If you’re confused by the title of this blog, my last name is Ramsay, the same as famous Scot, Gordon Ramsay. But anyway to say that the Labour result in Scotland was nothing less than disastrous is completely misplaced. It’s not the fact that we did badly that bothers me personally, it’s rather the fact that around 9 months ago Labour was well placed to re-establish themselves as the largest party in Holyrood.

This is primarily the fault of Ian Gray and without a doubt, he will have to go as leader by the end of the week. But, we must not leave out the Scottish and National Labour party. We were complacent, I know I certainly was, everyone assumed we would easily win back Edinburgh, but we didn’t count on the effectiveness of Salmond’s SNP campaign which did strike a progressive and positive tone. This is in stark contrast to Scottish Labour’s negativity.

If there’s one thing we can learn from Scotland, negative, attacking politics doesn’t work. The only time Labour succeeds electorally (1945, 1964 and 1997 nationally and 1999 in Scotland and Wales) so this is something we will need to replicate nation-wide.

Max