Andy Burnham gives the Labour Party a “second chance to make a first impression”, Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander has said. The Prime Minister took over from Sir Keir Starmer last month with the Labour-led UK Government struggling for popularity among the public.
While he praised Sir Keir for having “changed” the Labour Party, Mr Alexander said the new occupant of Downing Street has brought a “sense of excitement and possibility” into politics.
Second chance to make a first impression
“My sense is Andy has gifted us what’s very rare in politics, which is a second chance to make a first impression,” he said during a show with comedian Matt Forde at the Edinburgh Fringe. “There’s a sense of curiosity, love of politics, sense of possibility that I sense the public see and quite like.”
He added: “I think there’s quite a lot of goodwill and quite a lot of excitement about how he’s doing politics, not just in terms of online profile, but the kind of empathy that he communicates to real people about real issues that they are worried about.”
Priorities for the next election
Asked what the priorities for a Labour Government have to be in the lead up to the next UK-wide election in 2029, Mr Alexander said it would be about providing “breathing space” for families struggling financially.
The Scottish Secretary has served in the cabinets of four prime ministers, including Sir Keir, whom he said deserves to be in the “pantheon of Labour heroes” for “redeeming the party” in early 2020 and winning the 2024 election.
Relationship with the Scottish Government
But it was his appointment to the Scotland Office – surprising many when he replaced Ian Murray in the job – which led to the decline in the relationship with the Scottish Government, according to First Minister John Swinney. Mr Alexander professed that he was “a bit perplexed” Mr Swinney had said such a thing. “John’s dedicated his whole life to the cause of a separate Scotland – I respect that, but respectfully, I disagree,” he said.
As well as sitting around Sir Keir’s cabinet table, Mr Alexander was also the co-chair of Scottish Labour’s election campaign, which saw the party drop to its lowest number of MSPs in the history of devolution and the subsequent end of Anas Sarwar’s leadership, which has resulted in an increasingly bitter leadership contest.
The party, he claimed, “misjudged” the base of support the SNP holds in Scotland, with around 30% of voters viewing support for John Swinney’s party as “both a habit and an identity”. “It is about who they are more than what the SNP do,” he said.
“One of the things that I think we misjudged in the May elections was assuming that because of the really poor governing outcomes that the SNP have had in recent years, that would have a dampening effect on their support and on their vote. The reality is, I think you need to have the humility if you’re opposing them to understand, in the Holyrood system, if you’ve got a lock on 30% on the population and the natural anti-SNP majority is then divided between a range of other parties, that makes it really hard and really challenging.”
That does not “absolve” Scottish Labour of its responsibility to chase the remaining voters, Mr Alexander said, but there are “structural challenges that make it hard” to win.
