Things may be looking up for the Labour Party, writes Chris Deerin, but will Keir Starmer moving into Downing Street make life any better in Scotland?
Politics does funny things to those who embrace it. It gets into their bloodstream and never really leaves.
Take Ed Balls. While a politician, he had a reputation as one of Gordon Brown’s most tribally ruthless henchmen. Since losing his seat in 2015, though, he has become something of a national treasure: a campaigner for his fellow stammerers, a popular contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, and an amateur chef who is now often found presenting both the fluffy and serious bits of Good Morning Britain.
We have learned that there is considerably more to Balls than the archetypal political bruiser. One would have thought this new life would be preferable to the old: better paid, more fun, considerably less stressful. Who would want to go back to grim meetings about Treasury spreadsheets and ducking Brown’s airborne stapler?
Well, Balls would, I’m told. A friend who met him recently asked whether he would return to the senior levels of government if he could. “Like a shot,” was the reported response.
Douglas Alexander clearly feels the same. The former secretary of state for Scotland freely admits to having the wind knocked out of him when, in 2015, he lost his Paisley seat to 20-year-old Mhairi Black, as the SNP inflicted near wipeout on Labour in Scotland.
Like Balls, Alexander is clever, serious and adaptable, though perhaps not fluffy. After leaving Westminster, he became a senior fellow at Harvard and took roles at various other prestigious US institutions. He worked for Bono, on the U2 singer’s One campaign to attract investment into Africa. An enviable portfolio.
Still, it’s not politics. Alexander has just been selected as Labour’s candidate for East Lothian at the next general election. Presumably, he has calculated that the odds of winning the seat are high – it is currently held by Kenny MacAskill, who left the SNP to join Alex Salmond’s breakaway Alba party, with a majority of under 4,000.
The Labour Party is on the rise
If the tide is indeed turning against Nicola Sturgeon, as recent polls suggest, then the national swing that takes Labour back to power at Westminster – even taking into account Scotland’s particular politics – should get Alexander over the line.
This, I think, would be a good thing. The SNP triumph in 2015, where it won 56 of the 59 seats available and left only one Labour MP standing, saw a lot of talent kicked to the kerb. Not all of the Nat replacements were what you’d call an upgrade.
Alexander would surely come into the reckoning for a ministerial post in Keir Starmer’s administration, perhaps even a cabinet role. There aren’t many left in Labour’s ranks with previous ministerial experience – only Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband spring to mind.
One would think his years in the wilderness, and the introspection and increased self-awareness this must have encouraged, will only have made Alexander a more rounded human being. That has value.
Most people in Scotland, I think, would like Labour to win the general election likely to be held next year. I include in this the more thoughtful and balanced supporters of independence, who would surely prefer a social democratic government at Westminster for as long as Scotland remains in the UK.
A prolonged spell on the opposition naughty step, therefore – you just stay there and think about what you’ve done! – will be good for the Tories, and good for the rest of us
Even a fair number of Conservatives are not unhappy that the jig is finally up. The longer this fag-end Tory government limps on, the more damage is being done to the party’s reputation. It foisted Boris Johnson and Liz Truss on the country, which will not be easily forgotten or forgiven. The economy is a mess. Brexit is increasingly loathed and seen as a dreadful strategic mistake.
The Scottish party and its MSPs cannot escape association. A prolonged spell on the opposition naughty step, therefore – you just stay there and think about what you’ve done! – will be good for the Tories, and good for the rest of us.
Starmer won’t change much about Sturgeonland
But there’s still something missing, isn’t there? It doesn’t exactly feel like 1997, the last time an incoming Labour government ejected an unpopular Conservative administration from Downing Street.
The country desperately needs fresh leadership and energy after more than a decade of right-wing dominance. And, yet, even though Starmer might be on course for a sizeable majority, I can’t access the same thrill that I felt with the ascendancy of Blair and Brown.
I talked about this last week with a well-connected friend who was on a visit from London. To him, the looming handover of power is exciting and, indeed, has echoes of 1997.
Starmer is no Blair, he admits, but is a decent and moral man who will seek to improve the lot of the poor, better our relationship with the EU, and work to bring growth back to the economy. Plus, many of the greasers and chancers who have defined these final Tory years will be cast into obscurity.
Perhaps this lack in me is down to the nature of modern Scottish politics. Westminster often feels a long way away, and its concerns – setting aside global issues such as the war in Ukraine – are not always ours. We see little of Starmer and his frontbench.
Instead, we live in Sturgeonland, with its relentless independence wars, its specific, horrible policy failures, and, now, its debate over the future of the first minister. For us, a Labour government isn’t likely to change this overmuch.
Optimism is one of the most important qualities in life and politics – but where oh where can the poor Scottish voter find it?
Chris Deerin is a leading journalist and commentator who heads independent, non-party think tank, Reform Scotland
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