A GRAND old building named Sovereign House stands directly opposite Labour's HQ in Scotland, its elegant façade bearing a striking image of a monarch being anointed.
That image seemed to look on mockingly yesterday as a media scrum descended on John Smith House – a dismal concrete bunker in the heart of Glasgow – not to witness a coronation, but a spectacular defenestration. The plaque on the Smith building
reveals that it was opened in 1970 by Brother Hugh Scanlon of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Yet the atmosphere on a drizzly morning was decidedly less than fraternal.
A hollow-eyed apparatchik was manning the door with the zeal of an East German border guard. No one, it emerged, was to gain entry without the approval of the party. "There is nothing happening here," she barked unconvincingly.
Minutes later the game was up when Jackie Baillie, Wendy's closest lieutenant, hoved into view. She sipped a coffee and gave a thin smile. "A word to the wise gentlemen," she hissed. "You are completely wasting your time."
Warming to her role as pantomime villain, the burly Dumbarton MSP pointed at the snappers and cackled. "I'll bet you £5 that you won't get a picture of Wendy."
Her smirk disappeared momentarily as the door clicked shut behind her and she had to buzz the intercom and ask politely to be let back inside. Minutes later Baillie emerged again and tried a more conciliatory tack. "You will get your pictures," she announced. "We just want to do this properly."
One quick-witted snapper fumbled for his wallet. "That's a fiver you owe me Jackie." He paused before pulling the trigger. "I'll even declare it."
Ouch!
This bizarre episode – a solid and pugnacious stance swiftly followed by a humiliating capitulation – neatly summed up Wendy's shambolic year as Labour leader.
Some time later, a hapless Labour official was buttonholed about why his old boss had yet to make her promised appearance. "Um ... err ... well ... her voice isn't much better than it was on Thursday," he spluttered.
"We want to take her picture not hear her do karaoke," said one disgruntled lensman.
Paisley Labour member John MacIntosh looked bewildered as he emerged into a phalanx of flashbulbs and microphones.
He explained that he had been attending a routine party meeting.
Was Wendy in attendance?
Notebooks flapped as he revealed she was. "Wait a minute," he pondered. "Actually, I think it was a Catherine rather than a Wendy who was at the meeting."
It turns out the poor soul hadn't even been told about his leader's bombshell. "That's bloody awful," he lamented as he stared in disbelief at a proffered copy of Alexander's resignation speech.
A group of well-refreshed visitors from Aberdeenshire crossed the street to quiz the press and left shortly after, their curiosity seemingly satisfied. "Fa wizzit they were waiting for?" inquired one of the Doric sightseers.
"I think it was Wendy Richards from EastEnders," came the reply.
A steady stream of mute Labour officials – think Brezhnev without the laughs – marched out of the building until suddenly word got out that Wendy was sneaking out of the side entrance.
Sure enough, there was the one-time future First Minister beating a hasty retreat in the back of a silver Kia 4x4.
Sadly for her, the traffic lights chose that exact moment to turn red and she gave a rictus grin as the photographers snapped to their heart's content.
Baillie, meanwhile, was tight-lipped as she beetled across the road and removed what appeared to be a parking ticket from the windscreen of her Volkswagen.
If it was, it will cost her much more than a fiver.
The full article contains 616 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
