Wendy Alexander changes her mind

Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander was on Channel 4 News this evening, being interviewed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Scottish Labour have done a sudden about-turn and decided that actually, they do support a referendum on Scottish independence and they would like it now, thank you very much.

The change of mind seems to have come along very suddenly and smacks of cynical politicking with the fate of a nation, but hey-ho, this blogger favours English independence so the sooner the Scots are allowed to go their own way, all the better and good luck to them.

But back to the interview. A common complaint about politicians, particularly Labour ones from whatever side of the border, seeing as they're most directly in the firing line, is that they rarely answer a straight question with a straight answer. You need only look at Prime Minister's Questions on a Wednesday to see that. Gordon Brown never answers the questions David Cameron or indeed any non-Labour MP asks him. In fact, sometimes he doesn't even answer questions from his own MPs. Say what you like about Tony Blair, but at least he tackled things head on before turning the question around for his own purposes.

I bet Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah, has fun...

Sarah: "Gordon, what do you want for dinner?"

Gordon: "We've had the longest sustained period of tasty dinners since the Tories were in office and...."

Sarah: "Yes Gordon, but what do you want for dinner tonight?"

Gordon: "I think the public want to know that we're taking the tough decisions to ensure tasty dinners in the long..."

Sarah: "Look, Gordon, I haven't got time for this. You can either have fish fingers or sausages. Which do you want?"

Gordon: "I take full responsibilty for the dinner and will listen to what you have said and I think we need to reflect and...."

Well, tonight it was Wendy Alexander's turn to come across as an idiot. Given the quick u-turn on the referendum, Krishnan's first, entirely understandable question was to ask Alexander when she had changed her mind. She evaded. Krishnan asked again. She evaded again. Krishnan, starting to get annoyed, wondered if there was any point in carrying on if Alexander wasn't going to answer this simple question. She evaded.

Anyway, Krishnan couldn't get anywhere so the interview fizzled out in evasion, spin and SNP-bashing. Do these politicians not realise that it's this kind of crap that causes such disillusion with Labour in particular and with the entire political process in general? Wendy Alexander, you are truly pathetic.