The Lib Dems have a vacancy at the top as of today, and it’s easy enough to make a shortlist, given there are only four other Lib Dem MSPs to choose from.
Some say the loss of so many seats wasn’t Tavish’s fault, and I have some sympathy for that. You only have to imagine how red hot the phonelines to Nick Clegg’s office must have been – “I’ve got to face the bloody Scottish electorate in a year and you’re going to do what?” – to see that. If Tavish, despite the fact he’s hardly on the left of the LDs, argued for coalition last year I’d be mighty surprised.
But he ran an entire election campaign on two daft themes – who administers the polis from where (while pretending we didn’t agree with them), plus a magic Ponzi scheme to resell debt owed by one public body to another (a policy about which nothing was heard after it got laughed at at their manifesto launch).
If I’d been in his position I’d have suggested punting some liberal values, outflanking the socially conservatism shared by Labour and the SNP, and trying to claw back some votes from the Greens, but I agree it would always have been an uphill struggle (unlike their last photo-op at which they presciently all went downhill on mountain bikes – although, curiously, neither uphill nor downhill has positive connotations).
So the candidates…
Liam McArthur. For all my notorious Lib Dem-scepticism, I like Liam. He’s bright and strong in the Chamber. But one of the narratives of their collapse was the extent of their exile to the Northern Isles. With that in mind, can they really swap a Shetland-based leader for an Orcadian? I don’t see it.
Alison McInnis. Actually another Lib Dem I like in person. But she doesn’t have the zing, nor, I suspect, would she want it.
Willie Rennie. They can’t seriously pick him if they want to distance themselves from the Coalition. He was Michael Moore’s bag-carrier until this campaign, and he’s also brand new to Holyrood. He’ll need to find his way around the place first, surely.
Jim Hume. The archetypal all-things-to-all-people Lib Dem Focus leaflet made incarnate. In fact, as previously noted elsewhere, he was behind perhaps the most dishonest Lib Dem leaflet I’ve ever spotted. This side of their operation has damaged their reputation, and someone a little more high-minded would surely be desirable.
It’s an unenviable choice for an unenviable job, but the fundamental question isn’t about who fills the saddle. It’s all about the relationship with the London leadership. The Lib Dems’ structure is notionally more devolved than Labour’s or the Tories’, and whoever is selected will genuinely be the leader of the Scottish Lib Dems.
But more distance will be required – and ideally that surely means making a runner from London. Next year’s locals are looming, ah, just when the campaigners amongst us might have fancied a break, and a further catastrophic fall beckons if they keep trying to ride the same two horses – forgive the stretched metaphor.
But what about Michael Moore and Danny Alexander, George Osborne’s deputy axeman? Would they be part of a separate Scottish Lib Dem party if more distance could be achieved? No matter how different policy might become in Scotland, they’re bound by the terms of their Faustian pact.
Some of the brighter minds in Labour are talking about a more detached relationship with their overweening command structure in London, along the German CDU/CSU model. But that kind of disentangling is easier to do from opposition. Whoever gets to lead the Lib Dems, it’d only be fair to feel a bit sorry for them. Their problems are intractable as long as this Coalition persists.
#1 by Brian Nicholson on May 7, 2011 - 7:26 pm
If they had any sense, they would ask Tavish to reconsider.
#2 by BM on May 7, 2011 - 7:35 pm
Now that the Liberals could fit in the back of a taxi, or, alternativley, couldn’t form a volleyball team, will they continue to be included in the Leader’s debates?
After all, they’re not that much bigger than the Greens, now.
#3 by Douglas McLellan on May 7, 2011 - 7:37 pm
If the Greens are excluded then it would need to be for reasons other than size of parliamentary group because yes, that would exclude the Libs as well.
#4 by TS on May 7, 2011 - 7:49 pm
BBC probably finds a way to include them on the basis of their importance UK wide. and STV has to follow.
#5 by Douglas McLellan on May 7, 2011 - 7:36 pm
I agree that the campaign focus on the police (and ignoring you guys position on the matter) was weird. I think the campaign was based on a series of focus groups where all the participants were police officers.
Your complete misunderstanding of the Scottish Water Scheme makes me glad that you guys are just as far away from using Scotland tax powers as we are.
But yes, it was hard to see any Liberal values spoken of at length.
I want Charles Kennedy as leader but our constitution does not allow it. So I am backing Willie. I dont think that being the leader of a small group whilst having no local experience is a problem. After all Robin Harper managed fine in 1999. Besides he worked there in the early days of the Parliament for the Lib Dems and shared an office with a Lib Dem MSP for a few years as well so he wont exactly be raw. He will know where the toilets are and where the Chamber is.
We can also do a lot to move the party in a clearly Scottish direction. I think it is fine, within the federal party structure, to have different policies and ideas. As a party we have a set of principles covering the entire UK and then the Scottish party (and the local parties in Scotland) develop policies to help meet those principles.
