This is a post I didn't want to write, never expected to write. My good friend and former internet-sparring partner Eddie Truman passed away on Friday morning. He was just 53. I knew Eddie was in hospital but had no idea how seriously ill he was, so this came like a bolt from the blue. Shocked and numb just about described my feelings on hearing this dreadful news. Eddie was a long-time socialist activist from Leith. After a troubled time as a teenager, he helped himself out of a hole by getting involved with Militant. Cutting his teeth on the miners' strike and who-knows-how-many paper sales, Eddie later threw himself into the fight against the Poll Tax. Readers will remember that Thatcher "piloted" it in Scotland before unleashing this attack on England and Wales, and you can more or less date the divergence between Scottish and rest-of-the-UK politics from about this time. He was an activist with Scottish Militant Labour, as this part of Militant came to be known after decamping from Labour, and fully supported it becoming the nucleus of the Scottish Socialist Party, which was founded in 1999. As the party's press officer, Eddie was responsible for this famous (and much copied) image. It was around this time that I got to know Eddie via the infamous UK Left Network discussion list. As I was an earnest Weekly Worker supporter and Eddie was, in the parlance, a "left nationalist" we had a few ding-dongs over the first couple of years. At times his baiting would drive me up the wall, as I'm sure mine and others' contributions did him. But in the end, we became more friendly and less adversarial, which was the lot of all who fought in the UKLN's gladiatorial pit. I also came to respect his activity as the anti-Iraq war movement took off as well as the SSP itself. I recall one protest stunt he had a hand in arranging whereby oil barrels were assembled, unplugged, and torrents of blood coloured water coursed down the road until they were empty. If only YouTube was around then. Unfortunately with the ups came the downs. Anyone on the UKLN between late 2004 and 2006 had a ringside seat as Tommy Sheridan tore apart the most successful extra-Labour left party since the old Communist Party's hay day. The good-natured banter about Hibs' footballing prowess and the like took a backseat as Eddie participated in the blood-letting. For those of us south of the border (then) committed to building an alternative to Blair's Labour, it was a depressing spectacle indeed. As the SSP spiraled downwards after losing all its MSPs in 2007, Eddie found things other than politics to concentrate on - not that it stopped him from working in the Yes campaign around the Scottish independence referendum. Latterly he was a doting grandad to his four beautiful granddaughters and enthusiastic parent to the late Missy Dug, but I'd still occasionally get a message from him denouncing something I'd written as "fucking shit". There was the odd tip off about top new tunes too. Eddie, apart from being a fine human being, also shared with me an exquisite taste in music. And, I have to mention it now, the reason why I run occasional April Fools here - and on the UKLN previously - was because I knew he found them intensely irritating. Yes, it was that kind of relationship. Getting used to writing and thinking about Eddie in the past tense will be hard, and our comrade will be much missed by everyone who knew him. All my love and sympathies to his partner Cat, his daughter Holly, and his grandkids Pippa, Daisy, Poppy, and Ella.
Most lefties have one or two favourite Tories. Me? I own a whole menagerie. Who can resist Nicholas Soames and his waspish tweets? Fabbers' endless self-parodying? The plastic Thatcher tributes by Anna Soubry? And Rees-Mogg's distillation of Tory toffism? Yet these colourful characters share a less appetising trait: they're all irredeemable bastards. I might titter at Fabricant and roll my eyes at our Jake, but I have no doubt these people are enemies of the labour movement. They would rather we didn't exist, and long for the days of the cap-doffing squire and the people who knew their place below stairs. And that's before you scrutinise their voting records for supporting attacks on the poorest and most vulnerable. And then there is Ruth Davidson. Along with most of the commentariat, I can't help but have a soft spot for her. An openly gay straight-talking woman from a normal background, a politician with no airs and bullshit, a capacity to poke fun at herself, and