You wait three years for a Leadership Election, then two come along at once

The last time there was a competitive election for the Leadership of one of the main political parties in Scotland was June 2005, following the resignation of Jim Wallace as Leader of the Liberal Democrats. It is the winner of that Election, Nicol Stephen, who has resigned, triggering the second Leadership Contest in Scottish politics in the space of a week.

The official reason is that he wishes to spend more time with his family, and that the stresses and strains that the job places on his family life had become too great. I find it odd that Leadership of a Party in Opposition - just when you've started to settle into a formula at FMQs - is more pressurised than Leadership of a Party combined with the Deputy First Minister job and a Ministerial portfolio, but having never experienced either, I can't say for sure. Though I imagine that either way, there are serious pressures. But you have to wonder which stresses and strains in particular have grown to unbearable levels. Perhaps it will come out in the campaign. Perhaps speculation will come out anyway. We shall see.

So who would be the runners and riders? Tavish Scott will stand, I'm certain. I'd bet on him winning, as well. But the LibDems don't do coronations - I'm pretty sure I saw that Mike Rumbles only challenged Nicol Stephen because he was asked to provide some form of contest - so there will be at least one other name on the ballot paper. Mike Rumbles probably won't - I think he's allied to Scott and his time has passed anyway.
One of the Smiths is a vague possibility but their prospects wouldn't be all that great, alas, alas. Robert Brown is also a possibility but his top campaign priority should be to ditch the combover. I just don't see Ross Finnie standing, and if Jeremy Purvis is smart, he won't. He will go the way of a former possible candidate in a Federal LibDem Leadership Election if he does. Some might say he already did. In fact, some might say he went that way first.

Anyway. Back to the first Leadership Contest. Cathy Jamieson is thinking about it. Margaret Curran has been asked to stand, apparently, but Jeff made a good call regarding her being Iain Gray's running mate instead. Charlie Gordon, without whom there would probably be no vacancy, is thinking about it. Andy Kerr is strangely silent. And let's be honest, it's strange for Andy Kerr to be silent. In any case, they're not even initiating proceedings (ha!) until after Glasgow East, so Labour will go into that By-Election with a vacuum at the top, Wendy's potential successors campaigning but not openly, and with Gordon Brown left to carry the can if and when things go wrong. Not great, frankly.

So all eyes will continue to be on the strange death of Scottish Labour - which is probably why Nicol Stephen went now: to get an awkward moment (whether he likes it or not, Leadership vacancies are pretty awkward) for his party out of the way while no one is watching.

Personally, I intend to watch this one very closely. While the flurry of posts on Nicol Stephen's resignation is just beginning, I'm guessing that attention will eventually drift back to Labour. But not everyone's will, and the LibDems will have people watching - I am in a position to guarantee it.

The Dreaded Vote of Confidence

Liberal Democrat MSPs have all signed Nicol Stephen's nomination form to be re-elected as Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, so perhaps reports of his impending political demise are exaggerated, as his position is effectively secure until 2011. However, there are still questions.

The Herald quotes Mike Rumbles: "I am absolutely certain Nicol Stephen will be re-elected in October. He is the best man for the job and he has the backing of all the MSPs, including myself." Given that Rumbles stood against Stephen in 2005, the question has to be asked: did Rumbles not think he was the best man for the job in 2005? Or has he only stopped thinking of himself as the bes man for the job since then, and if so, why?

The Herald also quotes Tavish Scott: "If I had wanted to stand as leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats I would have done so two years ago." That's not a ringing endorsement. The question here is, what happens if Scott changes his mind? Is Nicol Stephen a hostage to Tavish Scott's good will?

Scott continues: "That policy of continuity was the strategy every time Jim Wallace stood, and I think you will find it's not in the tradition of Liberal Democrats to have a bloodletting whenever they decide to consider the leadership." That's even less of an endorsement: while Rumbles at least offers praise (however dubious) for Nicol Stephen, Scott's rationale against a challenge is that the LibDems prefer continuity and don't do bloodletting. What Scott is saying is that Nicol Stephen will only avoid a challenge because he is already the Leader.

And there's a wider question about this decision. Didn't Charles Kennedy find himself unopposed after the 2005 Westminster Election? Didn't Kennedy then find a massive array of knives plunged into his back within a few months?

Nicol Stephen is not out of the woods at all.

Leadership Challenge... powered by Google

Readers will note the presence of MyBlogLog on this site, and how it's the only widget I have kept since I upgraded to New Blogger at Christmas. One of the reasons I like it is the ability to have a quick glance at how people find this.

Yesterday, according to MyBlogLog, I got 27 visits as a result of the phrase 'nicol stephen leadership critics tavish scott' being googled. The thing is, I haven't written in any detail about this (I mentioned rumblings in passing, though). When this makes its way onto Google, however, it's time to think about it.

