With Kezia Dugdale MSP making her pre-announced candidacy for the Deputy Leadership of Scottish Labour official this morning, the electoral college that will select the party’s Leader and Deputy Leader in Scotland will have a clear choice between two distinct teams.
On the left are, standing for Leader, Neil Findlay MSP, Labour List MSP for The Lothians since 2011; and, standing for the Deputy Leadership, Katy Clark MP, Labour member for Ayrshire and Arran since 2005.
Right of centre are, standing for Leader, Jim Murphy MP, Labour member for Eastwood then East Renfrewshire since 1997; and, standing for the Deputy Leadership, Kezia Dugdale, like Neil Findlay, a Labour List MSP for The Lothians since 2011.
Each team has ‘one of each’ – an MP and an MSP, but with Jim Murphy committed to getting elected to Holyrood to lead from Scotland; and each has a man and a woman.
Each team has one member with three years political experience and that at Holyrood [Findlay and Dugdale] – but neither with constituency experience.
In terms of Westminster experience, Murphy’s 17 years as an MP brings eight more years weight to that element than Katy Clark’s nine for the Findlay team; and brings senior Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet experience in a range of roles.
Experience of another kind shows the Findlay team to be the stronger – life outside politics. While neither Jim Murphy nor the commonsensical but inexperienced Kezia Dugdale have lived much outside education and politics, Neil Findlay has been a bricklayer, a local authority housing officer and a teacher; and Katy Clark has worked as a solicitor for eight years.
While the polarisation of the teams appears to simplify choice, it is essentially unhelpful in the simplistic binary division it creates – left or right? It is surreal to see a 21st century politics anywhere still working on this division, as if it is possible to separate wealth distribution from wealth creation.
An administration paying no attention to wealth creation is one creating an inbuilt structural deficit that will see the well run dry that supports social justice.
If he can make the argument with lucidity to all sides, Jim Murphy’s strength may be his determination for his policies and for an administration he would lead never to lose sight of the need to enable wealth creation while never taking the eye off the imperative to protect the vulnerable and the needy.
All of this highlights just how anachronistic, how unserviceable party politics is today, in its divisiveness and in the crudity of its divisions, actively obstructing the integration of people and the integration of policy making.
In evolutionary terms, we should be way beyond this stage but our primitive politics shackles us to it.