Labour’s steady then swift decline in Scotland over recent decades will be one for the historians.
The party’s future is less certain than ever, after yet another drubbing at the hands of the SNP in May’s Holyrood election – followed by leader Anas Sarwar’s departure to the House of Lords last week to join Andy Burnham’s new Government.
It’s the latest setback for a Scottish Labour party which has, since 2007, been fading in power and relevance in a nation that was once its fiefdom.
Time and again, voters have indicated they no longer feel Labour is on their side, opting instead for the Nationalists, the Greens or even parties of the right.
Meanwhile, the excitement of that 2024 victory for Keir Starmer’s Labour quickly faded to misery as he failed to connect with voters and plunged in the polls.
Now Starmer is gone Burnham has strode into No10 in his place promising a different type of politics and a different style of government. With that upheaval, perhaps, comes an opportunity for Labour north of the border.
One victim of the party’s disastrous showing at the polls in May was Monica Lennon, who lost her seat after a decade in Holyrood.
Seemingly never favoured under Sarwar’s leadership, by a quirk of chance it is his exit from parliament that will see Lennon return.
And as she tells the Sunday Mail today, she isn’t just coming back to sit on the backbenches – the 45-year-old is seeking the leadership.
In parliament, Lennon is known and respected as someone who gets things done – not to mention being a Sunday Mail columnist.
Her pioneering period poverty legislation won international plaudits. If Burnham can take Labour in a fresh and appealing direction in England, maybe the same can be done in Scotland.
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