Scotland

What’s the most significant political story of the week, Ukip winning Rochester or Emily Thornberry’s resignation? Well, I suspect, it might be neither of them and that the really big event this week happened north of the border, Nicola Sturgeon being sworn in as First Minister. For the new SNP leader is riding a quite remarkable wave of popularity. Right now, she’s addressing a rally at the Glasgow Hydro, a 12,000 seat venue that she sold out faster than Kylie Minogue—what other politician in Britain could hope to do that?   As I say in the column this week, what makes Sturgeon’s popularity all the more remarkable is that she is a career politician.

And so the Age of Nicola dawns. Elected First Minister by the Scottish Parliament yesterday; sworn in this morning. Taking First Minister's Questions this afternoon. Alex Salmond's departure was a long drawn-out affair but it will not take Nicola Sturgeon anything like as long to leave her own distinct impression on Scottish politics. I am not sure why folk at Westminster thought the referendum defeat would plunge the SNP into crisis. That might have been the case if the result had been 65-35 but that, despite what some thought, was never, ever, a likely outcome. Senior SNP strategists knew winning might be difficult but they also reckoned that anything above 40 percent support for independence would be enough to change the dynamics of Scottish - and British - politics for good.

Alex Salmond is on his way out. The First Minister gives every impression of enjoying - or at least making the most of - his farewell tour. And why not? Far from weakening the SNP, defeat in September's referendum has - at least for now - strengthened the party. Its supremacy is unchallenged and while recent polls putting the Nationalists on 50 percent of the vote are unlikely - surely! - to last forever this is the kind of problem worth having. Nevertheless, the First Minister's final days in office have also reminded us that policy and, indeed, philosophy are not necessarily Salmond's strengths. Unusually, First Minister's Questions proved a useful exercise this week. Both Jackie Baillie, Labour's temporary head at Holyrood, and Ruth Davidson pressed Salmond on education.

Imagine if, in one of her first acts as First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon announced that, in spite of the result of September’s independence vote, Scotland was to declare independence anyway, on the basis that opinion polls now showed a majority of people in favour of independence and therefore there was no need for the decision to be approved in a referendum. David Cameron and his government would surely treat it as an outrage. Why, then, has the Chancellor this week seen fit to announce that the people of Greater Manchester are to have a directly elected mayor? Two years ago the very same question was put to the people of the City of Manchester in a referendum and the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

A while back I was speaking at one of those How did it all go so wrong? post-referendum discussions and, as expected, the air was thick with recrimination. The good people of Glasgow - rebranded as Yes City - were unhappy and indignant. Eventually, however, talk turned to what might be done next. I made the suggestion that, just perhaps, Scotland's political and blethering classes might pay some attention to the powers the Scottish parliament currently enjoys. I mean, I said, it is not as though there are no big arguments to be had within the confines of Holyrood's truncated responsibilities. Not as though there are no large problems that needed fixing long ago. We were way past the point, I said, at which we could ignore the appalling reality of Scotland's apartheid education system.

Even the po-faced Associated Press (video above) couldn't but describe as 'toe-curling' Ed Miliband's encounter with a homeless hijabi. Pundits agree that Ed appeared 'terrified' of the beggar in Manchester. Mr S was there, however - on unrelated business, of course - and can confirm that the opposition leader really did only have 2p in his pocket at the time. (Why on earth would he carry more?) Your correspondent was otherwise engaged, however (in discussion with my equine consultant) in the moment this photo was snapped: [caption id="attachment_8909992" align="alignnone" width="506"] Manchester, 31 October 2014 (Photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty)[/caption] What could have been on his mind?

While watching Scottish Labour leader frontrunner Jim Murphy launch his campaign today, you might be forgiven for thinking the teetotaller has been hitting the bottle. The bottle of hair dye, that is. There is a noticeable change in tone from when Murphy was a minister in the last Labour government. Mr S doubts that will be the only thing the former right-wing Blairite will be lightening in the coming weeks too.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_30_Oct_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Jim Murphy" startat=1010] Listen [/audioplayer]There should, by rights, have been a stampede of candidates to replace Johann Lamont as the leader of the Scottish Labour party. With the new powers promised to Holyrood, the Scottish First Minister promises to be a more powerful figure than most of the Cabinet. Only the holders of the great offices of state will be more influential than the occupant of Bute House. Labour might well trail the SNP by a large margin in the Holyrood polls, but their position is by no means hopeless. But since she decided to step down, there was silence.

At the risk of intruding into someone else's calamity, if you can't enjoy this what can you enjoy? By this I mean, of course, Scottish Labour's meltdown. (Suggestions the party is not actually an iced lollipop should not be taken too seriously.) The thing to remember about Labour in Scotland is they've never been as popular as they like to think. They've only ever been the largest minority. A large and zombified minority, to be sure, but a minority nonetheless. They never - ever - spoke for a majority of Scots. They only claimed to. They still do. That's the astonishing thing. They are the people's army, the political will of the Scottish people made flesh. And how dare anyone else suggest otherwise. Inconveniently, a fair few folk have dared make just that suggestion. The bastards.

It was the wee things that did it. Things like vision, inspiration, confidence and all the other details that coalesce into that strange something called leadership. There are many types of leader and leadership is another of those things easier to see than define but all successful leaders share one essential quality: they can choose a hill and persuade their followers that's the place they must die. Johann Lamont never had a hill. By the end she didn't have much of an army either. Scottish Labour is a party suffering from some kind of political dementia right now. It kind of remembers being a contender and it still stands before a mirror shadowboxing but the moves are slower now and less convincing all the time.