed as Joan McAlpine.

[Joan]

@scottish politics well spotted corrected now. So many large sums bandied about since the banking crisis it's odd not to stick a bill or mill at the end of everything!

[Gavin C Barrie]

Goodbye and good riddance. Your performance as chair of the Scotland Bill was a disgrace and a disservice to Scotland.
In mitigation I can only think that you consider yourself as North British and so was affording us the Union dividend.
We don't want it.

[cynicalHighlander]

OT This is worth listening to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f49rj

Labour in Scotland have no idea in their purpose other than oppose everything that anyone else thinks.

[Scottish Politics]

Great article, would just say though, £500k not £500m though chance would be a fine thing indeed! ;)

[dramfineday]

Another factor in M/s Alexander's ejector seat style departure may have been that she realised what a load of old cobblers the Scotland Bill is and what the likely impact on the country will be. Perhaps the penny dropped in the old planet sized brain. Clearly she didn't want to be around when reality crashes in. Mind you, maybe your version is nearer the truth Joan. Whatever it is, it looks like she's run away again.