Murphy’s law

THERE are times when the abuse of politicians becomes so vicious it is hard to know why anyone would want the job. Your columnist experienced such a moment on a bitter-cold recent day in Dundee, with an inch of frost underfoot, alongside Jim Murphy. The recently installed Scottish Labour Party leader was trying to canvass opinion on a housing estate in the western part of the city, which should be Labour territory. But the group of Scottish National Party (SNP) supporters at his heels made this almost impossible. Every time he raised his hand to a doorbell, they yelled: “Liar at your door, love!” “Red Tory scum!” “What about the 100,000 dead Iraqis?”

The former Blairite Scottish Secretary, and MP for East Renfrewshire, has a forceful charm; yet he struggled to be heard above the idiots. And in ways both general and specific this speaks to Labour’s huge problem in Scotland. To have a serious chance of forming Britain’s next government, after the general election due in May, it must retain most of the 41 seats—out of a possible 59—it holds there. Yet its support in Scotland has crumbled. The latest polls put the SNP on around 40%, representing a 20-point gain on its 2010 performance, and Labour on about 30%. Given the even spread of the SNP’s support—which has long been the party’s big electoral disadvantage—that suggests the “nats” will win most of the Scottish seats.

To close the gap, and turn the SNP’s electoral leg-up back into a hurdle, Mr Murphy needs above all to regain the love of 200,000 Scots who voted Labour in 2010, “Yes” to independence last September, and who have since transferred their allegiance to the SNP. Yet the specific problem apparent in Dundee—Mr Murphy’s struggle to break free of the polarising politics of the independence referendum—is making this uncommonly hard.

Back in 2010 the nationalists were, as now, ruling in Scotland, yet struggled to explain why anyone but a raving separatist would vote for them in a general election. They were too unlikely to hold or influence power in Westminster, and in Gordon Brown, the dour, kirk-raised Scottish prime minister, Labour had a leader as respected north of the border as he was derided down south. Yet all these impediments have been swept away, mainly by the referendum. It showed up how badly Mr Brown’s successor, Ed Miliband, a north London intellectual, goes down in Scotland. His personal ratings suggest Scots trust him no more than they do David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister. It also showed how sputtering is the once-indomitable Scottish Labour machine, now reduced to fewer than 10,000 members. The SNP, by contrast, has formidable leaders in Nicola Sturgeon and her predecessor, Alex Salmond, along with 80,000 zealous members and, most important, a clear pitch to voters.

The point of voting SNP in May, it argues, is to enable the nationalists to secure a better deal for Scotland, by holding the unionist parties to the panicked promise of further devolution they made just before the referendum vote. To keep this uppermost in voters’ minds, the SNP wants to prolong the vituperative, vivid and polarising politics of that contest—hence the Yes banners and vitriol evident in Dundee. By contrast, Mr Murphy must persuade Scots that the referendum is in the past, where it must remain, which is why they should vote Labour again.

This is the set-piece contest most likely to decide the complexion of Britain’s next government; it could also have a wider significance. Because, at a time when centre-left leaders are generally struggling to describe how social democracy fits with austerity, Mr Murphy is a centre-left leader worth watching. In a lacklustre unionist campaign, he came across as a little vainglorious, but disciplined, dynamic and able to perform the rare trick of seeming forceful and moderate at once. He has the manner of a dockyard socialist—he could hardly have won the Scottish Labour leadership otherwise—but almost none of the ideas. His record in government suggests a moderniser, as fiscally constrained social democrats must be. So do some of his recent pronouncements—including against Scotland’s soaring female prison population. With a fair wind behind him, Mr Murphy’s duel with the SNP, which is as egregiously populist as any left-wing insurgent, could have given hope to social democrats everywhere.

Against the tide and current

As it is, Mr Murphy may be sunk before he has properly begun. The SNP surge is not abating; the problems in Scottish Labour look ever worse. While Ms Sturgeon and her legions grandiloquently name their terms for propping up a future Labour government—including, in effect, a demand to scrap Britain’s nuclear deterrent—Mr Murphy finds himself struggling to gee up a party with little money and less self-confidence, after a bruising run of defeats by the SNP. He is also suffering from Labour’s lack of big, credible policies, made worse by the fact that the party’s main campaign pledge—to “save” the NHS from Tory predations—has less resonance in Scotland, where control of the health service is devolved. This leaves Mr Murphy having to resort to a dubious fallback, by warning that a vote for the SNP risks bringing back the Tories by default. It is an acknowledgment of weakness. It also recalls the nats’ main argument ahead of the referendum—no more Tory governments, ever—which is the very thing Mr Murphy wants to leave behind.

With more time, he might have found a way around these troubles. The Labour brand in Scotland, as the party’s spin-doctors say, is still strong. Labour will probably eat into the SNP lead a bit. But getting back to parity looks a stretch—which contains a caution for put-upon mainstream politicians of all stripes. The electorate is so scornful of politicians that even having a good leader, such as Mr Murphy looks to be, espousing sane views, may not be sufficient to win their love. The important thing is not to lose it in the first place.