Douglas Alexander shows fight in face of ominous polls

The latest Lord Ashcroft poll has Alexander trailing the SNP's Mhairi Black by 11 points.

But when Gazette editor Graham Mann spoke to the Labour stalwart on the day he opened his campaign office he was candid about the task facing his party on May 7.

He opened his campaign office hours after travelling back to Paisley from Bristol where he had appeared on the BBC’s Question Time programme the night before.

As we settled down in the Country Kitchen cafe opposite his campaign office on Causeyside Street, the first question I put to the man who has been MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South since 1997, was to clarify a point he made seconds before David Dimbleby wrapped up another lively debate.

Elizabeth Truss, Conservative Party candidate for South West Norfolk, stated that all three major parties had signed up to £30 billion of what she described as “fiscal adjustments” which prompted Alexander to intervene, saying: “It’s not true. That is a lie.” There was no time on the night for Mr Alexander to explain his point but in the more relaxed surroundings of his home county he welcomed the invitation to elaborate.

“I descried the Tories’ allegation as a lie because the truth is there’s one party that will end austerity in this election and that’s the Labour Party. We will deal with the country’s deficit in a fundamentally different way from the Conservatives. We will have fairer taxation, reversing the Tories’ millionaires’ tax cut, increasing tax to 50p on those earning more than £150,000 a year.

“In contrast, it emerged last week that the Scottish National Party are committed to £7.6 billion of additional cuts on top of what the Tories are promising, given their commitment to only raising taxes here in Scotland. So if you want to end austerity you’ll vote for the Labour Party and if you want to extend austerity you’ll either vote for the Tories or you’ll vote for the Scottish National Party.” If the polls are anything to go by, it’s fair to say a lot of people fall into the latter category with the SNP seemingly romping ahead of their rivals with some pollsters predicting near annihilation for Alexander and his Labour Party colleagues north of the border. It can’t be easy keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of such an ominous outlook but Alexander is a seasoned campaigner who insists he’s relishing the challenge ahead.

“The polls are tough,” he concedes, “and we’ve got ground to catch up but we are determined to do that.

“I love Renfrewshire, I love the Labour Party and I love campaigning so I am looking forward to the coming month. It’s a chance to make our case to people, locally and nationally, that Britain can be better than this, but we will only get that change if we get the change that I think most people here in Renfrewshire want which is a change from the Conservatives.

“And the only party that holds out the prospect of forming an alternative government is the Labour Party and that’s a message that we need to drive home in the coming weeks.” The scale of the task in hand hasn’t got any easier since September 18 when Scotland elected to remain part of the Union. In the wake of defeat the Yes campaign has continued to blossom with the SNP’s number swelling to record levels, making them the third biggest party in the UK. How then does the 47-year-old reflect on the last six months?

“For all of us the referendum was a very, very big moment in our national life and people tend to focus on the last electoral contest until they’re obliged to focus on the next electoral contest, so, for many people the feelings, the sentiments that animated the referendum have continued.

“We’ve got to be clear though that whatever divided us on one day last September, what unites most of us locally and nationally is a desire to end this Conservative government.

“It’s a choice about Scotland’s future, not a look back at the decisions that we made last year as a nation. And in the coming weeks we’ll focus our efforts on talking about the kind of changes that we can deliver for working people across the country. But it all depends on stopping David Cameron being prime minister.” There’s little doubt Mr Alexander, whose formative years coincided with the rise of Margaret Thatcher, still sees the Conservatives as the Labour Party’s arch enemy. Does he therefore recognise why some Scots find it hard to forgive or forget the fact Labour stood side-by-side with the Tories during the referendum campaign?

“Constitutional politics makes odd bedfellows,” he explains. “You had Tommy Sheridan standing alongside Brian Soutar who made his millions from the privatisation of the buses under Margaret Thatcher so I had more in common, in terms of the kind of society and economy I want to see, with many people who voted no than some of the people who voted yes. This election isn’t simply a re-run of the referendum, it’s a choice about what kind of government we want for the future.” That choice, according to the Labour Party, is straight forward enough. They say we’re facing one of two options: Cameron or Miliband. But, I venture, isn’t that narrow choice one of the main reasons why so many have turned from the traditional parties, and that repeating the “Labour or Tory” mantra is actually counter productive? Alexander takes a different view.

