The Elder shall serve the younger

My brother points out that, as usual, the Bible has all the answers. Romans 9, v 12:"The elder shall serve the younger".

Saturday evening audiences are now used to live votes and the elimination of deserving candidates but the Labour party took reality television to a cruel new height this afternoon.

In the hall it was an incredibly tense and exciting count, going down to the wire and one percentage point in the end. "You couldn't make it up could you," one Scottish MP said to me. Neither, in the immediate aftermath, can you make a judgement but the next part of the script is already being written.

The victory speech, for an orator like Ed Miliband, was slightly underwhelming. We got the message about brotherly love and the torch being passed to a new generation but that won't be the narrative that the media or the Conservatives will be writing tomorrow morning.

They will be busy pointing out that David Miliband won the majority of the MPs, the majority of the membership, but lost 60% to 40% among the union affiliates - the "Red Ed" nightmare scenario.

Labour starts the fightback on the backfoot in the press, but hey, it would have been that way anyway. Opinion polling puts the party neck and neck with the Tories before the cuts have begun but the bookies (they called this one right) have immediately lengthened the odds on a Labour general election victory.

Brendan Barber warned that action against the cuts agenda could only happen with the support of the public. But impatient trade unionists could take action before then. Can Ed Miliband persuade the public that he is on their side, that's the most pressing question. One of his first showdowns, after he's cleared the air with his brother, might have to be with the unions.

The conference hall didn't have any measurable sense of elation after the result. It had been a long afternoon and the event, like the victory speech might have left them underwhelmed.

They say every political leader needs several shots of tremendous luck as well as skill and tenacity. On that result I suspect David Cameron was given a large dollop of good fortune this afternoon, out of all proportion to the one per centage point that separated two brothers.

Red Ken is back - is it a sign for Manchester?

Labour Death Wish I is how some commentators are already describing the successful nomination of Ken Livingstone for the London mayor candidacy, which makes you wonder how they would have categorised the nomination of his rival Oona King?

Presumably the same people are lining up an Ed Miliband victory tomorrow as Death Wish II. The leadership race is so close and so complicated that no one can really call the result until the caravan draws to a halt in Manchester. All we know is that the media machine is ready with its "Red Ed" and "Heir to Blair" labels depending on which of the Miliband brothers wins.

Both can expect a great deal of doom mongering from the losing side, never mind their political opponents, but remember that there will be plenty time for a new leader to establish himself.

It's also a wee bit early to be dismissing a Ken Livingstone comeback in time for the 2012 Olympics. All the party strategists agree that 2012 is when the real pain from the coalition cuts will kick in and when the Conservatives and Lib Dems will begin to feel the electoral pinch. Ken, the man who brought the Olympics to London, might be able to capitalise on that although Boris, I hear, is working wonders in convincing the Treasury that London is a special case and should be exempt from the harshest cuts.

In that sense next year's Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly elections will take place in a phoney war atmosphere, the deepest of the cuts won't have kicked in during the campaign and the winners will the the ones taking the blame the following year.

CalMac II - the empire strikes back

George Robertson - "We are not well served by this monolith that eats up taxpayers money."

Little did I know when I rattled off a quick blog on "Bob Crow vs The Lords of the Isles" how prescient the headline would be. The Lords of the Isles, or one of them at least, just hit back - against Crow, and me.

Baron Roberston of Port Ellen - better known to most of us as the former Labour Defence Minister George Robertson MP who became Secretary General of Nato - has called to take issue with my blithe suggestion that breaking up Caledonian MacBrayne is "logistical and economic madness".

Quite the opposite, says Lord Robertson down the phone, as he puts me right on why Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited(CMAL) – the part of ferry operation which owns all the ships and piers – should be turned into a new, private not-for-profit company.

The Scottish Government is quite right to look at part-privatising CMAL, thinks Robertson, but he would go much further. He wants the entire CalMac operation examined to see if it can be done better and, if necessary, all the routes opened out to tender .(The story broke in the (paywall) Times but Hamish McDonnell has a good background piece here on the Caledonian Mercury site.)

Robertson declares an interest as a non-executive director of Western Ferries, the private company that competes with Cal Mac on the Gourock-Dunoon route, but he is also a proud Islay man (an Illeach) and thinks that CalMac has always focused on its own needs rather than the communities it sails to.

"We are not well served by this monolith that eats up taxpayers money when all over the world private ferry services are provided efficiently and at profit," says Robertson.

"The subsidy to CalMac is in the region of £130m a year and the company do not make a profit on a single route on the west coast. It is difficult to believe that on the Stornoway and Oban routes that ferry services could not make a profit. Why? Because the producer is put first, not the customer. Every route taken off them would relieve the taxpayer of that subsidy."

Properly regulated private companies can provide the service, he argues and indeed demonstrates on the Gourock to Dunoon route.

As deputy chairman of TNK-BP, the Moscow-based gas and oil joint venture, Robertson has influence that runs from the Urals to the Rinns of Islay. That scope takes in the Scottish Labour party and opinion formers along the west coast with whom he is already pressing his case.

With parties of all hues looking for any savings they can find over the next few years this might be the window of opportunity for Robertson’s radical suggestion that every route be tendered for.

