THE EXCITEMENT IS OVER...IT'S JIM AND KEZ... SURPRISE, SUPRPRISE

Congratulations to Jim Murphy and to Kezia Dugdale on winning the election to be leader and depute leader of the Labour Party's Scottish office.
It's not what I would have wished for... nor, from the poll that we ran over the last two days, what the majority of readers of Munguin's Republic wanted. I don't think it's really what Scotland wanted. However, it was what London wanted and what the BBC wanted. And apparently 56% of the Labour Party in Scotland wanted it, so it happened. And Hell mend them!

Sarah Boyack	38 (20%)
Neil Findlay	119 (63%)
Jim Murphy	39 (20%)
Kezia Dugdale	27 (14%)
Katy Clark	70 (37%)

Jim Murphy got 20% of the Munguin poll votes, compared with 56% in the real poll. Neil Findlay in reality got 35% of the electoral college's votes, compared with a whopping 63% of Munguin's readers' votes.

Such is life. 

Anyway, thanks to all of you who took time to vote and to comment on the last thread.

So, with a speech about how he had a driving purpose to stamp out poverty, and how angry he was about the difference in life expectancy between rich and poor and his concerns about the difficulties of of the poor in getting a good education, he launched what he called a new era for Scottish Labour. 

But the path ahead will not be an easy one for Jim and his running mate.

His big problems seem to me to be:

He's in London and his job is in Edinburgh. He will be obliged to deputise his main duties to Dugdale while he continues to earn his salary as an MP. I know little of her, except that she, like Murphy, has never had a real job, and she spent her political life before getting into parliament, 3 years ago, as an assistant to a right of centre member of the House of Lords. What little I saw of her on tv during the referendum campaign, failed to impress me. She came over as full of hatred for the SNP ...and pretty much nothing else. 

He has to find a seat in Scotland. He has to either to persuade someone in a "safe" seat to stand down (perhaps with Ed recommending him/her for a seat in the House of Lords... it's been done before as Irene Expenses Adams can testify!!) and then he has to win that safe seat. That's not going to be easy. Those who resign a seat in mid term lose out on a generous resettlement payment, and any elevations to the House of Aristos will be noticed and used by political opponents. And it will have to be a rock solid seat... (imagine losing)... And what IS a rock solid seat at this time?

If he doesn't manage that, he has to make up his mind about standing for Westminster in May 2015. And he must say what he will if he retains that seat and goes on to win a seat in Holyrood.

He has somehow to lose his reputation as a hard right wing Blairite. He is at odds with his branch of the party on many issues, not least the removal of Trident from the Clyde. Blair, and what he did to Labour, is roundly loathed in Scotland, even by those who support the Labour Party and the union. London Labour has agreed to replace Trident with at least £100,000,000,000 worth of new nuclear subs. 

He stands for much that the Labour Party in Scotland is uncomfortable with. He was a supporter of the Iraq War and he voted against there being an investigation into it. He will have to make up where he stands on the report into CIA activities, including their involvement with torture... and the fact that all the intelligence that was gained from that torture was shared with the UK, while he was a minister. 

He says that he is concerned for the poor and that if he were first minister he would raise the taxes on the rich. Although he also said that he wouldn't tax the middle classes. So I'm assuming that his tax raising would be reserved for the super-rich. I seem to recall that Stuart Campbell calculated that that would bring in around £8 million a year, if the rich didn't all suddenly feel the urge to buy property (and pay tax) in England. 

So he'll need to find another way, because I can assure Mr Murphy that £8 million won't go far shared between all the poor in Scotland!

Pointy finger

His conviction is doubtful... His voting record on measures like social security hardly indicate strong support for the poor. Labour in London are going to be harder than the Tories on Welfare. Rachel Reeves has said so. How will he square that circle?

Labour head office has also committed to keeping to George Osborne's spending plans. How many people in Scotland are up for that? And what will that do for the poor?

Scotland is looking for a Labour Party that IS a Labour Party, not the metropolitan pinkish watered down vision of Mandelson's and Blair's, which agrees with almost everything that the Eton Boys say and pleases the rich 'socialists' at the BBC. 

And it's going to be hard for him to convince anyone that he really cares about the poor when he has the baggage of being Blair's most loyal lieutenant.

It will be hard for him to espouse socialist policies in Scotland, while the London party is busily aping Cameron. Miliband will be scared that he will frighten off the kind of voters and donors that they want to encourage.

This may seem a little personal ... and a bit cruel, but it seems to me that I have never met anyone who actually "likes" Jim. OK, you can say that I don't meet enough Labour supporters to make a sound judgement on that and that's fair comment. But it seems to me that he's just not a popular man despite the support he has just had from the party. 

He needs to work on getting the public to like him... and to trust him.

I doubt that will be easy. He's not the kind of bloke you like. He's hasn't got the easy manner that appeals to other men. You can't imagine going for a pint with him. I've never heard of women swooning over him. People like Blair picked up a lot of votes on his good looks (well it was nearly 20 years ago!!) Jim will never be accused of that. And he's hardly an intellectual giant who simply wows you with his wit or clarity of thought.

I wish him luck becoming appealing...

So he's not idea either from the Labour Party's point of view, or from Scotland's point of view.

I image there will be some pretty happy SNP people today though.