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Jack McConnell started last week with high hopes. After taking a breather
from the gruelling early days of the election campaign to celebrate his 17th
wedding anniversary, the first minister was looking forward to a turning
point for Labour.
Despite trailing in the polls, he was confident his party would enjoy a bounce
from its manifesto launch last Tuesday, then benefit from the negative
fallout from the launches of the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National
party on the following days, as their plans for a radical new local income
tax came under scrutiny.
Instead, it proved to be a week of blunders, threadbare policy and open
hostility to McConnell from Scotland’s business leaders, adding to the sense
of a party beleaguered and bewildered as it found itself still unable to get
on the front foot. This week seems equally ripe with ill omens.
Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary and one of the architects of
Labour’s campaign, has become embroiled in a row over party political work
being carried out by a civil servant. Tomorrow, Labour plans to unveil a
national campaign of press advertisements costing tens of thousands of
pounds to advertise a party election broadcast that has already been branded
a “dodgy video” by opponents.
Unremittingly negative, the film does not feature any Labour politicians or
Labour policies, and only mentions the party in its final sentence. Instead,
more than two and half minutes of air time is devoted to warning families of
the threat posed by a “£5,000 SNP tax bill”, with worried testimonials from
three apparently ordinary and impartial households.
However, all is not what it seems. What is not explained is that one of the
three families is that of Murdo Mathison, until recently deputy general
secretary of the Scottish Labour party, its second top official. The SNP has
pounced on the presentation of what it regards as a brazen attempt to
mislead the public by presenting a partisan Labour supporter as an ordinary
member of the public.
They will be hoping the broadcast could ignite the campaign in the same way
that the notorious “Jennifer’s ear” row wrecked Neil Kinnock’s chances in
the 1992 general election.
The past week has been punishing enough for McConnell. It began with a story
that Wendy Alexander, the former enterprise minister, and Andy Kerr, the
health minister, were gearing up for a contest to replace McConnell in the
wake of the election. Both strenuously denied they were plotting, but
privately MSPs conceded that McConnell’s shelf-life was coming to an end. A
whiff of death blew across the Labour campaign.
Tuesday’s manifesto launch went relatively well — at first. Surrounded by vast
images of happy bouncing children, McConnell made an impassioned case for
massively increasing investment in education, with better schools and
universities becoming the engine room of the economy by 2020, even if it
meant squeezes on other government departments.
But he struggled when questioned about his party’s proposals for reforming
council tax, betraying a lack of knowledge of even the basics of how the
changes would be implemented. The impression, reinforced by rumours of a
behind-the-scenes scramble to pad out the manifesto, was of a party flying
by the seat of its pants on what was always going to be a key issue.
The Lib Dem launch the following day offered McConnell some succour, largely
because Nicol Stephen was so rattled by questions from the media that he
stopped taking them after a brief but bruising 15 minutes.
His suggestion that every policy in his manifesto was ultimately negotiable in
coalition did him no favours, reviving the Tory charge that the Lib Dems are
political “prostitutes”.
However Thursday, for all its brilliant spring sunshine, was a decidedly dark
one for Labour.
The SNP launch was widely seen as the slickest of the election, with the
nationalists using the glorious backdrop of Napier University’s
Craiglockhart campus to present themselves as a confident — but not
overconfident — government-in-waiting.
A few hours later McConnell and Cathy Jamieson, his campaign co-ordinator,
held a rebuttal press conference, issuing ironic black “pledge cards”
listing five ways the SNP’s policies would create turmoil.
McConnell demanded the SNP provide full details of their local income tax
plans, but this merely prompted a flurry of questions about why he couldn’t
offer the same level of information about his council tax reform. The first
minister was unable even to give the date his “minimal” changes would take
effect.
Afterwards, as he wolfed down slices of melon from the buffet, McConnell
appeared chipper and confident his education policy had the inventiveness
and edge to sway voters. But the event had reeked of desperation.
It got worse that evening, as he was booed at a hustings organised by the
Federation of Small Businesses. At one point a voice boomed out: “Goodbye,
Jack. Enjoy your retirement.”
