[A-List] Scotland: New Labour meltdown

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The irony of New Labour as the guardian of devolution having to rely upon
the "expertise" of the Westminster centre will not be lost on many within
the party, never mind outside it.

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Blair sends four-man London team to take control of Scottish election

Exclusive: By Douglas Fraser, Political Editor
The Sunday Herald, 9 March 2003

Tony Blair has placed one of his closest Downing Street advisers at the
heart of Scottish Labour's election campaign, after weeks of growing
frustration in London at the lack of momentum under Jack McConnell's
leadership.

Alongside Alasdair McGowan, three others from London headquarters will take
key positions in the campaign, while the First Minister faces problems from
trade unions which have refused to agree how much they will give the Labour
Party as a vital part of its fighting fund, less than eight weeks before
polling day.

Plus, with large sections of the Labour party hostile to Blair's plans for
war in Iraq, the Scottish party has moved to block open debate at its spring
conference in Dundee later this month. Anti-war campaigners plan to bus
people from around Britain to protest outside the Caird Hall. With divisions
over Iraq policy threatening a Labour split, a motion was recently passed by
several Glasgow constituencies, including that of the party's campaign
co-ordinator Patricia Ferguson, giving backing to the line taken by a
seven-strong group of MSPs who defied the party leadership with an anti-war
motion in the Scottish parliament last month. But instead of the debate they
want, organisers of the Labour conference in two weeks will only allow party
members to put questions to the UK chairman, John Reid. There will be no
motion to vote on and the media will be excluded.

The anti-war wing of the party is considering a mass walk-out if Tony Blair
addresses the conference.

The Scottish National Party, at its national council yesterday in Balloch,
turned up pressure on Labour over Iraq, saying the widespread refusal of
Labour MSPs to answer a Sunday Herald survey on attitudes to war, showed,
according to Kevin Pringle, vice-convener for publicity: 'Either they really
have no opinion or they're too ashamed to back Blair and Bush'.

SNP leader John Swinney pledged support for the armed forces, but argued his
support for them was to warn Blair not to go to war, while former leader
Alex Salmond told delegates: 'A conflict now is not moral, not just and it's
certainly not in our name'.

In seeking to influence the campaign for the May 1 Scottish parliament
ballot, Alasdair McGowan, the Prime Minister's chief adviser on Scottish
affairs, has resigned from his special adviser post as a member of the
powerful 10 Downing Street policy unit, and began work last week at John
Smith House in Glasgow. Although he sought to play down his 'relatively
junior supporting role in relation to policy', his presence along with three
others from London headquarters is highly significant in a campaign team
which McConnell had made clear he wanted to be his own.

It is significant that London presence is from Blair's office and not from
that of Chancellor Gordon Brown, who prefers to think of Scottish Labour as
his fiefdom. Brown took charge of a flagging Labour campaign four years ago,
sidelining then party leader Donald Dewar and putting in place several of
his closest advisers.

The SNP's campaign manager, Nicola Sturgeon, last night claimed the moves
were signs of a Labour campaign in disarray: 'This is proof positive that
Jack McConnell has lost control of the political agenda in Scotland'.

Alongside frustration at Labour's lack of campaign momentum, it has emerged
that trade unions are using their political leverage at a time when they are
trying to win concessions from the Executive on employment rights for public
sector workers.

Public services minister Andy Kerr met representatives of the Scottish
Trades Union Congress last Thursday, and agreed in principle to a deal which
would considerably extend protection of pay and conditions to those whose
work is being moved into private sector contract companies. The same union
group is meeting the First Minister next week.