CONGRATULATIONS to the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) for its part in the victory over the despicable Tories on July 4. It won 37 seats (65 per cent) on a 35.3 per cent share of the vote, higher than Labour’s Britain-wide share of 33.7 per cent.
Although, as in England and Wales, it was a victory gained in the face of a spectacular collapse of its main rival, in Scotland’s case, the Scottish National Party (SNP) which lost 39 seats on a 30 per cent share of the vote, leaving them only 9 MPs in Westminster (16 per cent).

IN NOVEMBER 1922 thousands gathered to cheer off the new group of Glasgow Labour MPs (they were all members of the ILP) as they took the train to London from St Enoch’s railway station.
James Maxton, the newly elected MP for Bridgeton, famously told the crowd that “they would see the atmosphere of the Clyde getting the better of the House of Commons.” He was referring to the culture of the Red Clydeside which emerged during the first world war. It had fostered industrial unrest, rent strikes and revolutionary figures like John Maclean.

Tomorrow, if you are a socialist, you should vote Labour. This is not just because the electoral left alternatives to Labour look unlikely to make an impact, although they do. The independents who are standing against Labour, many for principled reasons and some because they felt they had no choice, will at best, comprise a group of a few individuals whose main point of agreement is their opposition to Starmer’s Labour (and the Tories, of course). This is not the basis for taking forward a strategy for fundamental change to our society and some of those standing, for example Workers’ Party candidates, would not in any case want to challenge significant, socially conservative aspects of British society.

THIS is Labour’s formal position on Palestine as expressed in its National Policy Forum (NPF) document and endorsed by the Labour Party Conference last October:
“The Labour Party will work alongside international partners to recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as part of efforts to contribute to securing a negotiated two-state solution.
“With a deteriorating security situation and the lack of a meaningful peace process between Israel and Palestine, a future Labour government will lead diplomatic efforts with international partners to support a just and lasting peace and uphold international law as a matter of priority.”

I have worked in public services my whole working life and have always been committed to the public sector as a way to deliver essential services to all in our communities. So it has been really hard to see them devastated, especially council services, which have been hit the hardest over the past 12 years of a Tory government And let’s not pretend that the SNP government’s “a wee bit better than the Tories” approach to public services is anything to write home about. We know that there is much more that they could be doing with existing powers – the STUC’s “Raising taxes to deliver for Scotland” makes that very clear. Instead, over the piece, rather than protect local government, they have passed on more cuts to councils than the Tories have passed on to them.

DURING a fringe event at last year’s Labour conference, Jim Murphy offered his insight into how Keir Starmer would govern.

“I think they’ll be the first truly private-sector Labour government,” said the former Scottish Labour leader, admitting Labour intended to govern from the centre.
His reflections are not ill-informed. For a politician in search of power, Starmer has kept Murphy — who oversaw the near complete wipeout of Scottish Labour at the 2015 general election — remarkably close.
Together with his consultancy business, Arden Strategies, Murphy is firmly in Starmer’s tent. His unashamedly honest appraisal of the Labour leader’s plan is instructive in determining the direction of the Starmer project as the general election looms.

The discussion in the Morning Star and elsewhere on the Left, on the approach socialists should take to the Labour Party seems to be growing more intense and while I understand and am sympathetic to the frustration and anger many socialists feel, I continue to believe that the left should dig in and challenge the current Labour Party leadership.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is bad legislation in so many ways. It is a blatant attack on  trade union rights and those of individual workers. It is a Bill designed to avoid the scrutiny of Parliament. It further undermines the powers of devolved administrations and it will ultimately lead to a worsening of relations within important public service that depend so much on the good will of workers.