THE election of Jim Murphy as leader of the Labour Party in Scotland will turn out surely to be a disaster.
The reasons have been spelled out by STUC general council member Suki Sangha (Under Murphy Labour cannot be reclaimed, News, December 14). We desperately need a revived party of the left, which will tackle pervasive corporate power, one that will "democratise our communities and workplaces".
We do not need a Labour leader in Scotland who is a Blairite, a supporter by association of Gordon Brown's calamitous policies as chancellor during the Blair administration, and of the disastrous Iraq war and of Trident. Ed Miliband's speech last week simply underlines how and why we need in Scotland an independent, reconstructed, movement of the left.
If Jim Murphy won't do it, the SNP will have to. Those of us who are distressed and horrified by the lurch to the right of what should be a party of the left will have to transfer our allegiance to that party.
Ian Ferguson
High Corrie, Isle of Arran
A CALL from the heart by Jim Murphy to Scots: "I get the pressing needs of our nation. I understand the cries for change. I will always put Scotland first. I would like to invite all Scots regardless of politics, regardless of referendum, to work together to build the fairest nation on Earth."
Does that mean Labour MSPs in the Scottish Parliament will stop their knee-jerk opposition to anything proposed by the SNP, even if it was for the good of the country, as they have for the last seven years? That would be a change for the better.
Or did he mean that we all must unite behind the Labour Party, as only the Labour way is best for Scotland? If so, that sounds like the same old, tired message that has been rejected at the previous two Scottish elections.
James Mills
Johnstone
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