I’m in Edinburgh right now, and read the morning press with suspicion. It’s full of quotes from Wendy Alexander’s friends saying she would not stand down at all. Hmm. What summed it up for me was a brilliant piece by Angus Macleod (my successor) in The Times. After the complaint against Wee Wendy declaring her donations was upheld, he said, “her chances of ever becoming First Minister are next to nil. Until her allies confront that brutal reality and be brave enough to do something about it they can do nothing but await the next Wendy Alexander crisis.” She must have decided the same, and with Holyrood in recess she’ll have taken an early holiday.
I never rated her, and was mystified by this claim that she was very clever, which seemed to be based on the fact that she spoke quickly. She once produced what purported to be a think-tank pamphlet explaining Ireland’s economic success, without mentioning it has the lowest corporation tax in Europe. Instead Ireland has “parked its border issue” – so by turning its back on the SNP, Scotland could do the same. Nonsense. And after that disaster over saying she wanted a referendum on independence, her great protector Gordon Brown stood firmly by her by saying she must do what’s best for her family. The upside to this is that we may get her memoirs, revealing what really went on there.
I served a one year your of duty as a reporter in the Scottish Parliament, and arrived in 2000 full of enthusiasm about devolution. This tuned to despair fairly quickly – it wasn’t devolution. It was a coup d’etat by the civil service, who were “led” by venal morons. They say a nation gets the parliament it deserves, but this is emphatically not true for Scotland. Although I am a firm unionist I can completely see why Scotland has chosen the SNP. They are at least competent government, with leaders who are not a national embarrassment. Alex Salmond is one of the smartest guys in politics: you don’t cringe when you see him represent your country. That can’t be said for the post-Dewar leaders Labour has bestowed upon this great country – like Henry McLeish (who makes Brown sound like Cicero) and Jack McConnell.
She’s not corrupt, or dodgy. Her £950 is paltry compared to other sums. I certainly heard sexist abuse about her (even Salmond would refer to her meetings with female Labour MSPs as a “coven”). But in the last analysis she was not up to the job – and it way well be that no one else in the Scottish Labour Party is up to the job either.
To understand how Scots have come to regard Wendy Alexander, I can do no better than point you to this YouTube clip (about 50 seconds in). The first comment on YouTube is “brilliant – the most sense she has ever spoken.”
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