As the abuse grew, McConnell’s face became increasingly grim, and he knotted
his hands beneath his chin.
After the hustings closed, he sped from the stage, the only one of the leaders
not to stay and work the room.
On Friday, the bungling continued, as Labour previewed the party political
election broadcast that will be shown tomorrow evening and is being backed
by a costly splurge on press advertising. It asks “how would your family
cope with the SNP’s £5,000 tax bill for families?” before hearing the views
of three families.
Angela, a working mother, says her holidays and family trips would have to
end; another, Elizabeth, says she would probably have to move house.
There is also a father, Murdo, who says it was the same sum as his daughter’s
nursery fees and there were better ways to spend your money than “just to
break up Britain”.
Douglas Alexander said the message had returned swithering voters to the
Labour fold and was particularly effective at dissuading female voters from
backing the nationalists.
However, what he failed to say, and was omitted from the film, was that
“Murdo” was no ordinary Joe, but Murdo Mathison, who until 18 months ago was
deputy general secretary of the Scottish Labour party. The SNP is now
dismissing the broadcast as another example of Labour spin and mendacity,
trying to draw its sting before it has been aired.
Asked if the broadcast was entirely honest, Mathison told The Sunday Times:
“Obviously I think it is, but if you have any questions about that then you
should phone the party.”
Including such a prominent Labour official and then expecting nobody to notice
was also “plain stupid”, according to one senior party member and
symptomatic of an organisation in freefall.
“What are they playing at? We’ve heard about the longest suicide note in
history before, but this appears to be the longest suicide act, the way
they’re behaving. What chancers,” he added.
With three weeks to go until polling day, Labour is now in the embarrassing
position of being excluded from much of the campaign discussion about who
will form a ruling coalition after May 3. Last week Alex Salmond cosied up
publicly to Nicol Stephen on the issue of a referendum on independence — the
only deal-breaker for the Lib Dems — saying it was his clear preference, but
he did not rule out a compromise and everything would ultimately depend on
the numbers after May 4.
He also stressed that he wanted to rule in a coalition rather than as a
minority administration if the SNP were the largest party. The signal was
clear: the SNP are ready to deal.
So far Stephen has ranged from being ambivalent to hostile to such approaches
without explicitly ruling out a Lib Dem-Nat coalition. There is growing pressure
on him from Sir Menzies Campbell, the national Lib Dem leader, to strike a
deal rather than prop up a discredited Labour party. His intervention
follows an admission by Jim Wallace, Stephen’s predecessor, reported in last
week’s Sunday Times that the Lib Dems might be prepared to countenance an
independence referendum if it included more powers for Holy-rood rather than
outright separatism.
“Apart from independence there are quite a few things we have in common with
the SNP — we’re both antinuclear and against Trident and we both have plans
to replace the council tax with a local income tax,” said one Lib Dem MSP.
“If Labour loses seats and there were still enough seats between Labour and
Liberals to form a majority, I would be very uncomfortable about us going
into coalition again with Labour.”
Today, when McConnell takes part in the third televised leaders debate of the
campaign, the pressure will be on him as never before. He simply cannot
afford another week like the last.
Pressure pointers
LIKE many politicians, Jack McConnell can appear serenely confident while
adeptly masking the turmoil that the pressures of high office inevitably
bring. But, according to a leading handwriting expert, you need only look at
how he signs his name to glimpse his inner insecurity.
Erik Rees compared McConnell’s signature on Labour’s 2007 election manifesto
with that on the document of four years ago.
“There is a lack of confidence and the surname reflects this and has become
neglected — it is not so easy to see McConnell,” he said. “He is cheesed off
and it shows in the lack of time he has taken to write his name. It doesn’t
matter to him any more.
“In the middle of his name, the ‘c’ has become more pronounced. It looks more
like an egg. That is a self-protective movement, so he is thinking of how to
deal with defeat.”
Leila Collins, a psychologist and lecturer at Middlesex University, said
McConnell’s chewed nails were “a symptom of anxiety” in a man nervous about
his future. “This is like regression,” she added, “going back to when you
are a baby and sucking your thumb for comfort.”