comes across everywhere and always as unflappingly pleasant. Apart from her party affiliation, what is there not to like? So what is her secret? How is it that everyone is totally dippy when it comes to Ruth? As an individual, Ruth seems perfectly sound. She stands out because she didn't go to politics stage school. She lacks the affectation and soundbite regurgitation of those in the game for too long, or never had a proper job before achieving office. How crap must politics be when "appearing normal" is a vote winner? Let's not be naive about this. Ruth may well be as she presents herself, but her image has gone through the wringer. It's sculpted, styled, trained, and got focus grouped to death. Ruth Davidson as a political personage is as artificial as Boris Johnson's oh-so-funny buffoonery and Dave's stage-hogging statesmanship. She's everyone's mate, the Tory whose gimmick is not looking, sounding, or behaving like a Tory. Think on this a moment. What does Ruth Davidson stand for? Judging by the media coverage she's very pro-the union. 18 months ago, wherever there was a Better Together media opportunity, she wasn't sniffy about which Labour politician she took to the stage with. The memory abides of Gordon Brown making his bravura speech in the dying days of the referendum campaign, and there was Ruth, pictured clapping away with enthusiasm. We also know she's pro-EU, and has declared to be looking forward to working with the SNP to ensure Britain remains this June. And what else? Well, not a lot. If you must, scope out the Conservatives' Scottish Manifesto. Reading through it, there's very little you could disagree with. Seriously. Leaving aside the unionist stuff, most of it could have appeared in a SNP or Labour manifesto. It warns against centralisation, calls for more NHS funding, a more flexible social security system (which could be code for all kinds of things), addressing problems in the education system. This is not Toryism red in tooth and claw. Nor, actually, cuddly conservatism. It is an uncontroversial managerial politics with no sniff of right wingery at all. Has this happened by accident? Absolutely not. Just as Ruth is a clean figure with no baggage at all, the Tories don't want to toxify their best bet with their own tarnished brand. So the manifesto matches her to a tee. No hard edges, no policies invoking unpleasant memories. It's straight-talking, oppositional, and above all, modest. It's a master class in political positioning. Ruth invites voters to give the blues a punt because they stand no chance of winning, but will manage a better job than Our Kez and Scottish Labour at holding the SNP to account. Opposing the SNP over the next four years isn't going to see the Tories at the eye of many political storms, there isn't much chance of them outraging public opinion. And then, come 2020 Ruth will make the same proposition again, slowly but surely building up a base for her new, reasonable Toryism until such a time it can challenge the SNP for supremacy. It's a long game, and a very smart game she's playing. Between now and then, she'll be detoxifying the Tories at every available opportunity. Why else do you think Ruth's keen to help Nicola Sturgeon make the case for Remain? There are a few problems Ruth faces. So far she has disassociated the Scottish Tories from what's happening with the Tories at Westminster. Her very personality acts as a marker - she's a world apart from Dave and his gang of entitled dolts. But there will come times when she feels the heat for what's going on elsewhere. The devolution of further powers to Holyrood shield her to an extent, but what happens at Westminster does overdetermine the Scottish party system. Second, apart from unionism and fairly inconsequential matters like sentencing, Ruth's position absolutely depends on not taking a position, and especially one that smacks of traditional Toryism. The strategy that got the Tories second party status is quite brittle and liable to fall apart if they are forced to oppose popular policies. And there is the Scottish party itself. Of the few that are left, there's bound to be unreconstructed Tories hiding in the shadows ready with a verbal bomb or two primed to remind everyone that the modern Tory party is still the Tory party. Ruth Davidson then. A likeable small p politician you could go for a coffee with or take down the pub quiz. But also a canny operator at the helm of the labour movement's implacable enemy in Scotland. Never forget that.
