Tagged with Jim Murphy

Support Neil Findlay’s campaign to lead Scottish Labour in pursuit of social justice

Neil Findlay MSPNeil Findlay, shadow cabinet secretary for health and wellbeing in the Scottish parliament, today announced that he will stand for the Leadership of the Scottish party. Neil can expect the support of many on the centre-left of the party and within the trade unions in the expected contest with Westminster MP Jim Murphy from the Blairite wing of the party who has yet to announce his candidature and fellow MSP Sarah Boyack, shadow cabinet secretary for local government and planning who announced hers yesterday.

Neil had recently made clear his belief that, in order to win the elections Scottish Labour faces in 2015 and 2016, they must outflank the SNP from the left, and he proposed a range of policies necessary to do that. Announcing his intention to stand at Holyrood, Neil Findlay said: Continue reading →

Inverclyde result was a draw. It’ll take more than an Irn-Bru re-branding to turn it round.

Ed Miliband may be relieved at last week’s by-election result in Inverclyde, but for Labour in Scotland, it was no better than a draw. Labour held the seat with almost the same share as the late David Cairns in what was a good general election result for Labour locally and in Scotland. That’s the good bit. The SNP almost doubled their vote, appearing to clean up on former Lib Dem voters and winning voters from all other parties. Enough to say with justification that they’re still riding as high as in the May Holyrood elections. Hence the importance of the review of the Scottish party led by leading Westminster Blairite Jim Murphy and MSP Sarah Boyack. Scottish Labour, whose dominance was almost unchallenged for decades, has the fight of its life ahead of it. Continue reading →

The Left must back Ed, warts and all

Ed’s speech was carefully measured.  A re-statement of the post-war justification for the creation of the welfare state — a social responsibility we all share. Those who saw this as an attack on benefit claimants must be basing their view on the spin and interpretation of the speech rather than the speech itself. And those who fail to see the difference between the Keynesian social democratic agenda of the two Eds and the neo-liberalism of David Miliband’s undelivered ‘victory’ speech need to remove their ultra-left blinkers. Continue reading →

Ed Miliband needs to sort out his myopia

Yesterday, Ed Miliband put his brother’s leadership campaign manager, Jim Murphy, in charge of the review of Scottish Labour following the disastrous showing in the Holyrood elections last week. Jim Murphy is a bright man, who no doubt has many interesting things to say about the Scottish election result, and no doubt said some of them to the Shadow Cabinet on Monday, but he is no friend of Ed Miliband, and completely lacks Ed Miliband’s commitment to change — change that it is now clear the Scottish party needs just as badly as the English. How can you rely on the Blairites to conduct a review of their own stewardship of Scottish Labour? As the Policy Network’s latest mutterings demonstrate, the Blairites are as determined as ever to resist change. On this as on other key appointments, Ed Miliband needs to sort out his myopia. If you want change, you can’t rely on those who don’t to deliver it. Continue reading →