Open Road

Thursday Jul 3rd 2008

Scotland, Wendy Alexander and a bad year for the roses

This guest blog is by Illiam Costain McCade who is based in Edinburgh and works as a freelance political consultant and as senior consultant (Scotland) for Cogitamus Limited. He can be contacted at coscade@blueyonder.co.uk

When, after the Scottish Parliament election on 3rd May 2007, Labour emerged as Scotland’s second largest party, beaten for the first time by the SNP, and with their support at the lowest level for over half a century, there was, surprisingly, a slight sigh of relief within the Labour ranks that things weren’t quite as bad as they could have been. Indeed, in retrospect, these are now more likely remembered as halcyon days for Scottish Labour.

We were entering a new era of politics in Scotland, with our first ever SNP administration ruling as our first ever minority government. With hacks and anoraks wondering whether the SNP could actually govern, and whether or not a minority government could survive very long, it would take a Herculean effort to make anything else dominate the political headlines – but Labour succeeded in stealing the show.