Labour's Secret Weapon: Stupidity

Tuesday, 26th April 2011

I don't think this is a very good idea:

Senior staffers in Ed Miliband’s office started briefing Scottish hacks last night that Miliband is now going to take a much more "hands on" approach to the campaign. Miliband has only made one, brief appearance in the campaign so far. But he and Ed Balls are due to be in Scotland this week to push a more strident "anti-independence" message.

I suppose it's possible that this might resurrect Labour's fortunes but it seems unlikely. And that's partly because Labour have run such a drab, dreary, depressing campaign. Their principle approach to policy has been to thieve stuff from the SNP and rewrap it in Labour cloth, trusting that voters will think it belonged to Labour all along. At no point has Labour made much of a positive case for themselves.

That being so, it seems strange to conclude Labour's problem is that it hasn't been negative enough or has just targetted the wrong people. Apparently so:

In another desperate attempt to rescue the campaign, Scottish Labour today re-launched its campaign, ditching the theme of "vote Labour to oppose Tory cuts," for a relentless anti-independence barrage.

I don't understand this either. Labour tried this in 2007 and it didn't work then. Why should it work now? Everyone knows that this isn't an election about independence so, presumably, Labour are targetting easily-scared simpletons. No surprise there. Perhaps this is a big enough slice of the electorate to make a difference come polling day but even if so it's not an especially edifying approach to take.

Because, again, independence is irrelevant. Everyone knows that there's a "referendum lock" protecting the Union. That's when the matter will, one day, be decided. All a Holyrood election can do is alter the political calculations governing when and in what circumstances such a referendum might be held (the legal matter is a different one and it's not obvious Holyrood has the power to legislate for such a plebiscite).

If this is the best Labour have to offer - Miliband, Balls and a bogus anti-independence brief - then, crivvens, they're in worse shape than I'd thought possible. A cheery thought, for once.

Filed under: Holyrood 2011 (20 more articles) , Labour (2136 more articles) , Scotland (500 more articles) , SNP (219 more articles)

Previous Back to Alex Massie Next

Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Melanie Phillips | Coffee House | Faith Based

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (6)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

CassiusClaymore

April 26th, 2011 2:22pm Report this comment

Not a great strategy, particularly given that they have the numpty vote secured already. Getting a whole load of different English people (Miliband, Balls, Izzard, etc.) to tell us all how misguided we are hasn't worked before (the Tories have done it to death), and it won't work this time either. Hope will beat fear.

The fact that not even Jim Murphy has put an appearance in should be enough to confirm that Grey is doomed.

TrevorsDen

April 26th, 2011 2:42pm Report this comment

The story is hilarious. Labours idea of devolution is their nice Scottish poodle doing what national Labour say.

I do wonder of some measure of true devolution including an English parliament could be linked to Lords Reform.

veryuglybloke

April 26th, 2011 5:31pm Report this comment

Why change the campaign? Just carry on as is and fiddle the ballots. That's what they did last time when 140,000 votes were rejected and numbers of ballot boxes and registers somehow got mislaid. In any case, if labour do well they can always count on support from the tories - they mostly vote together at Holyrood.

A Brown

April 26th, 2011 9:24pm Report this comment

'In any case, if labour do well they can always count on support from the tories - they mostly vote together at Holyrood.'

The tories have supported every SNP budget.

Johnyogibair'd

April 26th, 2011 11:35pm Report this comment

Repackaged policies...ah the council tax freeze (Labour voted against this 4 times), or the 25,000 apprentice places (again voted against by Labour. They really have lost the plot especially when it came to a socially responsible policy in getting big supermarkets to pay their fair share. Again voted against presumably because it was an SNP idea but possibly due to the huge donations to Labour from certain retailers.