This time saving CalMac might not be the kind of straightforward fight against "sell-off" that Bob Crow would relish.

Comrade Cable - in office and in opposition too

We were all assuming that Comrade Vince Cable's assault on capitalism this morning is an oh so clever ruse to show that the Lib Dems can be in government but still have their own voice. After all, the Treasury and Downing Street have seen and approved the speech he's due to give to the Lib Dem conference so the Tories don't mind him going out on a limb to prove his Liberal credentials.

It's not quite that crass, Cable has long thought that untrammeled corporate greed often works against the long term interest of company shareholders and society. He wanted to take action when he was in opposition and now he has the chance to do it. How much of his rhetoric and the bold move to launch a "consultation" turns into hard policy remains to be seen.

The boss class have described his speech as "odd" and "emotional" in advance and it's been left to the trade unions to ride to his rescue. Labour say it's time to decide Vince - are you in government or opposition?

We've just had the one hour advance copy dropped into our in-boxes and it looks like a very humorous and clever speech, possibly the turn of the week and worth staying on in Liverpool to hear.

Bob Crow vs The Lords of the Isles

Not content with raising the barricades against the ConDem government's planned assault on public spending Bob Crow, the RMT's fiery general secretary, has decided to take on Caledonian MacBrayne.

Crow, a union leader so militant that the right-wing press would have to invent him if he did not already exist, has called on the Scottish government to end speculation that CalMac will be split up and some routes privatised.

Breaking up the state-owned ferry service that runs to 24 west coast ports would be logistical and economic madness. Not only are the ships and routes interdependent and able to substitute each other in the event of breakdown or maintenance, many of the lifeline services do not make a bean of money and would be left to wither on the vine as high volume routes are picked off. Twice before attempts to break up the company and privatise it - an idea on no one's political agenda except civil servants in the Scottish Government - have been seen off.

This time Crow is onboard and although he divides opinion there is no doubt about his determination to defend the pay and conditions of his union members.

The RMT, a maritime union as well, will be stepping up the pressure to save Scottish ferries at a public meeting tonight at 6.30pm at the Oban Royal Hotel.

Ahead of the rally Crow said: “The CalMac Hebridean and Clyde Ferries are a vital part of the transport infrastructure of Scotland and we are asking for an absolute assurance from the Scottish Executive that there will be no cuts on any of the routes currently operated."

“We know that cuts and privatisation are top of the political agenda as we move into the autumn and we are sending out a clear warning that any attempts to axe or sell off CalMac services will meet with fierce resistance from RMT and the wider labour and trade union movement in Scotland."

Fighting talk, as usual, but taking on the government or London Underground is not the same as taking on CalMac. Remember Bob, that little sung verse from Psalm 24:

"Unto the Lord belongs the Earth
And all that it contains
Except the Kyles and Western Isles
For they belong to MacBraynes"

Scottish Lib Dems go toe to toe with Tories

The Scottish contingent of Lib Dems, who had their reception with Nick Clegg last night, seem to be in fine fettle in Liverpool.

Sure, Holyrood leader Tavish Scott (the man most likely to be deputy First Minister in a few month's time) had to put some clear yellow water between himself and the Tories in his speech yesterday. He smothered Charles Kennedy in respect by echoing his call for a considered approach to cuts in Scotland.

Scott explained afterwards that he meant while cuts are inevitable, we all accept that, the Scottish parliament has considerable scope to determine how they will be executed.

Despite their natural Grimmond Liberal reservations about an alliance with the Tories and a realignment to the right they are loving it that their party is in government.

Think about it, until last May the Scottish Labour Party virtually was the Westminster government. From Alexander to Darling and Brown and Murphy - the frontbench was a Scottish artery into the heart of government.

Now it's the Scottish Lib Dems who have all the access to Westminster power and decision making. If a Lib Dem MSP now has a Westminster bone to pick, he or she could pick up the phone to Dover House, where their pointman Michael Moore is Secretary of State for Scotland. Or they could call Alistair Carmichael, the government's deputy chief whip to organise face time with a Minister. If they're really stuck the Scots Lib Dems could call the Treasury and ask to be put through to Danny Alexander.

This kind of "working in government" theme is what you can expect the Scottish Lib Dems to develop as the Holyrood election approaches. They have their people in Whitehall, plugged into the decision-making process, they'll say.

These Scots cabinet Ministers will be paraded as the Lib Dems next year, although that could flip the other way if the Westminster coalition becomes deeply unpopular as the cuts come in.

Either way, they seem to be settling in to what the coalition offers them just now. They'll keep that arms length distance from the Tories, like school hall pupils learning to ceilidh dance, and pump up the role their own Scots in the cabinet for all they are worth.

You know Lib Dems are being taken seriously when...

As I left my conference hotel last night to pound the sodium-washed, rainsoaked sidewalks of Liverpool the bar was filling up with a veritable rogues gallery of lobbyists and PR people.

There's the BaE representatives, is that a senior PR for Marks and Sparks? You know people are taking the Lib Dems seriously when the big industry lobbyists send their panzer divisions into town.