EUAN McCOLM: Anas struck blow after blow... this wasn’t a love bomb, it was a love kicking
Anas Sarwar wishes us to be in no doubt: he considers Sir Keir Starmer to be a close friend. Even as the Scottish Labour leader twisted the blade he’d just plunged into the Prime Minister’s back, he spoke of their bond.
‘This isn’t easy,’ he told journalists gathered, yesterday afternoon, at a hastily-convened press conference in Glasgow.
And then Mr Sarwar struck blow after blow after blow. Biff! ‘He’s my friend.’ Thwack! ‘He’s dedicated his life to public service.’ Smash! ‘He’s a decent man.’ This wasn’t so much love bombing as a love kicking.
With the Prime Minister already wounded – perhaps fatally – over his catastrophic decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador despite knowing of his enduring friendship with paedophile sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Mr Sarwar chose to break ranks.
The people of what he incessantly described as ‘my country, Scotland’ were ‘crying out for competent government’. ‘We have,’ said Mr Sarwar, ‘an SNP government that is addicted to secrecy and cover-ups with devastating consequences.’
‘That’s why,’ added the Scottish Labour leader, slipping on his knuckle- dusters, ‘I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it.
The situation in Downing Street is not good enough. There have been too many mistakes. They promised they were going to be different, but too much has happened.
‘Have there been good things? Of course, there have been many of them, but no one knows them and no one can hear them because they’re being drowned out.’
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his 'first loyalty and first priority' was to Scotland as he called for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to quit
Tone is vitally important in politics. Yesterday, Mr Sarwar struck the wrong one.
The straw currently threatening to break the back of Sir Keir Starmer’s career was made not by political incompetence or poor judgment but by his failure to recognise how morally repugnant it was for him to promote Peter Mandelson despite knowing of his friendship with a convicted paedophile.
Rather than focus on the victims, yesterday, Mr Sarwar seemed more concerned about his own political prospects.
‘I could have chosen,’ he said, ‘to stay quiet and pretend everything was fine for the next three months.
‘But my first loyalty and my first priority is to Scotland.’
The Scottish Labour leader loves his country, Scotland, so much that he is willing to make the great personal sacrifice of doing whatever it takes to become First Minister.
Asked how, after he had described Peter Mandelson as an ‘old friend’, people could take him seriously, Mr Sarwar said he was doing what he considered best for his country, Scotland.
‘Let me be clear,’ he said, ‘Peter Mandelson is not someone or something I want to be associated with.’ Doubtless, that is so but Mr Sarwar is associated with that old friend, whether he likes it or not.
Within minutes of the Scottish Labour leader’s press conference, Cabinet ministers began posting suspiciously similar messages of support for the Prime Minister across social media.
Turns out everything is just fine and Sir Keir Starmer is in it for the long run.
And if you happen to be a Labour MP and you don’t believe that, well, you’ve not yet had a threatening call from the Labour whips office.
