So why is he still in it?

Bob Thomson paints a truly terrible (and accurate) picture of the state of the Labour party in Scotland in this month's Scottish Left Review

Here's a sample:

Then I was at the Scottish Labour Party Conference in Dundee in March.
There were few MPs (perhaps not so surprising) but there were also few MSPs and indeed few ordinary party members present. If it hadn't been for Trade Union
delegates the conference could have been held in a side hall. In debate after
debate I was struck by the hypocrisy of front bench speakers attacking the SNP
for not implementing policies Labour failed to implement over eight years in
power such as teacher and police numbers and student debt. And since the party
isn't exactly bursting with front-bench talent they don't even do it well.

There was no serious analysis of why Labour lost the Scottish Parliament
election and why we were failing to make an impact in opposition. Most trade
unions act and think as Labour loyalists when in fact they were being New Labour
apologists. On PFI/PPP the platform, except the trade unionist Chairman,
continued to support this disastrous policy while rubbishing the SNP's only
slightly better Scottish Futures Trust alternative. The three UK Cabinet
Ministers who spoke did not address the Scottish dimension or provide any
Scottish solutions.

We lost because of the neo liberal economic and war policies of UK
Labour government. Scottish Labour failed - unlike the Welsh Labour Party - to
put 'clear red water' between them and New Labour. The people who inhabit the
Labour Party bureaucracy either don't know about devolution or more probably
arrogantly ignore it. I am constantly getting emails about policy initiatives
which only apply in England but fail to say this. When I point this out, I
receive no reply.

and from there it gets worse, Labour have no organisation, no ideas, no competent people... etc, etc, etc...!

Obviously this is highly amusing for any nationalist, and it is undoubtedly accurate. It begs the question though, if Labour are as bad as this, and you know it, why on earth would anyone still be a member?

I presume Mr Thomson thinks facing up to the truth might get Labour to buck up their ideas.

My own experience of politics is that 'shoot the messenger' is much more likely however. No political parties ever like hearing bad news even if it's based on obvious evidence.

Parties are only as good as their ideas. When their ideas fail they have failed their purpose and Labour are I think a dead party walking. With Blair as leader a bullet was put into the brain of the party or at least it's social conscience. The process had begun some time before that though.

Thomson writes perceptively:

The unions ought to have been helping Labour to realise its situation and find a
way out of the hole. They haven't. In fact, the main thing the unions have done
is to cover the party's backs while it just kept on digging. And in ten years
Labour has had almost nothing to do with all the other political movements in
Scotland (such as the anti-war movement) and so have just been written off by
most. The Party has no friends to have a quiet word in its ear.

Their real problem isn't the numerous arguments enumerated here though, that's the symptoms, but it's their unthinking support for a disastrous union which has ultimately killed their credibility.

As mediawatch pointed out today, Brian Wilson also attacked the party in the Sunday Times but my guess is that he saw Thomson's article and wanted to have his own spin on it. His article has some similar observations but according to him it's all Labour's own fault for creating a Scottish parliament. Yes the democratic demand never comes into it for Brian, the wasted years of Thatcherism, who cares? The Scots could have been ignored in his eyes.

He's a man who has sold his soul to unionism and nothing else will do.

What shocks me is that an honest (or at least straight talking) man like Thomson would share a party with the likes of Wilson. Surely he could do a damn sight better.