The Scottish Labour leader should be goading the First Minister, to get back-benchers on her side
A COUPLE of weeks ago, Wendy Alexander held a dinner for some members of the Holyrood political press corps. Her aim was to explain her thinking on the constitutional convention but, in the course of the evening, the Scottish Labour leader was told –
quite bluntly – that she was pretty awful at First Minister's Questions. She was informed that not only was she being beaten by Alex Salmond every week, but that Nicol Stephen was doing a much better job for the Liberal Democrats than she was for Labour.
That dinner happened just after one of Ms Alexander's worst ever performances: she started by asking a question about SportScotland, went on to talk about the Budget and ended on police pensions, failing to score a point with any of her efforts. At the same session, Mr Stephen asked three pointed and direct questions about SportScotland and had the First Minister riled, angry and unable to answer clearly.
Since then, Ms Alexander has been better. She has focused on one topic, not several; she has concentrated on asking the questions she wants to ask – rather than being tempted by Mr Salmond into answering his questions – and she has started getting score draws. But why did it take a gaggle of journalists to tell the Labour leader she wasn't doing well at question time?
There are only two possible explanations. Either Ms Alexander's advisers are not doing their jobs properly and they are failing to tell her when she is not doing well. Or they are pointing out her shortcomings, but she is failing to take any notice.
First Minister's Questions is an odd event. It does not carry anything like the political clout of Prime Minister's Questions, but it is important, nonetheless. BBC Scotland's coverage hardly reaches a large audience, live or on the web, but it is crucial for party morale and confidence.
Mr Stephen was under considerable pressure after the election. His party had failed to live up to its own expectations, coming fourth with only 16 seats, and was out of government for the first time since devolution. Critical voices started to be heard behind the scenes, with some suggesting Tavish Scott would make a better leader than Mr Stephen, who was seen by some as lazy and uninspiring. Now, Mr Stephen appears as secure as Stirling Castle, and the reason is simple: First Minister's Questions.
Mr Stephen has always taken a direct route to FMQs, asking short, direct questions of Mr Salmond, while refusing to be blown off course by the First Minister's rhetoric. The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader has also not been afraid to hit hard and low, when he needs to. His claim that there was a "smell of sleaze" around the First Minister's role in the calling-in of the Trump development remains the one stand-out comment from the parliament since the last election. Whether it is his attitude, his questions or just the fact he is a Liberal Democrat, Mr Stephen gets right under Mr Salmond's skin, and the First Minister hates it. Mr Salmond finds it very hard to control his vitriol when Mr Stephen starts asking awkward questions, which often results in a loss of concentration and victory for the Lib Dem leader.
The number of people outside the parliament who have watched Mr Stephen get the better of Mr Salmond is very small, but that is not the point. Mr Stephen has grown in confidence with every session of FMQs he takes part in. As that happened, so morale within his parliamentary party has increased, cementing his place as leader. That permeates down to activists on the ground, allowing the party to grow as an effective opposition party after eight years in government.
It has taken Ms Alexander five months even to start to realise this. She has had extraordinary pressures to deal with as leader, mostly connected to her campaign finances, and this has hardly helped with party morale. But it is amazing how quickly the backbiting stops and a party unites behind its leader, if the leader gives them something to cheer about.
If Ms Alexander could start to land real, proper and definitive blows on Mr Salmond, the cheers from her back-benchers behind her would drown out the whispers calling for her head. Ms Alexander has put great store in getting out around the country and persuading people that the Labour Party deserves their support once again. She would be better securing the support, loyalty and applause of her parliamentary party first.
If Mr Stephen can do it, than surely Ms Alexander, with all her intelligence and her well-paid advisers, can come up with questions to score points off Mr Salmond. At the moment, Mr Salmond dismisses the Labour leader with derisive jibes and humour, using his back-benchers' laughter to knock her off her stride. She has to stop reacting to that goading and use the First Minister's faults against him. He appears arrogant and smug, and often dodges the question by latching on to something else, whether it is Ms Alexander's financial affairs or the latest poll results.
The way to deal with him is to use the same sort of scornful humour to rile him. A well-phrased dig, which gets the Labour back-benchers pointing at the First Minister and laughing derisively, is almost bound to get him worked up and, as Mr Stephen has found out to his benefit, when Mr Salmond is riled, he doesn't perform nearly as well as he should.