You can see why the mutterings have started: Nicol Stephen routinely describes his party as the 'Party of Real Momentum in Scotland', and there has been an upward trajectory. In 1997, the LibDems (with Jim Wallace in charge in Scotland, and Paddy Ashdown at the UK level) took 12.98% of the Scottish vote. This went up to 16.41% in 2001 (under Wallace and Charles Kennedy), and 22.63% in 2005. It culminated in the Dunfermline & West Fife By-Election win which appears to have been consolidated if the LibDem win in Dunfermline West last month is any indication. In terms of actual seats, the party has been on a slow, steady upward trend since the days of the Alliance. The Liberals and SDP won a combined eight seats in 1983. This went up to nine in 1987, which the unified party held onto in 1992. They made a net gain of one in 1997, held firm in 2001, and won 11 constituencies in 2005 despite the reduction in the number of seats available.

The trend isn't confined to Westminster elections either: for European Elections, in 1989 the party (still in its infancy) picked up 4.29% of the vote. This went up to 7.21% in 1994, 9.81% in 1999 and 13.1% in 2004. The old FPTP system didn't bear fruit for them, but the PR system implemented in 1999 has given them one seat in Scotland's delegation to Europe.

The issue is the Holyrood election. Jim Wallace oversaw a split trend: they started in 1999 with 14.15% on the Constituency Vote and 12.43% on the Regional. In 2003 the Constituency Vote increased to 15.13% (and they gained Edinburgh South), but the Regional Vote went down to 11.78%. Fortunately for the party, they held onto a net total of 17 seats and Jim Wallace stayed in Government. 2007 is the continuation of that story: the Constituency vote went up to 16.17%, but the Regional Vote again went down to 11.3% - a record high on the Constituency Vote, a record low on the Regional.

This could be brushed aside, with focus given to the Constituency Vote and the win in Dunfermline West. The problem is the overall outcome: a net loss of one seat, with Gordon lost (albeit in understandable circumstances), Roxburgh & Berwickshire lost, and Argyll & Bute lost, depriving the Holyrood group of one of its key figures in Geroge Lyon. Given that the gain in Dunfermline was cancelled out by the lost of their Regional Seat in Mid Scotland & Fife, and that conversely the losses in Roxburgh & Berwickshire and in Gordon were compensated by the gain of a Regional MSP in the South and North East repsectively, the loss in Argyll & Bute has been the killer blow. A net loss was the outcome no one prepared for, and Nicol Stephen is now the first Liberal(Democrat) to oversee a net loss of Scottish seats since 1970, when the Liberals ended up with three Scottish MPs, down two on the 1966 Election.

Worse was to come. The Coalition plans went badly, with rumours that two LibDem MSPs all but blackmailed Nicol Stephen into rejecting Coalition with the SNP. Now, judging by the article that Richard quotes, it's likely that the group would have voted down a Coalition whatever happened, but the 'fear that Tavish [Scott] and Mike [Rumbles] would have walked', shows that those two in particular appeared to be in control at that meeting, rather than Nicol Stephen. The fact that those two now have senior frontbench positions makes things even more awkward: Scott is the Party's Finance Spokesman; Rumbles is their Spokesman on Rural Affairs. So those two have damaged Nicol Stephen's authority within the Party, and are now in a position to damage it further.

In addition, Stephen's performance at FMQ's did nothing to inspire confidence. Dull and re-assuring works when you're Deputy First Minister, leader of the junior party in a Coalition government. It does not work when you're leader of an Opposition party, one of three, vying for attention from the third spot, behind Labour and the Conservatives. Stephen had no impact in the Chamber, and his question rambled, vaguely skirting around a couple fo issues rather than tackling them head-on.

So where does this leave Nicol Stephen? It leaves him leading the 'Sack Race', the Party Leader less likely to be there at the end of the year. Six months ago, Annabel Goldie had this dubious honour. Most were predicting doom for the Tories, and lamented her performances at FMQs, while a brief flirtation with Labour was angrily rejected by activists, and their 'principled opposition' approach ridiculed by most people. I still think the Tories have a lot to think about over the next few years, but the short term is positive: they held on to third place, and their position on inter-party relations, luckily for them, is the best one for the situation Scotland finds itself in, and the Tories, suddenly, have influence.

