Last weekend, the Scotsman quoted unnamed Labour sources as confirming that Scottish Labour was effectively abandoning most Labour-held seats in Scotland by deciding to name just twelve seats it was trying to “rescue” from the SNP onslaught.
The last time Labour did as badly as this in Scotland was 1931 when it won only 7 seats (though it still had 32.6% of the vote, better than is likely on Thursday). That disaster could be put down to an earlier Scottish Labour leader, Ramsay MacDonald. It would be churlish to blame Jim Murphy alone for what will happen on Thursday, but whether or not it is his intention, it is New Labour that is being buried in Scotland by abandoning the former industrial heartlands that gave birth to British social democracy. Continue reading