NEW LABOUR FINDS A SCAPEGOAT

Alan Cochrane suggests that the

Lord Provost's only crime is to be old Labour

THE Labour party is determined to clean up its reputation in local government; we know this because the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said as much in a speech to the party's local government conference in Scarborough not long ago.

He decreed that henceforth his newly cleansed party would adopt a 'one strike and you're out' approach to corruption in town halls. It is a tactic designed to rid Labour of the ferociously bad smells which have emanated for many years from a whole host of Labour controlled local authorities.

In pursuing this noble aim, at least in one city whose machinations have caused Mr Blair's nose to wrinkle, it is not only the cynical who believe that New Labour may well he adopting a tried and tested, if somewhat disreputable, formula for root- ing out miscreants.

`Round up the usual suspects' seems to be very much the method being adopted in Glasgow, the city whose name is usually now grouped with those of Doncaster, Hackney and, in Scotland, Monklands, as areas in dire need of a purge. The Lord

It doesn't look very pink.' Provost, Pat Lally (he is also, as Lord Lieutenant, the Queen's representative in what used to be the second city of the Empire), has been suspended from the Labour group for 18 months and banned from holding party office for a similar period.

His crimes? Here we have a problem. New Labour refuses to spell them out in detail, saying that it is under no obligation to do so. Officials do confirm that Mr Lally, and his deputy Bailie Alex Mosson, were found guilty under rule 2A8 of New Labour's rule book which bans 'a sus- tained course of conduct comprising abdi- cation of individual and collective responsi- bility entrusted to him in his role as a pub- lic representative of the party, which has been prejudicial to the reputation and operational effectiveness of the party.' Phew.

Additionally, there were dark whispers, which had echoes more of Peking than Pos- sil, of `factionalism and junketing'. Thus, after a marathon session at Labour's Scot- tish HQ, Keir Hardie House, last month, Lally was hung out to dry by New Labour's witch-finder generals, the National Consti- tutional Committee. (I knew Lally was for it, by the way, when I saw that Dianne Hayter of the Fabians was on the NCC. Older readers may remember her as the lady who year after year called for a ban on smoking at Labour's annual conference. The smokers prevailed for years, but Hayter stuck in there and won in the end. It was she who ended the smoke-filled rooms.) The problem for New Labour's zealots is that, having imposed their suspension from party office, there was nothing they could do about Lally's Lord Provost-ship. That is not in their gift, although they did 'recom- mend' that the ruling Labour group in Glasgow strip him of the office.

That process is now under way, although Lally says that he will bring in his learned friends to frustrate them. Further, Lally has struck a chord with some by pleading that he has done nothing wrong, apart from being Old Labour — which, at 72 years of age, he insists he cannot help.

He has now taken the unusual step of publishing in Glasgow's Herald newspaper the 'charges' he faced at his NCC trial. At first, second and subsequent glances, I am bound to say that they show no evidence of a smoking gun, far less a hand in the till. They appear to be a litany of tittle-tattle and pathetic little gripes, common to every organisation, never mind a council which oversees the world's most disputatious city.

For instance, Lally was accused of failing to 'acknowledge the authority of the Labour Group Whip and the National Executive Committee'. Eh? Arguing with whips and the NEC used to be a badge of honour in Labour's ranks.

He was accused of undermining the Labour group leader in Glasgow, Coun- cillor Bob Gould. Lally says he argued with him but always stuck by group deci- sions. He is also held to have leant on council employees to secure testimonials as to his conduct. Not so, he says — they were unsolicited.

Although Labour refuses to confirm the fact, the main charge against Lally con- cerns what has become known as the `votes for junkets' affair. Here, the afore- mentioned Councillor Gould alleged that Lally would dispense freebies to council- lors in return for their support on crucial party votes. In particular, Lally was found culpable over a trip in 1996, where he and his wife took six councillors, senior council employees and Glasgow business leaders to the Edinburgh Tattoo. Lally denies any unhealthy patronage and says the number of guests he took was consistent with what had been happening for 50 years in rela- tion to the event.

Confused? You should be, because Mr Gould, the man who set this hare running, is himself the subject of a Labour internal inquiry and has been deposed as group leader. In his place and charged with rid- ding Glasgow of its Lord Provost is Frank McAveety, a man of distinctly un-Glaswe- gian habits. A non-smoking teetotaller, who boasts of his collection of 1,000 CDs, he is every inch the model New Labour man.

In one sense, New Labour's campaign — he was investigated for 11 months, no less — against Lally has worked. A poll in the Scotsman last week showed over- whelming support for Lally's sacking. Per- haps he should go. I have no idea. He is a machine politician from way back and has done nothing, so far as I am aware, of par- ticular note for his city. But neither, at least as far as the charges laid against him sug- gest, has he done anything which merits the draconian action taken against him.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are just as easily accused of factionalism, following their spat over that book. And if junketing is to be a sin, what about that army of hangers-on who went to Washington with the Prime Minister?

Labour may well want rid of its old stagers who know nothing and care less for the party's new ways. If so, Mr Blair must be honest about it and spare us the show trials. In the old Scottish police courts, no- nonsense magistrates used to brush aside what they believed to be impertinent not- guilty pleas with the words: 'You shouldn't have done what you are alleged to have done.' That, unless I am very much mistak- en, is what Mr Blair and New Labour are saying to Lord Provost Lally.

Alan Cochrane writes for the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday.