Ewan Aitken For Eastern Edinburgh

It’s time to “formally” close this campaign blog. It was always about the campaign. I will return to blogging soon but somewhere new.

Losing last week was a painful experience. But that’s the joy of the democratic process and I have no complaints. No-one forced me to sign up for this and I always knew that this was one possible scenario…

I owe my wonderful team a great debt of gratitude for working so hard and for being so committed to the cause. Led by my campaign manager, the phenomenon that is Kez Dugdale MSP, (her election is one wee bright light in an otherwise dark few days) and my great friend and agent Ian Perry,(who will never look a window envelope in the eye again), we managed to buck the trend and increase the Labour share of the vote but it was not enough. It felt a bit like scoring a hat-trick in the cup final and still being on the loosing side. My deepest thanks to all my team and to everyone who offered so very much support to me over the campaign. Thanks too to all of you who have read my musings here over the last months.

Nationally our results were worse than disastrous.  Scottish Labour lost so badly for many reasons; here are my thoughts about some of the self inflicted ones -

• We assumed that there were some un-assailable seats that would always be Labour – lesson; never take the people for granted
• We all knew why we thought Scotland would be better led by Scottish Labour but we never explained why in the straightforward language of the living room. Where we had good ideas (e.g. 1000 literacy teachers, One plus support for small businesses, first foot fund for first time buyers – we spoke about numbers not lives changed or over explained and qualified rather than kept it simple and clear) – lesson; a good idea badly explained becomes a bad idea
• There was no coherent value based threads woven through our policies or our manifesto. Politics has to be about values otherwise it doesn’t touch people’s hearts as well as their heads – lesson; our message didn’t touch the peoples souls, we need a consistent set of messages woven together in stories and metaphors that draw people into a common journey with us
• We chose to ignore the our opposition but instead of that making them irrelevant as was the intention, it  gave them space on the park to control the game;  lesson – If we want to fight for Scotland we need to fight in Scotland about Scotland facing the politicans of Scotland

And then the SNP played a blinder and the Libdems died the death of a thousand coalition cuts whilst the Tories flatlined. Whatever I think about their political ambitions, the SNP are to be congratulated on their achievement. Scottish Labour needs to take the time to reflect, review and rediscover that fire in our bellies that meant we spoke for those who are voiceless and stand for those who are forgotten. And then make sure we really are doing so

And what next for me – who knows; but there is one final wee story. Apparently at 5.20am on Thursday morning, few moments after the announcement of the Edinburgh Eastern result,there was a huge power surge in my workplace at 121 George Street, (HQ of the Church of Scotland),blowing all the lights and then a tank was seen rolling down the street towards Bute House; for some reason my colleagues seem to think that this was a sign of something but they can’t quite work out what – anyone got any suggestions?!!!