Has anyone released any polling...

[Denzil_DC]

15. The Scottish Labour Party's conservatism

reflected a long-time double bind: on many issues, Scottish Labour's membership (and a substantial proportion of the electorate) were broadly to the left of the UK Labour Party's stances, but were told that they had to support policies that were acceptable to those in the South East of England because that's where the bulk of the national votes were - the old argument about having to win power no matter what compromises that entails.

This first became unavoidably apparent for me way back when UK Labour abandoned its opposition to Trident - old (northern English) activists in my local CLP and CND group bemoaned the move and were visibly torn, but said it had to be done because "people down south won't go along with it".

People wore this for a long, long time. Some gritted their teeth through the Blair years because Gordon Brown (not a total firebrand in his youth, but he had written a well-received biography of Red Clydesider James Maxton, among other things) was seen as the leader-in-waiting and commanded some respect and grounds for hope. In the end, he was a grave disappointment, and that knocked the stuffing out of many of them. Eventually, with too few exceptions, leading party figures didn't just adopt RW policies for electoral expediency, but because they believed in them, and weren't afraid of showing it publicly because they assumed their voters had nowhere to go.

Scottish Labour was (and as a rump, still is) the party of the Establishment in Scotland. Here's a roundup of how incestuous the Scottish political scene has been:

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive: BBC Scotland and the Labour Party

The Family resides in Glasgow and is presided over by Ken McQuarrie. Ken MacQuarrie’s Head of News at BBC Scotland is John, John Boothman. John is married to Susan, Susan is Susan Deacon. Susan is a former Labour MSP and Health Minister at Holyrood.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/bbc-chief-too-close-to-labour-claims-ex-colleague.22317694

Ken’s Head of Online News is Tom, Tom Connor. Tom and John are said to have offered media training to Labour Party wannabe politicians. Tom’s department operates BBC Scotland blogs; infamous for their ban on public comments, unlike any other part of the UK.

Another Tom is Tom McCabe. Tom is a member of the Scottish Labour Party and used to be an MSP. Tom also used to be the partner of Lorraine, Lorraine Davidson. Lorraine’s career has swung between the Labour Party and the BBC. She used to be a spin-doctor – with the Labour Party or was it the BBC? Not too sure on that one. Lorraine became a weel-kent voice on BBC Scotland frequently ushered in to air her views on all the big issues of the day. Lorraine is now married to David.

David is David Martin and he’s a Labour Party MEP. David Martin is friends with Catriona, Catriona Renton. Catriona loves politics which is good because that’s what she covers as a BBC Scotland reporter. Catriona was a Labour councillor in Glasgow with ambitions to become an MSP but sadly didn’t get elected in 2003. Catriona is a friendly sort of lady with Facebook chums the likes of Jackie Baillie ( herself a very friendly lady who is also chums with Gary Robertson and Alan Clements hubby of Kirsty Wark ), Yousuf Hamid, Tom Harris, Mike Dailly, Frank McAveety, John Robertson, John Park, Steven Purcell, Dave Watson – is there Labour person Catriona isn’t chummy with?

https://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/oh-what-a-tangled-web-we-weave-when-first-we-practice-to-deceive-bbc-scotland-and-the-labour-party/

It goes on and on. Now, in a small country with a population of around 5 million, a degree of incestuousness in politics is unavoidable, but the SNP's young enough as a major force at the moment that it isn't yet entrenched as the new Establishment. There are some of the usual problems at constituency level, but they're not widespread (yet, at least), and given the level of hostile media scrutiny, its presence in Holyrood is holding up well.

Those media-Scottish Labour ties still endure, which warps much of our political coverage up here. But it became so blatant that, particularly during the indyref, it was impossible to ignore, and many developed a mistrust of the mainstream media and found other sources of information that bypassed it. So, in some ways resembling what seems to be happening with Corbyn's support within the Labour membership at the moment, attacks start to lose their impact, and even rebound. You can only mislead people so many times before at least some of them get tired of it and switch off.

Campaigning alongside the Tories and wholeheartedly adopting Project Fear - effectively abusing (verbally, on the record, in a number of stupid cases) those taken-for-granted Labour voters who just happened to support Yes for their own valid reasons - just sealed the deal.