May I proceed, as everybody else is doing, from the assumption that Wendy Alexander will become the new leader of her MSP group at Holyrood?
Far be it from me to add difficulty to her job of remoulding the UK Labour Party's activities in Scotland so as to make its election campaigns up here more effective than the recent one. But I believe the task is going to be harder than even she presently recognises. In the first hours of her leadership campaign, she has proposed several very sensible principles for injection into the work ahead of her: to listen, to respond, to engage, and so on.
Another was: to be humble.
I single out this last one, being humble, for the following reason. In the next breath, so to speak, Ms Alexander claimed that the SNP had won the May election because it had seized "Labour's agenda of hope and aspiration". She went on to assert: "I'm here to tell you that we're going to seize it back." Test her words. If they are not intended to be taken literally, they can have no meaning at all. Her remark carries the essential inference that "hope and aspiration" are twin elements of a policy written in Labour's policy book - and in Labour's only. In no other party's. Labour's intellectual property, nothing less.
We know that political parties sometimes accuse opponents of pinching their policies, but the idea that the SNP could swipe this one from Labour, then have it swiped back, the SNP thus becoming, again, bereft of it, would be laughable, were it not serious. Ms Alexander clearly believes, as Labour has repeated for years, that no other group of political humans is capable of generating, within its own ranks, any understanding of, or sense of identity with, the needs of the people. This is the heart of Labour's long-standing self-conceit, which, as the party has just found, leads via complacency to inevitable downfall.
So now we see yet another rising Labourite subscribing fully to this arrogant tradition. Ms Alexander has gazed out over her party and seen things which need attention. She has identified humility as one of them. But with her words, she has already barged blindly past the one spot where the seeds of humility and renewal still need to be sown: the impoverished soil of her own, her internal Labour mind-set.
Michael F Troon, 15 Crawford Avenue, Gauldry, Fife.
It would appear that, even under their likely new leader, Wendy Alexander, Labour will continue in its current state of denial. At the launch of her bid for the leadership of Scottish labour, Ms Alexander acknowledged that "in May, the people of Scotland told us loud and clear that they wanted change."
Well spotted, Wendy. However, she went on to assert that the people have not lost faith with Labour's values, they have simply questioned the party's ability to deliver on those values. So it would appear that all that is required is a little tweaking of the propaganda machine to enable the rather dim voters to understand the message.
Has Ms Alexander not noticed that in May the Scottish electors actually voted for a significant change of course? Has it escaped her that we now have in place a Scottish government which has already demonstrated its flair in terms of reversing decisions on proposed hospital closures, better arrangements for student finance and a more confident and robust relationship with the Westminster government as well as other devolved administrations?
I suspect that the leader-in-waiting is in for an unpleasant surprise when she does eventually face a Holyrood election. She will learn then that the same old goods repackaged and accompanied by a few advertising slogans will not be enough to satisfy an electorate who have discovered a new breed of political leader, one characterised by intelligence, skill and true commitment to the Scottish interest.
John Kelly, 65 Hunter Road, Milngavie.