We looked at this earlier in the year, so let's spend a little more time by the scrying pool. Managing expectations have become a political football in the interminable (and boring) tussle in the Labour Party. With forecasting subject to factional agendas, can we cut through the crap and think about what would constitute an advance and a reverse for the party and its leader? I'm going to have a try. The key election for Labour - sorry everywhere else - is London. In the capital, Sadiq Khan and the Labour campaign have faced a barrage every bit as unpleasant as the one targeting Ed Miliband last year. The Tories and their helpful media friends have branded Sadiq an ally of terrorists because, wink, wink, he's a Muslim. And this is a deliberate strategy pushed right from the very top to secure the mayoralty for the terminally useless Zac Goldsmith. It is utterly outrageous but, thanks to the good sense of Londoners, Labour has a commanding polling lead. Fingers crossed, our vote will turn out on the day. It is highly unlikely that KenGate will have an affect on the polls, it being widely perceived as yet another barney in the bubble, but Goldsmith's dog-whistling, racist literature has been rammed down Londoners' throats. And in the country's most multicultural city that's electoral suicide. As far as Jeremy's prospects are concerned, only a win here will do. To lose again in London under these conditions would make it politically impossible for him to carry on. This is the only result that put the leadership in jeopardy. Whatever happens elsewhere is not sufficient in and of itself. That said, the second most important set of elections after London is Wales. Oft neglected by the metropolitan set, the story here is of Labour dominance slowly getting eaten away by UKIP and, to a much lesser extent, Plaid Cymru. The last poll has Labour on 33%, Plaid on 21%, the Tories on 19%, and UKIP 15%. Yet there is a factor not yet picked up by the polls, but has certainly manifested in the local council by-elections in Wales over the last couple of months: the government's handling of Port Talbot. The debacle has seen Conservative polling plummet in the three or so Welsh by-elections taking place in that time. Now, three car crashes don't make a motorway pile up, but it's difficult to see how their very public indifference and incompetence can't but depress the Tory vote further. The question then is who benefits? While Labour has the disadvantage of incumbency, I think it's fair to say that if we cannot capitalise at all on government difficulties here that would be very disappointing, especially when polls and by-elections are not pinpointing breakthroughs for the leftish Plaid either. There is Scotland, which may as well be written off. A number of folks, including me, thought Jeremy's leftism would be enough to begin the claw back at this set of Holyrood elections. Ha, I can laugh at my naivete now. The problem is the SNP have run a relatively competent, relatively centre left administration in Scotland for eight years and cornered the market in political vision thanks to the referendum campign. Matters weren't helped by the rotten state Scottish Labour had got itself into after years of neglect and complacency, nor selecting a leader who epitomised the old Westminster-centric way of doing things, nor seen cosying up to the Tories and conniving in their hysterical and mean-spirited attacks on the independence movement. With Labour unionism taking a battering, only a generation-long struggle of rebuilding and opposition can make it a proper contender again. And so this Thursday's verdict on Labour in Scotland doesn't spell doom for Jez or Our Kez, but delivers the final act in the electoral battering our party - truthfully - has deserved for a long time. Where it does become a problem for either of the leaders is if the Tories snatch second place. In Ruth Davidson the Tories have found a leader who combines genuine charisma (without Boris-style manufacturing) and down-to-earth personability. Alas, shame about her politics. She is their best bet for detoxification, but despite being well-liked I don't think the Tories will pull it off in votes or seats. But if they do that's one more cause for concern. The English local elections then. Jeremy has been widely attacked for saying this lunch time that we will lose no seats. Of course, by this he means we will make net gains - not that a single council seat will be snatched away. However, there are a number of mediating factors that ensures the result, unless it is a huge disaster, will not impact on the leadership. As a general rule, Labour councillors are more pragmatic and centrist than either the left-leaning membership (even before the Jez surge) and the right-leaning parliamentary party. And this is their election. They are incumbents defending positions conquered off the back of coalition austerity, and did so running semi-independent and highly localised campaigns. Then, as now, many hundreds of candidates were convinced the leader was a liability, and then as now have doubled down on local issues. And, on the whole, you tend to find that the voting hardcore who turn out for the locals tend to have those matters in mind. As with London, KenGate barely registers, but decisions about roads, housing, services, council tax, and so on do. Labour are disadvantaged by incumbency and being in power in a disproportionate number of seats, which ordinarily makes losses likely, but this would be just as true if Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper were at the helm. But again, while the media are convulsed with Westminster parlour games the awful headlines of the preceding month about steel, about tax, about the budget and for some, the EU, could depress Tory turnout. The question then is which will matter more? My money is on the strength and focus of Labour's local campaigns in framing the issues that matter. And so I think it's fair to forecast unspectacular gains for us. The other elections taking place are differently weighted. The two parliamentary by-elections in Ogmore and Sheffield Brightside should be pretty much in the bag for Labour, taking place in super safe seats. Losing either or coming close to failing would be a major difficulty for the leadership, but that none of the usual suspects have alighted upon them, let alone spoke about them goes to shows how unlikely a threat from that quarter is regarded. And there are the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Don't expect a record low turnout like last time as the proper electoral machinery is in place, and will be boosted by other elections. Last time, Labour barely registered outside of the metropolitan areas, and seeing that few of the electorate and the political cognoscenti care that much about them, outcomes either way won't matter much. And so there you have it. A few predictions and some consideration of the wider ramifications sans the tedious internal partisanship. What do you think?
