JEREMY Corbyn’s speech at the close of the Labour conference was one of his best: confident, swaggering, and with enough eye-catching ideas to put the fear of God into the Tories as they contemplate their own sorry state next week.
“Pull yourself together or make way,” he told them, highlighting the bungling over Brexit.
He pitched Labour as the party of the mainstream, not because it had traded its values, but because voters had move its way since the Crash, with people increasingly anxious about work, housing and their children’s future.
How a Labour government would pay for its radical new tomorrow remains its Achilles’ heel, but Mr Corbyn, so often written-off, is entitled to feel satisfied with his party’s progress.
But into each life a little rain must fall, or in Mr Corbyn’s case an absolute shower.
For while the UK leader was basking in the Brighton glow, his Scottish comrades were reverting to type and fighting like ferrets with a drink in them.
To be fair, Scottish Labour’s leadership contest was thrust on it at short notice by Kezia Dugdale - it did not ask for it, and was ill-prepared for the moment.
But a crisis can also be an opportunity, and Scottish Labour could have used the contest to engage voters and showcase what the party stands for.
Instead, it has so far been a dismal reminder of why people turned away from it.
In Anas Sarwar there is a candidate whose private and financial affairs contrast so sharply with his late conversion to Corbynism they strain credulity.
While Richard Leonard appears to be applying for the role of branch office manager, a parroting functionary so in thrall to Mr Corbyn that Scottish Labour’s hard-won autonomy is at risk.
Thanks to a leaked tape of interim leader Alex Rowley, the contest is now an all-out feud.
Mr Rowley, despite professing neutrality, told a student at the conference that he was backing Mr Leonard as part of a “plan” he and others on the Left worked on before Ms Dugdale’s exit.
Based on the fleeting nature of Scottish Labour leaders, it was always a reasonable bet that Ms Dugdale might go before 2021, and anticipating that was not unfair.
But rather than take a philosophical view, Mr Sarwar’s camp ramped up the invective.
One of his outriders accused Mr Rowley of hypocrisy, plotting and - for good measure - “a complete betrayal of the membership and every value we hold dear.”
More mud was then thrown back from Mr Leonard’s side of the playground.
Obviously there are unresolved differences over Mr Corbyn - Ms Dugdale was against him, Mr Sarwar urged him to quit, and Mr Rowley, Mr Leonard and others have not forgiven them for it.
Raw feelings take time to heal. But this is a contest for grown-ups, for people putting themselves forward to be First Minister.
If the warring camps cannot even do what is right for their party, they should not expect voters to give them any say on what is right for the country.
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