#6 by TS on May 7, 2011 - 7:48 pm
I agree with Brian. Though he has some faults, and 2011 was not the best campaign ever run, Tavish has a presence within Holyrood that it would take far too long for any of the other four to match. Changing leader now will simply dig their hole deeper.
Also it seems like a CDU/CSU model is only an option in opposition. Unless Danny Alexander and Co. are willing to do something dramatic.
#7 by Doug Daniel on May 7, 2011 - 9:09 pm
Does he though? I’ve never warmed to Tavish as a leader. He was awkward when he started, and it’s taken him this long to get only marginally better. He was utterly useless in the TV debates – I don’t know how many of the commenters here are Lib Dems apart from Douglas and therefore may have worn orange-tinted glasses when watching the debates, but from a non-Lib Dem viewpoint, he was rarely better than Iain Gray.
As an SNP supporter, I would say the Lib Dems need to have a complete overhaul of their ideology. Scotland needs to know what the Lib Dems stand for, and they need to re-establish what their “red line” issues are – going by their successful and failed coalition dealings with Labour, the Tories and the SNP over the last 12 years, the only issue they seem to be unwavering on is independence. If Tavish hadn’t been so pig-headed about the independence referendum, they could have gone into coalition with the SNP in 2007 and gotten credit for helping deliver increased powers to Holyrood. But as soon as the SNP had won in 2007, he was on Newsnicht saying the Lib Dems wouldn’t be part of a government that let the Scottish people vote on independence, even though Nicol Stephen seemed more open to the idea. He displayed the same alarmist attitude in the debates recently, which just looked absurd. No, the Lib Dems stand a better chance with a new leader – Tavish was a disaster.
One thing for sure is this: any of the unionist parties wanting to try and have a separate Scottish identity will have to realise that such a strategy means not trying to take the credit for anything the London party does. This was part of Tavish’s problem – he was keen to distance himself from Nick Clegg’s decisions, but would then harp on about things the Lib Dems were doing in London that he claimed were good. You can’t have it both ways, especially with an electorate as increasingly astute as Scotland.
#8 by Douglas McLellan on May 7, 2011 - 9:39 pm
I think that my comments here and on twitter and own my own blog show that I dont have orange-tinted glasses (I hope!).
I am also critical of certain things, like the no-to-referendum position. On the night of the manifesto launch it was the first think that was asked of Jeremy Purvis on Newsnicht and my twitter response when he said it was still a red-line was scathing. Blogged about it as well. As for the TV interview…..
I am not a fan of unstructured/unfair criticism though (looks at Jeff & James). Policy disagreements, it should be noted, dont count as criticism.
I think you may be right that the idea of the Scottish Lib Dems trying to put some tartan water between what we want for Scotland and what we want in Westminster will be hard but we already have a clear constitution that allows it. Encourages it, in fact. It wont be an easy overnight position change and will take the full five years of constant demonstration of it to regain the trust of some of those voters who left us. It will take even longer to to get back all the voters who chose Scottish Lib Dem in May 2007.
#9 by Doug Daniel on May 8, 2011 - 3:58 pm
Don’t worry, it’s been fairly clear from your comments etc that you’re quite capable of disagreeing with the Lib Dem party line!
My only concern with the Lib Dems trying to have bona fide policy differences in England and in London is that I just don’t see how a single party can credibly have different policies on both sides of the border, unless the federal structure goes as far as having completely separate leaders on each side. My understanding (perhaps this is wrong) is that Nick Clegg is the leader of the party as a whole, and that while Tavish may be leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, they are still under the umbrella of the UK Lib Dems. Surely this means any policy differences for the Scottish Lib Dems means possibly fundamentally disagreeing with the UK leader?
Tuition fees was a good example. From a UK Lib Dem perspective, tuition fees are now being implemented. But the Scottish Lib Dems were against tuition fees. The public don’t understand how a party can be for something at UK level and against it at Scottish level, while still remaining a single party. If the Scottish Lib Dems were a distinct entity, then that might work, but then the question is why try to take credit for UK level decisions and (up until recently) put the UK leader on election literature etc?
It’s made even more confusing by the fact there are both Holyrood and Westminster elections in Scotland. Are Scottish Lib Dem MPs in the Scottish Lib Dems or the UK Lib Dems? Is their leader Tavish or Nick Clegg? Are they in favour of Tavish’s policies or Nick Clegg’s?
I think all three unionist parties need to work out where they stand on these sort of questions – the idea that a party can be both Scottish and British; that they can be for and against the same thing; and that they can be thanked for some things done at UK level but not to blame for others – and rearrange themselves accordingly. Scottish politics is changing, and these parties are still stuck in pre-Holyrood structures. Perhaps it has hit the Lib Dems first because they have been the worst culprits in the past of trying to be all things at once, depending on who their main opposition is in that area.
This next session should provide the opposition with an opportunity to finally come to terms with devolution. If they don’t, then before they know it, they’ll be having to come to terms with independence.
