WENDY ALEXANDER has insisted Labour can win back the trust of the Scottish people but warned the party of the need for change.
The Scottish Labour leader claimed her party's defeat at last year's Scottish Parliament elections did not mean voters had deserted Labour's values, but questioned the party's ability to deliver.
And in a pamphlet to be published at the Scottish L
abour conference in Aviemore at the end of this week, she said there would need to be "a lot of hard work" before the next Holyrood elections.
Ms Alexander's comments came as the Scottish Government prepared to launch the second phase of its National Conversation on Scotland's future.
First Minister Alex Salmond, his deputy Nicola Sturgeon, and Minister for Parliamentary Business Bruce Crawford are due to attend an event at Edinburgh University on Wednesday to set out their plans to engage with "the great institutions of Scottish society" – business organisations, trades unions, universities and colleges, churches, the voluntary sector and professional organisations – on the constitution.
The National Conversation website has had some 314,000 hits since it was launched last year.
In her pamphlet, Ms Alexander said Labour would have to work as hard, if not harder, than it did in the General Election landslide victory of 1997 to win the 2011 Scottish Parliament election.
She said: "We have no divine right to be elected, no automatic call on the people's support, no guarantees of the people's allegiance."
But she said the party's values were what they had always been – "the progressive values of justice, equality, and community".
And she went on: "I do not believe that people have lost faith in Scottish Labour's values. But they have questioned our ability to deliver the practical policies that match those values, and to make the changes that turn those values into reality.
"If we are humble enough to listen, wise enough to engage in debate, and brave enough to renew, we can win back belief in our ability to deliver."
She insisted there was no support for independence and said her proposed cross-party Scottish Constitutional Commission was the best way to explore whether the present powers of the Scottish Parliament were "right for our times".
But Ms Alexander said the priorities of the voters remained the same as others in countries the world over – jobs, health, education, law-and-order, housing.
"While we engage in constitutional reform discussions, we must also develop our proposals to meet these," she said.
"It means a lot of hard work before the next Scottish election, now only three years away.
"It means changes in strategies, changes in thinking, changes in policies. That is nothing new for Scottish Labour. Change is what we do."
The full article contains 460 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
