THE thing this observer likes best about the circumstances surrounding the election of Labour’s Scottish leader is that Johann Lamont is master — or mistress, if she doesn’t mind the term — of all she surveys in the party north of the Border.
Unlike her predecessors — Iain Gray, Jack McConnell, Henry McLeish and the “father of devolution” himself, Donald Dewar, all of whom were subservient to the UK leader even on matters pertaining only to Scotland — Ms Lamont is in charge in Scotland.
What is especially piquant for those of us who spend long hours studying the People’s Party is that the rule changes adopted by Labour mean she is the boss of the likes of Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, and of Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, both of whom are Scottish Labour MPs.
I really, really hope she will start ordering those two about. They are, after all, a couple of those Labour “masters of the universe” who helped invent devolution and the Scottish Parliament and who always say they will do anything for it — anything, that is, short of actual help.
They refused to serve in it or even to run for the party’s Scottish leadership, which means that, technically, Johann Lamont is their boss. Yes, I know they must still jump to the commands, such as they are, from Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition. But on all things Scottish, Johann is in charge. I do hope she cracks the whip.
Seriously, it makes absolute sense for Labour to have one Scottish leader and in many ways the task she faces in uniting the Westminster and Holyrood wings of her party is perhaps as onerous as tackling Alex Salmond and his rampant SNP.
The two sides have been at daggers drawn, almost, ever since Holyrood eclipsed Westminster as the focal point of politics north of the Border and Labour’s MPs became Scotland’s “disappeared ones” — never making the newspaper columns, never mind the TV news bulletins.
Since 1999 and the advent of the devolved parliament, most Labour MPs have hardly concealed their view that their MSP colleagues were wholly unfitted to carry the party’s banner, a feeling that reached a climax in May when the Nats romped to their astonishing victory after a campaign in which the Westminster Labour contingent was all but totally excluded.
La Lamont’s task will be made a bit easier by the election, as deputy leader, of Anas Sarwar, the MP for Glasgow Central, whose task will presumably be to keep the Westminster Labour contingent singing from roughly the same hymn sheet as those in Scotland — something that has not always been the case in recent years.
Everyone tells me Mr Sarwar is a coming, and modernising, force in Scottish Labour. I shall let you know. There’s not a great deal to be said about the new leader’s shadow cabinet appointments — given the paucity of talent she had at her disposal, there wasn’t a lot she could do.
Still, Hugh Henry at education will give Mike Russell a run for his money, at least in terms of pricking that monstrous ego. But it’s a pity that an out-and-out left-winger has been handed the job. What is needed there is someone who will give the minister a boot up the backside in freeing school heads from local authority control.
Lewis Macdonald is a serious citizen who will put Kenny MacAskill’s handling of the Justice Ministry under a long-awaited microscope.
The best thing to come out of Labour’s election weekend is Johann Lamont’s determination to concentrate on forcing Alex Salmond to name the date and the (single) question on breaking up Britain before there is any talk of handing over more powers to the Holyrood parliament.
At least in this respect, she has her priorities absolutely correct.
