Lifting The Cap

If Theresa May lifted (or even, as is her way, did not quite lift) the public sector pay cap, then Jeremy Corbyn would be the Prime Minister. Maybe not officially. But he would be. That would be only the latest example of how his emergence had scared the Conservatives out of their wits.

The same is true of the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon is a failed Leader. She lost her party its overall majority at Holyrood, and then she presided over the loss of a hefty chunk of its seats at Westminster. Like May, she should have resigned because, even if no one else has won, then losing your overall majority still means that you have definitely lost. But, like May's, her party has no one else, so it is stuck with her.

Sturgeon had expected the Conservatives to do well. But she had entirely failed to anticipate the relative resurgence of Labour. Hence her having been spooked into lifting the public sector pay cap. The momentum, so to speak, needs to be kept up.

The next Leader of the Labour Party into Scotland needs to be the man who has done more to bring the debate back to bread and butter issues instead of the SNP's preferred ground of the Constitution. That man is the co-editor the Red Papers, Richard Leonard.