It is less than nine months until the third elections to the Scottish Parliament. This election will coincide with the tri-centennial of the Treaty of Union with England and eight years of the devolution settlement.  Recently this election is being discussed in the media by reference to our on-going leadership debate. What is not being discusses is the real debate that we need to have within the Party about what ambition we have for Scotland.  The initial enthusiasm in the referendum campaign has been replaced by ingrained cynicism. From the resignation of Henry McLeish to the fiasco over Holyrood, there has been little positive coverage in the press.

During the summer a leading MSP announced that she was not standing for re-election. Susan Deacon is a thoughtful and vision forming former Minister. Party members should be deeply concerned that talent like this is so disillusioned. What has gone wrong? The current Executive bears little resemblance the first Executive formed by the late Donald Dewar in 1999. Wendy Alexander, Sarah Boyack, Jackie Baillie, and yes..Susan Deacon are nowhere to be seen. For whatever reasons Jack McConnell had in forming his Ministerial Team he has failed to find a role for a group of Ministers who promised radical change in the first term. Whether it was the abolition of S28 or congestion charges or housing stock transfer or taking on the Catholic Church over Sex Ed, these Ministers were taking the flack in the media by offering policies that were bold and designed to build the new Scotland that we had worked so hard to see. There have some bold moves by McConnell in the form of the Smoking Ban but let's not forget who was one of the male Executive members briefing heavily against the abolition of S28 back in 2000 along with McCabe or McLeish. Other changes like the graduate endowment or the introduction of PR for local elections are measures clawed out by the Liberal Democrats. What exactly are we going into this election with apart from the promise of "better schools, better hospitals and fighting Neds"? All important and necessary (well perhaps apart from the later) objectives of a Labour Exec but hardly burning with passionate vision.

Recent opinion polls are pointing to a SNP victory in next year's election and I think we need to be thoroughly relaxed about a defeat. What I hear you say? Am I not a loyal Labour member? Yes I am but I am fed up with the current direction of the Scottish Parliament. I am fed up that talented MSPs are standing down. And I am fed up that all we can do to combat the SNP is this endless barrage about divorce being a messy business. The public are smarter than we give them credit for. There is no reason why we cannot win an election against a party that shares many of our social democratic ideals by debating them on these very policies. Let's not be disingenuous by thinking we can merely scare the electorate. Instead we should expose the other policies of the Nats, Greens, Liberals and Tories in a comprehensive manner but do so in the spirit of maturity expressed in the ambition of a "new" politics.

The public seem determined to see the institution of the Scottish Parliament and the leadership of the Labour Executive as one and the same.  Perhaps the only way we can start to rebuild public faith in the institution of the Parliament is a term out of office. A change at the top and a renewal of our ideas. More importantly we need to go back to the consensual ideas that were found in the report of the Consultative Steering Group back in those heady days between 1997-1999.

I realise most of this may be of little interest to members south of the border. In fact I myself now live in England but retain a keen interest in what happens at home. I want to see a positive discussion when I read of Scotland and the Scottish Parliament. For too long all I have heard is nothing but a reel of problems in the English and Scottish press about devolution. Or in fact what impact this has on the leadership of our party at a UK level. Time for a change and time for a chance to regroup and come back in 2011 with a bold vision that engages the new politics we fought for.