SHORTLY after he became leader of Scottish Labour in late 2017, Richard Leonard gave an interview about his formative political years.

A key moment in his youth had been watching the veteran Labour MP Tony Benn on television and buying his book, Arguments for Socialism, at the local Woolworths.

In 1988, while working for Alex Falconer, the left-wing MEP for Mid-Scotland and Fife, Mr Leonard got to meet his hero.

Mr Benn was then fighting Neil Kinnock for the Labour leadership, and Mr Leonard drove him around Scotland as he campaigned.

But while Mr Benn spectacularly failed to win over his party, he certainly left a mark on his chauffeur.

“Here was this great guy, a font of wisdom with a whole life of political experience and he was asking me what I thought about things,” he recalled. “He was very influential, he was charismatic, a fantastic orator and he could explain complex ideas in simple language.”

So we know what Richard thought of Tony. But what, one wonders, would Tony think of Richard if he were alive today?

Mr Benn famously had five questions for the powerful. He listed them in the House of Commons in 1998. “If one meets a powerful person - Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler - one can ask five questions: What power do you have? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? and, how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.”

Now, it is debatable whether Mr Leonard, as leader of Holyrood’s third party, is a power in the land. But he does have power within his own party, and is determined to retain it.

Four of his MSPs have called for him to resign amid woeful polls and fears of a third electoral thrashing at Holyrood next year on top of Euro and Westminster losses last year.

So it is not unreasonable that those same questions be applied to Mr Leonard today as he tries to survive a no confidence vote at Labour’s Scottish Executive Committee (SEC).

He would have little trouble with the first four, but what about the fifth, the one Mr Benn considered the touchstone of a democratic system?

Here Mr Leonard’s answer would surely shock his hero. For according to the Scottish Labour leader, his cheerleading general secretary Michael Sharpe, and his unblushing supporters, the party’s rules don’t cover ‘how can we get rid of you?’

The UK Labour rules permit challenges - indeed, Mr Benn challenged Mr Kinnock five years into his leadership - and Scottish Labour council groups allow challenges.

A fifth of Labour MPs can trigger a contest against a sitting UK leader.

A fifth of Labour MSPs now want to trigger a contest in Scotland.

But despite Mr Leonard initially insisting he would fight any challenge, when one started to emerge, suddenly the ground shifted and we were told the Scottish Labour leader is in fact immune to being challenged. He cannot be removed, only abdicate.

Fans of Catch-22 will savour the explanation from party HQ.

The Scottish rule book says the leader and deputy leader of Scottish Labour shall be elected according to procedural rules set out by the SEC.

However, according to Team Leonard, such procedural rules are only set out in the event of a contest, and as there is no vacancy there is no contest and so there are no such rules.

Also, while the UK Labour rule book has provisions for contests with and without vacancies, the Scottish rule book has no such provisions.

To quote an email from Scottish Labour’s head of communications: “Therefore no vacancy = no problem.”

General secretary Sharpe also added his own bit of sophistry, arguing that as Labour at Holyrood - one death, seven resignations - has never had a leadership challenge before, it can’t have one now.

In a statement as patronising as it was weaselly, he said: “This is a rule for that element of the Labour Party, but it is not a ‘precedent’ for the Scottish Labour Party.

“A ‘precedent’ might be a past action or decision of the Scottish Labour Party which helps interpret our rules. However, I am not aware of any such precedent on this issue.”

On that basis, Mr Leonard could, if minded, name himself leader for life.

“I’m in charge because you can’t make me leave,” he could say.

Let’s use some of Mr Benn’s “simple language” about this.

It is twisted, self-serving, nonsense and anyone peddling it ought to be ashamed. The idea that the party Mr Leonard calls radical cannot act in the absence of precedent. The idea that a party that calls itself democratic cannot get rid of its leader. Absurd.

This wretched scuttling around for loopholes may keep Mr Leonard in post hour-by-hour, but there’s more to being a leader than being a limpet.

Even Donald Trump, that model of integrity, had a leadership challenge.

Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld secured his place in the footnotes of history by running against the President for over a year, even picking up 10 per cent of the vote in the Vermont Republican primary before calling it a day in the spring.

But not in Scottish Labour. Oh no. Here no vacancy = no problem.

Faced with this wall of mince, around a third of the SEC are trying to put pressure on Mr Leonard to stand down or agree to a leadership election with the no confidence vote.

It would not be binding, but it might jolt him into facing reality.

I do not know what the SEC will do today. I said in this column last month that Mr Leonard hasn’t cut it, and should go. The sweaty scrabblings of the past week haven’t changed my view or enhanced his electability.

But even if Mr Leonard survives this no confidence vote, he and his party will not have peace until they can answer Tony Benn’s fifth question with a clear conscience.

Mr Leonard has claimed he has a mandate to carry on from the Labour members who elected him leader, but those members did not think they were anointing a king.

Those who say their leader is untouchable are not defending their party, they are debasing it.