Six weeks ago, the Sack Race leader was Jack McConnell. The party was, apparently, doomed, London was unhappy and the vultures were circling. However, McConnell is starting to adapt to life in Opposition (his questions at FMQs were too long but the style had something going for it, with the 'not so sure' mantra and the 'yes or no?' question, a hallmark of Opposition performances). Add to that the weakness of his potential challengers: Wendy Alexander lacks the killer instinct (we know this, otherwise she would have challenged McConnell in 2001) and her Hungry Caterpillar line sank somewhat; Andy Kerr is seen as the heir to McConnell's support base, so his challenge has to wait until a vacancy in order to be credible; and Charlie Gordon is at best a stalking horse. Not only that, but Labour have not admitted defeat in this election and will not do so in this Session until one of four things happens: either the Party loses a By-Election where they were in contention (so either lose a seat or fail to make the key gain); or the Party has a bad Westminster Election (in which case the Labour MSPs will be caught up in a massive row engulfing the whole Labour Party); or the Party tries and fails to oust the Salmond Administration in a no-confidence vote (in which case they've missed their big chance); or they succeed in a no-confidence vote but don't manage to put an administration together themselves (in which case there'll probably be another election). So McConnell, like Goldie, has bought some time.

Nicol Stephen, however, has not bought any time, and what he has left is running out. The question is, who will wield the knife, or will the former Deputy FM suffer the same drip-drip of speculation and criticism that put an end to Charles Kennedy's leadership at Westminster?

We're getting somewhere!

Enfin! Holyrood looks like it's close to having a Presiding Officer, in the shape of Alex Fergusson, Conservative MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. Controversially, he might still take the Conservative whip, something neither George Reid nor David Steel did. Steel did, however, take the LibDem whip in the House of Lords. That impasse looks broken, however.

Next, Coalition. The SNP and Greens have a 'co-operation agreement'. The two agree on opposition to new nuclear power stations (they did anyway), support for independence and a referendum (they did anyway), and early legislation to deal with climate change (incidentally, I've always wondered how you actually do this - you can halt the man-made causes of climate change but you can't halt the change itself, so this is basically like making death illegal).

In practical terms, the Greens agree to vote for Alex Salmond as First Minister, and for his ministerial team (which, assuming he comes through on Wednesday, will be smaller than under the previous Executive). In return, they get one of the SNP's Committee Convenerships, and will be consulted on the Legislative Programme, Budget, and big policy announcements. The SNP also agree to be nice to the Greens, or rather, "to give sympathetic consideration to issues raised by the Green Party in Parliament, including via Motions and Members Bills."

It's a very loose model, far looser even than the Confidence & Supply proposals initially floated last year, and neither side has really played a blinder here: the SNP do not have guaranteed Green support for Budgets and Confidence motions; the Greens don't get all that many policies that weren't on the cards anyway. The SNP do have two extra votes for their Ministers, though (always useful), and the Greens get a bit of extra prominence via a Convenership. The major positive, however, is that this could be a template for a new arrangement with the LibDems, or even the Tories: the key to the agreement's success is its looseness.

But are the LibDems truly up for doing a deal? Rumours abound (via Richard Thomson) that a strop by Tavish Scott and Mike Rumbles could be the real cause of the LibDems' rejection of SNP advances, and that a power struggle is now on in the Party, and it looks like Nicol Stephen lost it: he is reported to have wanted to enter a Coalition, while Tavish Scott was the LibDems' Ian Paisley. Or rather, the LibDems' Ian Paisley of the 1970s.

Speaking of power stuggles, the knifes are starting to point at Jack McConnell's back. Successors are now being openly discussed, with Wendy Alexander, Margaret Curran's Hands and Andy Kerr all being mentioned. Even John Reid is being supported!

Unnnnnhhh?

Scotland on Sunday are reporting that the LibDems want Nicol Stephen to be First Minister as part of any Coalition deal, regardless of whether they are the junior or senior partner. We have gone from 'I will lead the largest Party' to 'I will not support Party X in situation Y' to 'Putting me in Bute House is the price for our support'. We have also gone from 'We will support whoever gets the most votes' to 'We might get the most votes' to 'We might not like who gets the most votes' to 'Whoever gets the most votes, our man should lead the Executive'. The LibDems cite examples of the junior partner taking the lead, but I'd bet that's as a compromise, a method of holding a weak Coalition together when there are more than two parties involved and the relations between the largest party and one of the others are tense at best. For Stephen the problems are as follows:

1. He needs more than 17 seats to do this. If he can't make substantial gains, his case for the top job looks weak as he's proven himself unable to persuade more people than have already supported the LibDems under Jim Wallace to back the Party under him.

2. The Liberal Democrats have supported Jack McConnell as First Minister since 2001. If they are still willing to go into Coalition with Labour, why should that suddenly change? And why would McConnell give up the job, unless he were to resign as Labour Leader immediately after the election?

3. If the SNP are involved, Stephen then has to explain why he ruled out a deal with the SNP until it involved him entering Bute House.

Speaking of which, Scotland on Sunday also reports that the LibDems are in informal discussions with the SNP, despite Sir Menzies Campbell, Nicol Stephen and Tavish Scott all ruling out a deal. One of the paper's sources said that it would be foolish for them to rule out talking to the SNP!