“We’ve had a four party system in Scotland for 40 years or more,” he responds. “The SNP try and present themselves as the outsiders of politics but they are actually the Scottish establishment.

“They’ve been running the Scottish Government for eight years and in those eight years they haven’t introduced a single measure that has redistributed money from rich Scots to poor Scots.

“In the whole of the white paper ‘Scotland’s Future’ there wasn’t one proposal to redistribute wealth other than a 3p cut on corporation tax which would have benefited the privatised utilities and the banks the most.

“So, our responsibility is to set out a clear agenda for change. My sense is last September 80 per cent of Scotland wanted change, and now the question for the coming weeks is which party can best deliver, not just constitutional, but the social and economic change that people want?” One thing has certainly changed since the days when Alexander was forming his political views at Park Mains High School in the early 1980s. Back then it seemed most Scots were united in their revulsion towards Thatcher’s Conservative government. Now though Labour is fighting on more than one front. It’s little wonder then Mr Alexander seized the opportunity to turn his guns on the leader of the SNP and her party’s ambition to obtain more powers for Scotland, with full fiscal autonomy a top priority going in to the May 7 vote.

“Nicola Sturgeon was forced to admit at the leaders’ debate in Aberdeen on Thursday, so committed is she to what’s called full fiscal autonomy — raising taxes here in Scotland — that she will cut us off from taxes raised across the United Kingdom and the British pension system in particular.

“Now, that seems to me to be very important. I don’t want another £7.6 billion of cuts for Scotland’s public services. The RAH desperately needs more money, not less, pensioners deserve more support, not less, so it was a big moment when Nicola Sturgeon admitted that full fiscal autonomy would be the priority for SNP MPs.” He continued: “My mother worked in the local health service for decades, I know how important the pensions, the health service, the education services are and we simply can’t afford the extension of austerity that is now on offer from the Scottish National Party.

“So we’ll be talking a lot about the cost of an SNP vote. For nationalists, it’s a belief system that they want more powers here in Scotland and I understand that but they’ve now admitted that they are willing for some of the poorest people in Scotland to pay the price for the additional powers that they want.

“My compass and my question on every issue is what’s best for people here in Renfrewshire and £7.6 billion in extra cuts, whether they’re SNP cuts or Tory cuts, they are not the right choice for people here.” It’s a little ironic, with so much apparent animosity flying round the current campaign in all directions, that we’re still discussing the possibilities of bitter rivals joining forces after May 7. However, Alexander was in no mood to contemplate the prospect, stating unambiguously: “There is not going to be a Labour/SNP coalition.” He added: “They’ve said they don’t want it and we’ve said we don’t want it but there is a very real risk if voters here in Scotland leave Labour that we’ll end up with another Tory/Liberal coalition or a Tory/UKIP coalition.

“That would be a disaster and that’s why I urge people that if they want a Labour government then vote for a Labour government.

“The SNP have got themselves into a curious position of pretending they want to help the Labour Party yet Nicola Sturgeon urges people in England to vote for the Greens and in Wales to vote for Plaid Cymru. Her strategy seems to be vote for anyone but Labour to get a Labour government. My strategy is a different one: if you want a Labour government and you want to end Tory rule, vote Labour.” That won’t stop the pundits mulling over the post-election possibilities. In truth, no one can be sure what fate awaits the country however one thing is clear in Alexander’s mind: the stakes at this General Election have never been higher.

“This is going to be the tightest election in a generation,” he stresses. “Every voter here in Renfrewshire holds in our hands the fate of our country. Do we come together to end Conservative rule and deliver a Labour government committed to ending austerity and delivering social justice or do we, however inadvertently, give David Cameron what he wants which is the keys back toDowning Street.

“I believe David Cameron, seeing the centre left vote split and the centre right returned to government, would be a disaster for Renfrewshire and working people in Renfrewshire.

“There is a better and a different choice which is a government that prioritizes working families and that’s what’s on offer.

“I’ve got a simple message to constituents and voters here in Renfrewshire: if you want a Labour government delivering an end to exploitative zero hours contracts, if you want a Labour government delivering more nurses for the RAH, if you want a Labour government increasing the minimum age then vote for a Labour government.”