Labour's Branch Office

Illustration: Iain Green

Ed Miliband is visiting Labour's 'branch office' in Scotland today and like lots of other people I will be interested in what the Labour leader has to say.

Because many of the things that Ed Miliband says he would like to achieve in office seem to be well out of his reach as the country stares down the barrel of another 'hung parliament' at Westminster.

Now this is only fair if you ask me, because the reality is that no single UK-wide party is able to command majority support with both the Conservatives and Labour polling around one-third of the popular vote.

So if the last Labour Government which had an overall majority of MPs at Westminster for thirteen years (between 1997-2010), lost its radical edge and finally ran out of steam as the UK PLC went bust, then how in God's name is someone like Ed Miliband going to govern effectively with a minority support across the country and a minority of votes in the House of Commons? 

Labour's Branch Office (04/04/15)


Illustration: Iain Green


Labour's branch office in Scotland has never looked more like a branch office what with Nicola Sturgeon taking on the 'big boys' in London while Jim Murphy kicks his heels back home.

The problem for Labour is that whatever the outcome of the general election most voters in Scotland now believe that their interests will be better represented by a strong contingent of SNP MPs rather than the 'deadwood' Labour MPs who have been sitting in Westminster since 2010.

To very little effect it has to be said which is why it's time for them to go.

Labour's Branch Office (08/11/14)


Illustration: Iain Green

Iain Green's cartoon for The Scotsman the other day seemed to capture the current plight of the Scottish Labour Party - with Jim Murphy appearing as a Phoenix-like creature trying to emerge from the ruins of the branch office.

And as Ed Miliband posts a notice for a new 'manager' in Scotland, Labour's dinosaur  MPs roam menacingly in the Westminster background. 

Clever, I thought, to get all those competing images in one single cartoon.

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