Over my working life, I have attended many farewell events for people leaving an organisation, most of them because of the normal reasons – retirement, moving to another location, moving to another company, another country, and some, regrettably because of ill-health.
But there was the other category, those who were leaving because they had failed, or had lost a contest with another for the post they were vacating. In these difficult circumstances, there was a well-understood protocol – the leaving speech must avoid bitterness and resentment, must avoid recriminations and blame, be generous, and focus positively on the future .
One always went to such events with a certain feeling of trepidation, with the possibility always existing that the speaker would explode into self-justification and blaming behaviour. Although some hardy souls in the audience for such a speech actually enjoyed the spectacle of a defeated man making a fool of himself, for most of us it was an agonisingly embarrassing experience.
In his speech to the Labour Party’s Scottish conference, Iain Gray embarrassed himself and, I am sure, at least a few of his audience, with an outpouring of bile and resentment against his political opponents that has few parallels in such speeches. It is the more astonishing because he must have known that the Labour Party would release a full transcript of the speech, indeed, gave evidence that they were proud of it.
In this speech, Iain Gray demonstrated, with awful clarity, the lack of political nous and statesmanship that lost Labour the 2011 election and lost him the leadership of his party. It is, sadly, evidence that neither he nor his party have learned anything from their humiliating defeat.
I won’t reproduce the sad outpouring of bile and bitterness, but here are a few quotes that speak for themselves, even though the truths contained in them and the lessons that can be drawn from them are evident to everyone but Scottish Labour and Gray himself. They are revealing in a way that he clearly did not intend …
EXTRACTS FROM IAIN GRAY’S SPEECH
“Well we have not wasted this crisis. Sarah Boyack and Jim Murphy have led a review which has laid bare our failure to modernise our party in line with the way in which we modernised our country – our failure to recognise that the centre of gravity in Scottish politics shifted to Holyrood when we made that happen in 1999. “
…..
“These recommendations do not come from Sarah and Jim, they are informed by the participation of thousands of party members, hundreds of submissions they made, and dozens of meetings they attended.
They are marked by the honesty forced on us by the searing experience of May 2011. “
…..
“We have confronted the reality of what happened, and we should. But we should not let others rewrite the story of the election. It was bad enough.”
…..
“I have heard it said that we were beaten by a better campaign. And you judge campaigns by their outcome, so that must be true.
That is not the Scotland I know, the Scotland I love, the Scotland I want. That is why a year ago in Oban I said ‘I love my country too much to be a nationalist’.”
…..
“It is not the lack of our own army which might stop my grandchildren and yours making it to the 22nd century. It is the postcode lottery of life expectancy and the fact that we drink 25% more than our neighbours down south - and that is nothing to do with the price of the drink – or the lack of a border – its something to do with too many of us feeling alone in midst of a crowd, poor in the midst of prosperity, and passed over in the midst of progress.”
…..
“I do not believe that a strong fair and equal Scotland in a strong fair and equal Britain is the only possible future for Scotland – but I am sure that it is the best possible future for Scotland.”
…..
“We must engage in that debate now not to save the Union but to save devolution. Because it is not the union of 1707 the SNP wish to destroy. That is long gone. It is devolution they wish to dismantle. “
POSTCRIPT - AN EARLIER ASSESSMENT OF IAIN GRAY
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Iain Gray – First Minister in-waiting?
Posts
Did that poor Labour man have a breakdown ?
ReplyDeleteWhen taking that final curtain call , one should do it with style , grace , dignity and decorum . Obviously not the Labour way then ?
Labour will continue on a downward spiral until they wise up and smell the coffee .Times are a changing .
I have some sympathy for him - he has held the fort for six months after his resignation while his party farted around over the exact nature of the Scottish Leadership - and they're not out of the wood on that one yet.
ReplyDeleteCurent Scottish Labour policy - we'll do anything the Scottish people want us to do, except support their claim for independence. Sad ...
You do wonder if Labour will ever learn. What a bitter, negative, graceless speech.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Jeanne.
ReplyDeleteJR
ReplyDeleteBut it was a speech well suited to a bitter, negative and graceless man.
Peter
I also found this part strange,
“I have heard it said that we were beaten by a better campaign. And you judge campaigns by their outcome, so that must be true"
Obviously Gray must think that he ran the better campaign, do you think he wonders why they got gubbed?
Well, that's why I selected this quote, Dubbieside. It's part of the distancing of one's self from reality - and blame. Like Liam Fox's "Rules were broken", not "I broke the rules ..."
ReplyDeleteDubbieside, I always tried to give the man the benefit of the doubt that privately he wasn't quite so petty and graceless as he appears.
ReplyDeleteYou know, the passive voice is such a convenient thing when you don't want to admit who is at fault. In the case of the May election, I suspect what Gray doesn't quite want to say out loud is that the fault, in his opinion, lies with the Scottish people who had the nerve to vote for a party he loathes.
And, of course, it is also the fault of the nasty "cyber nats" who make use of the internet to bypass the Labour allies in the MSM. I don't think I have to point out how silly his accusations of nastiness by "cyber nats" are as he sits on the same stage as a man who called SNP supporters Neo Nazis.
As a fiction writer, I can assure you that I couldn't sell such a bizarre scenario.
Peter, one things for certain - he wrote that speech himself and there is absolutely no control freakery evident.
ReplyDeleteAs in any valedictory speech - the speaker is left to his own thoughts and comments and while it's hoped that undue embarrassment does not ensue, there's no guarantee.
What this says to me is that Gray was left a lonely man, acting as a night watch man and in a stew over his predicament and the legacy he did not leave.
What it also says is that there's no team support even now, and probably that reflects the position he's been in for many months.
It couldn't have been a "looked forward to time" every Thursday for FMQ, as history shows he took a beating on almost every occasion - and those desk thumpers around him must have been as good to have as a chocolate watch.
""""It is the postcode lottery of life expectancy""""
ReplyDeleteLife expectancy in Labour constituencies in Scotland is a disgrace after 50 years of Labour... what did they do?
""""and the fact that we drink 25% more than our neighbours down south - and that is nothing to do with the price of the drink""""
Not according to the studies and Stuegeon offered a sunset clause, so it was worth a try. But they won't - that would admit their opposition to the better interests to the health of the people in Scotland.
""""– or the lack of a border – its something to do with too many of us feeling alone in midst of a crowd, poor in the midst of prosperity, and passed over in the midst of progress.”""""
Cryptic or nonsense - hard to decide.
I see you left out the especially unpleasant unfounded attacks on the SNP which really seemed petty. They spoke volumes about Labour.
OTHERWISE:
I know I shouldn't be but I'm a little surprised at my wanderings around the net since Ian Davidson's bully boy behaviour.
I have been really surprised to discover just how many Labour people fill up the ranks of the SNP now - it's quite breathtaking. Salmond and the other 79ers had basically wished to create a Scottish socialist party and to a degree they have. The spirit of the SNP is certainly in that context.
I'm hearing that those people with the greatest disdain for Labour are the ex-Labour activists. Two moments were crucial, Irak and going to the right.
Salmond and the like-minded always wanted to create a true Scottish Labour party with socialism underlying the big ideas, he may well have done that.
He is also a top economist - the Brit nats arguing against his proposals would have done well to have listened to him but they didn't and now a double dip recession is looming.
Thanks, Stevie
ReplyDeleteThanks, Barontorc
ReplyDeleteAndy Gray once described Iain Gray as "a great orator" and Harriet Harman says he's "the finest FM Scotland never had."
One thing I like in a politician is mature, considered judgement ...