Wendy Who?

So, Wendy Alexander is to be the new leader of Scottish Labour. It's almost as if they don't want me to vote for them. Would it really have hurt some in the Labour Party to support another candidate, as least giving the impression that she was democratically elected? Not that the SNP's second-in-command Nicola Sturgeon is an improvement in any way, they're equally annoying .

However, even more annoying than either of them is Wendy's brother, Douglas Alexander. Many years back now, before he became Gordon Brown's little buddy down at Westminster, he was the Labour candidate in the Perth and Kinross by-election (caused by the death of Tory nutjob Nicky Fairbairn). There was a special "Words With Wark" (Scottish political TV show of the day, hosted by Kirsty Wark) in the run-up to polling day, and I was in the audience to ask a question of the UKIP guy (why are you such a fucking half-witted bigot, only put more politely).

The highlight of that was, of course, meeting the delightful Screaming Lord Sutch, but afterwards I tagged along to the Labour Party do elsewhere in town (they had a bigger draw than the other parties: Glenda Jackson and Gordon Brown won me over to the red side. If the SNP had invited Sean Connery along, I'd have gone there instead).

So, with two chances to view Mr Alexander in action in one night, what lasting impression did he leave? Not a good one. He came across as a New Labour robot, speaking in all the correct buzz words, devoid of emotional connection in anything he uttered, and incapable of comprehending sufficiently questions asked of him so sticking rigidly to the preprogrammed script. So, just a typical modern British politician then. God forbid they should have a soul.

In the end, he was soundly defeated by the SNP's Roseanna Cunningham (who actually has some principles, amazingly enough. And still uses public transport. It's a miracle!), but the Alexander clan continued their ascent through the political ranks

Lucky us...