The polls remain terrible for the Labour Party in Scotland. If they remain this poor on May 7th then the party face near obliteration. “Defcon f****d” as one of the party’s incumbent candidates told the Financial Times.
And yet the Labour Party supporters taking part in a street rally in Glasgow with Jim Murphy yesterday morning seem upbeat and enthusiastic. If the party is facing obliteration, then the fault can not be laid at the people wearing their pastille coloured t-shirts with Labour manifesto slogans strapped across the front.
This is a street rally, the sort of thing Murphy did on his Irn Bru crates throughout the referendum. Taking place on a roasting hot day outside St Enoch underground station, Murphy appears, sleeves rolled up. There aren’t many real people at this rally, the crowd is mostly made up of the t-shirt wearing party supporters, press and protestors.
Those protestors are few but loud. Piers Doughty-Brown, and an unidentified member of the “Scottish Resistance” are here prompt and ready to go. They follow Murphy round like Pig-Pen’s cloud of dust in Snoopy. The Telegraph called them the “shock troops” of the Nationalist movement, deployed at short notice by the high heid yins of the SNP. This is a patently nonsense assertion that does down the zeal and passion and single-mindedness with which these protestors harangue Jim Murphy. It’s also not like the SNP need the help. In fact the SNP would probably rather they didn't help.
“We are the Scottish Resistance!” the man from the Scottish Resistance shouts into his megaphone. “We will never give up the fight!”
Before Murphy starts speaking, as Gordon Matheson starts introducing him, both protestors are shouting and making noise. Two other protestors appear. The Labour party members stand in front of them, clapping and cheering in a bid to drown them out. Matheson’s face turns red as he shouts into the microphone, and bizarrely and quaintly talks of Glasgow as the second city of the Empire. The camera crews and journalists and photographers are somewhere in the middle of all this.
“Yer aw a bunch of fannies” shouts one man passing the scrum on his way into the shopping centre next door.
It would be naive for those of us in the media to think he was only referring to Jim Murphy, the Labour Party supporters, and the protestors.
Gordon Matheson crescendos: “Please welcome my friend and my boss, Jim Murphy”
“It’s great to be back in the Glasgow sunshine,” says Murphy. “And what a great job you’re doing as the leader of the greatest city on earth,” he says to Matheson.
“Tell us why it uses zero hour contracts,” shouts Doughty-Brown.
Three older ladies wonder in to the scrum and ask what’s going on.
“Jim Murphy’s giving a speech,” I say. “Are you Labour supporters? Will you be voting Labour?”
Two say yes, and one says she’s undecided. They listen for another 20 seconds and then wander off.
Murphy talks over the protestors, as if they aren’t there. You have to admire this ability to pretend that the protestors aren’t there. Because they are clearly, loudly and obviously there.
This tenacity lasts three minutes.
“Scotland’s a small country, we know the name of every heckler," says Murphy. “Piers Doughty Brown, I won’t be silenced by you!”
Doughty-Brown keeps shouting.
Murphy continues: “Mr Piers Doughty Brown, in the housing scheme I grew up in no one with a doubled-barrelled name ever managed to bully me.”
Murphy continues, the heckling continues; but Murphy does not stop again.
All in all there about 20 journalists, 20 party members and four protestors.
Members of the public stop, more for the commotion than the speech, and walk on.
After the rally Murphy and the scrum of media and supporters move away from the protestors where the Scottish Labour leader answered question from TV.
"I know we're behind in the polls here in Scotland," Murphy tells a reporter from STV. "Two weeks and two days to go. You can gamble by getting rid of the Tories by voting SNP or you can guarantee you'll get rid of the Tories with Labour."
He later tells the BBC: "Whether it's sun, rain or hail I'll take our argument to the street corner and discuss it with people."
Murphy will no doubt he hoping that the next time he organises a street rally he'll get to meet some actual people.
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