The Scottish Labour party is a bit like cigarette-smoking or the Church of Scotland: it used to be everywhere you looked, but now you can’t remember the last time you saw it. We have been reminded of the party’s existence thanks to the abrupt exit of its leader Anas Sarwar, who was given a peerage and ministerial gig by Andy Burnham for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with his February statement calling on Keir Starmer to resign. That leaves a vacancy at the top of Scottish Labour, and today North East Scotland MSP Michael Marra has followed his Glasgow colleague Monica Lennon in announcing his candidacy.
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The Marras are a Dundonian clan of leftist politics; his sister Jenny spent a decade as a Labour MSP in the 2010s while their uncle Michael was a socialist folk singer fondly remembered in Scotland’s fourth city. Michael, the nephew, entered Holyrood in 2021 and has since made a name for himself with forensic interrogations of SNP ministers, a rare sight in a pusillanimous parliament. Marra is the candidate of material concerns: growth and productivity, and how to maximise them; poverty and inequalities, and how to remedy them.
