IT’S yourself! Come away in, Jeremy. Welcome to Scotland. When we heard your first visit as UK Labour leader was imminent we thought it was only right to arrange a traditionally warm Glasgow welcome. Like the one we gave your predecessor you say? You are a card, Jeremy. Coming to Glasgow with a name like Jeremy, a man would have to be.

We know you have been in Edinburgh at the Parliament, so you will not have had your tea. Sit yourself down, and someone will be through in a minute with a bite to eat. Have no fear. Despite some of the patronising jokes you might have heard down south, it will not be a deep fried Mars Bar and chips. Heavens, no. A lovely big plate of sugar sandwiches is coming right up. Wholemeal bread, naturally.

While we are waiting for the kettle to boil, it might be helpful to run through a few things about Scotland, and in particular why, at the last General Election, the party proved to be about as popular up here as ringworm. I know this is something that concerns you. Indeed, you touched upon it in your leader’s speech to conference this week. So what if it was for just a minute? If it is good enough for a Radio 4 game show, it is good enough for us.

We were chuffed to have any mention at all. As you know, there has been a slight frostiness between London HQ and Scotland recently. We had foolishly thought that inventing the Labour Party, voting Labour for donkey’s years and putting lots of bahookies on the green benches at Westminster somehow meant we were due a little respect. But it turned out that, in the words of a former leader – Johann Lamont, she was the one before “Lucky” Jim Murphy – that Scottish Labour was merely a branch office, not even trusted to choose which colour of Post-It notes it used. That hurt, Jeremy. No, I don’t think I do want to call you Jez.

Anyway, here's to new beginnings. And what a fine start you have made, telling us that Kezia will be the head honcho up here, the capo di tutti capi. Yes, she might have said previously that a Corbyn victory would consign Labour to “carping on the sidelines” but she knows her own mind, does Kez. She particularly knows when to change it.

Let us crack on then; one of us has a train to catch. By the by, you got the memo about the SNP not privatising ScotRail? Easy mistake; just don’t do it again. So, the first item on the agenda concerns timescales. What puzzles us, Jeremy, is that London and Scotland seem to be working in two different time zones. I beg your pardon? You would rather we kept the word Scotland out of the conversation and referred instead to individual cities? Oh, I see. Apparently, you have been advised not to use the S word because it plays into the Nationalists’ hands. Jeremy, son, if you think the gap between the SNP and Labour in Scotland can be closed by not saying the word “Scotland” then you are even more of a bam than the media have thus far suggested.

We will come to your analysis of the problem with Scottish Labour in a moment, but let us return to the timescale difficulties for now. Imagine two different calendars. In the Scottish Labour calendar there is a dirty great red circle around May 5, 2016, the date of the Scottish Parliament elections. Then there is the calendar for UK Labour. Actually, you would have a five- year diary because calendars for 2020 are not even out yet. The UK party’s date with destiny is May 2020, the date of the next General Election. By then, assuming Mr Jeremy Corbyn is still leader, all the various policy reviews will have concluded and Labour will finally be singing from the same hymn sheet. In the meantime, while the party down south is running around like headless chickens debating Trident, benefit caps, Europe and much else, Labour in Scotland has to convince the electorate that it is a united force, sure of its policies and what it wants to do with power. It is good to talk Jeremy, but not for too long.

With that, we turn to where you think it all went wrong for Labour in Scotland. You reckon that Labour’s participation in Better Together was to blame for last May’s wipeout. As we said before, Jeremy, the baw was burst long before that. Disillusionment with Labour had set like concrete. Fair enough, you accept that. People have told you that the Labour Party lost its way. “We need to win back their trust,” you said this week, “by showing them exactly what difference a Labour Government would bring to their lives”.

In this scenario, your taking the party to the left will go down a storm in a country that is traditionally seen as being more radical than other parts of the UK. Just a suggestion, but perhaps it might be wise to take note of what one of your former colleagues, Tom Harris, wrote in The Daily Telegraph recently. “As in the rest of the UK,” said the ex-Labour MP for Glasgow South, “the hard left represents a tiny sliver of public opinion in Scotland. The SNP have triumphed, not because of their appeal to the hard left, but to the moderate centre, where there are millions, not thousands, of votes.” Have a think about that.

What is of real concern is that, when it comes to Scotland and the rise of the SNP, you, in common with a fair few of your countrymen and women, seem to have been asleep for the past 20 years. When you try to dismiss the SNP by saying they are “intent on having the arguments of the past rather than looking to the future” it shows an inability to grasp that independence, the embracing or rejection of such, is the political issue that has defined this country for decades and will go on doing so. It might be convenient to believe that nationalism versus Unionism is some quaint debate whose time has come and gone, and that voters are far more interested in improving education, health, transport and so on. Here is the thing, though. They can be passionate about both. They can see the two as inextricably linked. As you, and your deputy Tom Watson will learn from all the visits to Scotland that lie ahead, the independence debate is in with the bricks up here now. It was not a passing fad, like corduroy flares (although I see you are still wearing those), or motorbiking holidays in East Germany. It has to be tackled, head on. Tough on nationalism and tough on the causes of nationalism, eh?

Goodness, look at the time. Your tea has gone cold and those sugar sarnies are untouched. How we Scots gab. Anyway, away and catch that train. Don’t be a stranger now!