A ex Scottish Labour MSP has said that Sir Keir Starmer has the “has the personality of a house brick” in an astonishing attack on his former party. 

Neil Findlay decried the lack of leadership and vision at the top of Labour and believes that the party is only on course to win the next General Election because the Conservatives have become “toxic” to voters. 

Writing in The Herald, Mr Findlay said that there were no “big ideas” coming from Labour and that Sir Keir had presided over a policy vacuum. 

He called on the party to bring forward new legislation to answer the “huge problems” society faces, saying that voters deserved better.  

Mr Findlay, who stood down from Holyrood in 2021, backed Jeremy Corbyn as leader and was a member of Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard’s shadow cabinet.  

READ MORE: Holyrood is a parliament of the middle class for the middle class

He writes: “The hatchet job on Corbyn worked and Labour was soundly defeated in 2019. 

“Now we see his successor Keir Starmer ahead in almost every poll, not because Labour is hugely popular and their programme exciting, radical and transformational (it isn’t) or his leadership inspirational and motivating (it’s not, he has the personality of a house brick) but because the Tories have become a tarnished toxic brand who everyone, apart from the super-rich, knows has made our lives worse. 

“When a party is so clearly associated with such chronically bad decision-making their days are well and truly numbered. But with Labour saying nothing that fundamentally challenges the status quo will we see any real and lasting change?” 

The former MSP said that the time had come for radical policies to tackle society’s ills, and called on voters to demand better from their elected representatives.  

READ MORE: Holyrood is a parliament of the middle class for the middle class

He writes: “We need politicians who have something to offer. Who will bring forward new legislation to answer the huge problems society faces.  

“Who will argue for more doctors and nurses, for taxes on the rich and controls on the powerful, for a new funding system for re-democratised councils, for publicly owned renewables, for educational opportunities for all and for additional cash to be directed deliberately and consistently to areas of most need, ending the scandal of poverty and inequality that blights our society.”