When the West Calder Co-operative Society opened its first shop and bakery in 1879 people complained that the bread was “doughy and burnt”.
But soon the bakers improved their product, a new and better bakery was built and demand for its bread increased dramatically. Two other bakeries were built and horse-drawn vans delivered this improved loaf to all the mining and engineering towns of West Lothian.
I tell this story because it’s a metaphor for what the Labour Party needs to do to restore its fortunes in Scotland and across the UK, improve its product. I think this is what the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar was trying to say when he made that extraordinary speech last Monday morning, calling for Sir Keir Starmer to resign. It completely back-fired, and within hours, a packed meeting of Labour MPs at Westminster gave the prime minister a fulsome round of applause and told him to carry on. That put Labour in Scotland at odds with Labour in England and Wales, just as we are heading into the last few weeks of a Scottish election campaign.
In any case, it was unrealistic to imagine that Starmer could be removed as prime minister. He won an overwhelming mandate at the last election. There is no creditable candidate to replace him. And everyone agrees he’s a decent man.
What Anas Sarwar should have done was to say the Starmer government had to change direction, rather than change its leader. That would have strengthened the movement, already under way among backbenchers at Westminster, for Labour to abandon its austerity-lite approach and begin to tax and spend. That, I think, is at the root of Labour’s problems. It promised “change” but wasn’t able to deliver it because of its unnecessary promise in the 2024 manifesto not to increase the three main taxes.
The blunders Keir Starmer has made over the last 18 months – Mandelson, the two-child benefit, winter fuel allowance, income tax u-turn, stop-the-boats failures – are also strong reasons for reforming the Labour government. The useful thing about Starmer is that he doesn’t have a strong political ideology, so he’s open to new ideas.
What Anas Sarwar was right about is that Labour stands little chance of a comeback in Scotland unless there is a real change of direction at Westminster. The party is languishing at below 20 per cent in the opinion polls, way behind the SNP, which is polling at around 35 per cent. Reform is snapping at Labour’s heels. The Conservatives are down to 10 per cent and the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are left picking up the pieces. This week Jeremy Corbyn’s “Your Party” announced it too will be contesting at least some constituencies.
When MSPs were not thinking darkly about the coming Scottish elections, they were passing the world’s first “Community Wealth Building Bill”. This sounds more ambitious than it turns out to be. It will involve government and local councils buying more goods and services from local firms and helping community groups acquire vacant land and buildings. The idea is to strengthen local economies and increase democratic control. Let’s see if it means what it says.
Would the community in Forres in Moray, for instance, be helped to buy Orbex? The space rocket company announced it had failed to find future funding and would be going into “administration” threatening the jobs of 160 skilled workers. It was due to launch its first test-rocket from the spaceport in Shetland later this year.
Or would the local communities around our struggling whisky distilleries be helped to buy them and run them as social enterprises ? A fifth of Scottish distilleries (69) are said to be in financal stress because of falling demand for whisky, rising costs of production and international tariffs. Apparently, there’s a long-term trend of young people drinking less spirits. This is not good news for the 10,000 people employed in the Scotch whisky industry.
The Scottish and UK Governments’ pursuit of happiness is not only expressed in their opinion poll ratings but also in the rate of economic growth. This has not been spectacular in 2025, the UK recording 1.3 per cent growth, and Scotland 1.1 per cent. And yet they are both relying on growth to fund increases in spending on the public services. In my view, it’s all a fallacy. Spending on public services can only increase if there is an increase in taxation to pay for it. And growth will not happen until there is an increase in public spending.
I realise I am going out on a limb on this issue, just as I am with my prediction that Scotland will win against England at Murrayfield on Saturday, St Valentine’s Day. It’s the oldest fixture in the rugby calendar dating from 1871, eight years before the first loaf of bread was baked by the West Calder Co-operative.