#10 by Douglas McLellan on May 8, 2011 - 5:27 pm
My reading of the constitution means that we can totally disagree with the leader of the Federal Party (Nick Clegg). The problem is that we have never really had to do that before so its never been seen. Technically, the MPs from the north of the border are Scottish Liberal Democrats so come under the purview of the Scottish Leader.
However, the policy of tuition fees fell under the purview of the the leader of the Federal Party. And the constitution says that the Scottish Party has a responsibility to put Federal Policies in a Scottish Context. Which is where it gets a bit messy. The MP/MSP and who is the leader is an issue I think.
Without going into all the sub-clauses etc my understanding of the constitution does allow for the Scottish Lib Dems to present really different policies in the Scottish Parliament.
But telling the voters how and why would be a really hard task.
#11 by James on May 8, 2011 - 5:33 pm
As I suspected.
#12 by Douglas McLellan on May 9, 2011 - 1:40 am
I think you only read the first half of what I was saying there.
#13 by Doug Daniel on May 8, 2011 - 7:14 pm
I think the first thing the Lib Dems (and others) have to do is work out that the split in Scottish politics is no longer Scotland and England; it’s Holyrood and Westminster. If Scottish MPs are indeed technically under the Scottish Lib Dems, then Tavish Scott was disagreeing with policies enacted by members that should have been under his jurisdiction. Charles Kennedy and the likes are part of the coalition (even if they aren’t part of the government), so they SHOULD be acting like Scottish Lib Dems, but are in fact acting like UK Lib Dems.
You’re quite right that it is messy. So messy that the more you dig into it, the messier and more confusing it gets. You guys really need to sort something out!
#14 by Douglas McLellan on May 9, 2011 - 1:44 am
What is interesting for the Lib Dems and Labour is that there were policy disagreements between MPs & MSPs when the Holyrood 99-07 Coalition was in power. Its just that Scotland was doing good things (like FPNC & Free Bus Passes) where Westminster was not.
Back then it didnt seem to bother those people who complain bitterly when the Scots Lib Dems & Scottish Labour MPs voted differently to the MSPs on the same policy topic. I wonder why it bothers them now……?
#15 by Graham on May 7, 2011 - 9:19 pm
Should Scottish Liberal Democrats back independence? http://www.liberal-vision.org/2011/05/07/should-scottish-liberal-democrats-back-independence/
#16 by Danny95 on May 7, 2011 - 9:41 pm
I think Rennie is a good guy, he’d by my favourite from the list.
But if Tavish could be persuaded to quit as an msp Kennedy could win the Shetland by-election to become LD Holyrood leader.
I’ve also dreamed up a scenario Iain Gray and Gordon Brown calling by-elections and swapping constituencies if Gray fancies a shot at Westminister. Brown could become Labour’s Holyrood leader.
#17 by Brian Nicholson on May 8, 2011 - 5:22 am
Salmond has that same dream and it ends with a massive referenedum victory….LOL
#18 by Caron on May 8, 2011 - 10:25 am
Oh, James, I would have thought you would have done your research better than that.
You could have spelt Alison’s name properly for a start.
And Willie Rennie only worked as a SpAd for about 6 weeks or so, so has not been a major part of the Coalition at all. He had certainly stopped by last year’s school Summer holidays.
I will be doing everything humanly possible to persuade Willie to stand as he has all the experience in all the areas we need to get us back on track. I know I worked for him before, but he’s not paying me any more and I still think he’s fabulous. Bright in very many ways.
#19 by holyroodpatter on May 8, 2011 - 12:10 pm
Yes I would tip Rennie but for all caron says he will be affected by working as a SpAd. Perhaps he can counter that by stating (what i think was the case) that he wasnt actually paid for his work. Counting against him surely is the fact that he is new to the chamber, I dont doubt he will find his feet but it is hard to envisage a first timer taking on that mantle.
Lets not forget that every MSP will now be forced to take on a major, cabinet level brief (and time will tell how severe the reduction in their influence will be, regarding number of questions, committees etc) so perhaps with a nod to liberal democracy they will simply alternate the leadership (as some council groups do)
#20 by holyroodpatter on May 8, 2011 - 12:10 pm
on friday i said on twitter it would be john park and willie rennie however and i stand by that
#21 by Christian Schmidt on May 10, 2011 - 10:47 am
James,
> Some say the loss of so many seats wasn’t Tavish’s fault
Really? Kirsty Williams managed to keep five out of six compared to Scott’s five out of sixteen. You could argue that Williams had the advantage that IW Jones is now Salmond. But then she had the disadvantage that C Jones is no Gray and also a much stronger Tory party. If you assume that the voters aren’t stupid, then you have to accept that the Scottish LibDems have to a large degree themselves to blame.
#22 by Malc on May 10, 2011 - 10:51 am
To be fair, the Scottish Lib Dems had further to fall. The Lib Dems in Wales only had 6 of 60 seats to begin with. That they managed to keep 5 of them is more to do with the system than anything Kirsty Williams has over Tavish Scott as a leader. Though I do grant you that the Scottish Lib Dems fall was incredible.