The Challenge Ahead

Fairly balanced article in today's Observer looking at Wendy Alexander and the challenges ahead for Scottish Labour.

"Wendy sets sail on a political odyssey

Don't be fooled by the new Labour leader - she is a mature politician hellbent on reviving her party

Wendy Alexander moves forward as if facing down a gale, even when she's entering the less than tempestuous Apex International Hotel in Edinburgh. The impression is of a busy politician who will not brook the attentions of the casual buttonholer.

No one would deny Alexander needs her sense of purpose. This week, she embarks on an epic, almost Odyssean, journey and must prepare for a rough crossing. On Friday, she will be adopted as leader of the Scottish Labour Party, replacing Jack McConnell. Then she will face the increasingly presidential First Minister, Alex Salmond.

The talk in Holyrood is that she will fail, scuppered by a lack of charm. 'This could be a spectacular disaster,' said one observer. A frustrated supporter in the party confirmed: 'She just doesn't listen.'

A lack of obvious empathy will, the thinking goes, alienate her from voters, from an electorate ever more delighted to discover, after all these years, that it is possible to live without the dreary old automatons of Labour. You hear the oddest people talking warmly of the Scottish National Party these days.

For Alexander, this will combine with the impossible task of reforming the Scottish Labour Party. It is a political machine all but untouched by Tony Blair's reforms: moribund (if not just dead - remember Salmond's put-down of McConnell: 'There's only one dead parrot in this chamber'?); still in denial about its defeat; and as resistant to change as any of the old regimes of communist Eastern Europe.

With its newfound habit of appointing rather than electing its leaders, leadership could offer Alexander the most poisoned of chalices. It was in her search for the antidote that she turned up in the Apex, on the penultimate stop in a nationwide 'listening and learning' tour.

The conference room she entered was full, but not overpopulated. The crowd of 100 or so had a smattering of MSPs, the capital's ex-provost Eric Milligan, but it was mostly taken up by activists, the true believers. A glance at the crowd was to see how traduced, how depressed, Scottish Labour is.

Yet as soon as Alexander stopped walking, it became apparent that she has the moves to prove her detractors wrong. At the most superficial level, she is refreshing. At 44, she is young. She has new twins and her husband, Professor Brian Ashcroft, has stepped down from a good position at Strathclyde University to look after them. For Scottish politics, that is downright modern. It is also wonderful.

There is the whiff of sexism in Scottish politics about some of the criticisms. Ludicrous comparisons have been made with Margaret Thatcher. The introduction of the phrase 'to be Wendied' as a substitute for 'to be bullied' reflects badly against general admiration for Salmond's ability with the vicious put-down.

Alexander has been called a nerd, yet she put her political career on ice to have children. She has been berated for being a policy wonk, yet last week's performance showed she actually has beliefs. She grew politically mature at the hand of Donald Dewar. She is a serious politician.

Her ideas for reforming the party - those that she will admit to - are, as yet, obvious. She wants to reform the hierarchy and bring technology into the heart of the operation, getting rid of the smoke-filled rooms in Wishaw in favour of stream-of-consciousness blogging on the web, encouraging back the young.

What was truly startling - and unsettling - about the evening in the Apex were the hints at how she plans to combat Salmond and the SNP. For these could see the Union itself threatened.

Her opponent set out his stall on Wednesday. Salmond announced the 11 bills that make up his legislative programme. Legislation-lite, as the Lib Dem leader Nicol Stephen put it. But measures such as dropping the tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges will appeal to voters, as Salmond gets on with the main business of driving a wedge into the union. As he lands the blows, he continues to look hurt when anyone plays party politics.

At the Apex, Alexander hinted at how she might be prepared to call Salmond's bluff. 'There will be a referendum in 2010,' she told the delegates.

That's quite a statement. Why must there be a referendum? Her certainty was odd, for there is no need for one. The SNP have not got the votes in Parliament to call it. Could she be planning to have Labour back this call? Her advisers were not forthcoming, beyond encouraging speculation.

'There will be a referendum in 2010 and the SNP will lose,' she told the delegates. Once that vote was lost, her theory seemed to be, the SNP will turn in and start devouring itself, and Labour will return to power.

The are many flaws in this theory, but the brinkmanship suggests Alexander does not suffer from McConnell's natural timidity. The chutzpah could re-energise the Labour party and the wider debate. Sadly, for Scotland, it will mean the constitutional settlement will remain the pre-eminent issue in Scottish politics for the next three years, distracting from problems in governance, in housing, in energy, in economics.

The impression Alexander gives is that she recognises this, but the battle is necessary to renew the Labour party, and to that end the Union itself must be risked. It's hardly surprising that she is walking as if facing a storm."

Wonder what that "2010" comment means - maybe she is planning for Labour to vote down the SNP's referendum bill and legislate a new one, perhaps a multi-option referendum with certainly different wording to the independence question.

With some work, the Labour bill would get the support of Parliament, with the ideological instransigence surrounding the SNP's bill having doomed it. This would also give Labour a better chance of being able to frame the debate on independence as a choice between pragmatic support for status quo/greater powers or ideologically-motivated support for independence with all the attendant dangers and risks.