Labour: missing

Murphy is in hiding. Perhaps in a designer McTernan chrysalis and about to re-emerge as yet another Jim Murphy - "At my service folks. One for me, all for me!"

Labour were horsed. Many in the party acknowledge that. Even their sole winner in Scotland - the UnionJack-clad Ian Murray seemed dumbfounded at the realisation that he, after polling well in the posh parts of south Edinburgh, was the last man standing.

It has been a slow demise though. To me, the best thing Labour in Noff Bwitan could do is to separate from the party HQ in London. If the prospect of Chukka Umunna as leader comes to pass and he does indeed take the party further to the right in order to win back the all important Middle-England, then what's left of Labour in the Scottish Parliament is sure to be further eroded.

Hearts fan Murray, or is it Rangers?

The problems are many and stretch back many years. Here's a wee saunter - in no particular order (hell - I don't enjoy Ian Murray's office expenses!) through Labour's shining path to oblivion in Scotland...

- Fascist Bastards! No, not the BNP, Ukip or even the SNP (patent pending Ian Smart) but striking firefighters. This came from the then Labour minister Dr Richard Simpson. Surely a man whose moral compass lies somewhere north of Tony Blair's broon-eye...


- Iraq. Maybe this over all others encapsulates the poverty of the modern Labour Party. Joining with a rabid neo-con US president to mercilessly bomb another nation that in no way threatened us with the loss of up 1 million lives is beyond belief.

- Immigration Mugs. This isn't the first time that Labour has tried to appear tough on immigrants but this was surely one of the most crass. I mean, what the fck! Labour, instead of taking on Ukip and the BNP and fighting for immigrants and explaining the benefits of immigration get into bed with der kleine Englander. 'We can goose-step' further than you....' Gordon 'moral compass' Brown himself lifted a National Front slogan from the 1970s - British Workers for British Jobs - to bolster his flagging campaign in 2010.

- Trident. I can mind the auld days when people like George Robertson and Murphy et al would join the CND marches. Even if you considered nuclear weapons a deterrent back in the days of the Cold War, there can surely be no justification for them now. Even army high-heid-yins and Portillo agree. It's vanity. A white fucking elephant. Even lonely Ian 'UnionJack' Murray agrees. How did he vote though...?

- Drones. No. Not the ones that Obama uses to massacre tribal children in Pakistan but the soulless careerists that took over the Labour Party... when? I don't know but probably around Kinnock's time. Just look at the likes of Murphy, Dougie Alexander, Alastair Darling as well as the 'new generation' of smooth city slickers already jostling for Weird Ed's vacated seat ... not a principled bone between them. I hope that the SNP never attracts this sort.

- Jim Murphy. There's so much been said about this guy and much in ridicule. The fact that he sits - not just as a supporter - but on the political council of the Henry Jackson Society is something that he should be confronted with. Somehow, I can't see Kaye Adams broaching the subject... Suffice to say, Murphy is toxic and only the gleeful coverage in the Unionist media of his Better Together antics has hidden this fact from some.

- PFI. It's still incredible to me that this was Labour's egg. And some wonder why many folk don't see any difference between Labour and Tory? The schools and hospitals that will be paying private-business pirates rent for the next century know this only too well.

- Better Together. And not only in the slimy campaign of scaremongering to save the bankrupt UK political system... Labour members were photographed not only with the Tories but with Ukip and National Front (!!!) activists in a desperate attempt to keep the Westminster trough open. During the #GE2015 campaign, Tories were seen at Labour Party stalls presumably to encourage a 'tactical' vote against those dangerous Nats.

What's left of a genuine left-of-centre Labour membership in Scotland needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Break from the Eton kids and banker-class of the south of England. Actually support the progressive policies of the SNP and Scottish Green Party when required to instead of blindly opposing everything they do like some buttock of an Old Firm tribalist. Lastly - when the next referendum comes - throw your weight behind the yes-campaign. A modern left-of-centre Labour Party that Keir Hardie would feel at home in, starting anew in an independent Scotland might just be the answer to SNP domination.