Sketch: War of the roses

The stage is set. Two titans of Scottish Labour stand next to each other in the STV studio, ready to go head-to-head in a debate on who should be the next party leader.

Or at least they like to think of themselves as titans. In reality no one really knows anything about either Michael Marra or Joe Fagan.

Maybe that’s why they are both wearing red ties – in case we need a reminder.

“I’m fed up losing,” Fagan begins his pitch. A strong start, as surely the rest of the party would probably like a go at winning too.

Marra agrees the election result was “heartbreaking” – but he insists it “wasn’t surprising”. And that’s why, as one of Labour’s incumbents and a key frontbencher, he did nothing to actually stop the trajectory. He’d rather watch the crash in slow-motion, apparently. How else would an ambitious MSP get a leadership race rolling?

The initial elevator pitch done with, it’s time for the pair to cross-examine each other. Asked what he’d change about Scottish Labour’s approach, Fagan tells the audience Scotland is “a nation of towns and cities and regions and villages and islands”. Someone has had a geography lesson. He says there is a whole nation outside the walls of Holyrood. So far, so Burnham.

Marra also previously worked for Iain Gray when Labour were – you guessed it – also losing

Sure, says Marra, but what would Fagan actually do to take control? Or would he just rely on the popularity of a leader elsewhere? Although surely that beats relying on a Scottish leader whose calls for the prime minister to go fell on deaf ears.

But Fagan replies with a surprising twist. “We did succeed,” he insists, apparently struggling with the dictionary definition of success. He points to the recent by-election victory in Makerfield as evidence to back up his claim, ignoring the fact that that constituency is not in Scotland, nor was it a normal election.

Marra smiles like a cat who got the cream, pointing out that in South Lanarkshire – where until recently Fagan was council leader – Labour lost every seat. The Dundee MSP deploys the politician’s point (no fingers involved, just that weird motion with a thumb knuckle – the guy is a seasoned pro, after all) to tell Fagan Labour has gone backwards at every election since 1999. Never has a Labour MSP been so happy about Labour losses.

But the newbie MSP isn’t going to take that lying down. He rounds on Marra, highlighting that he has not only been in parliament for the last five years, but he also previously worked for Iain Gray when Labour were – you guessed it – also losing. “If you didn’t have the answers then, why should we trust you’ve got the answers now?” Ouch.

On the back foot, Marra says the party under him would be “totally different”. And sensing danger given the fact he was in charge of writing the 2026 manifesto, he seeks to head off the obvious criticism – placing the blame firmly with former leader Anas Sarwar, who he says had the “final say”.

“Do you take any responsibility for the manifesto?” asks Fagan.

Marra is a rabbit in the headlights. He does, he stutters, “as part of the team”. He can’t deny his involvement, seeking to minimise it is all he can do.

Thinking he’s now got the upper hand, Fagan turns to Marra’s record as finance spokesman, blaming him for Labour’s failure to get any budget wins out of the Scottish Government for the last two years.

Both of them keep agreeing that there is much they agree on, agreeably

But here Marra is able to use his experience to his advantage. “When you’re in that room and you’re having the conversations about a budget, you’re dealing with an SNP government who don’t really want to do a deal with Labour,” he tells his rival, only highlighting how little Fagan knows about the inner workings of Holyrood. But then, he’s never even asked John Swinney a question at FMQs, so how would he know?

STV’s Colin Mackay decides it’s time to step in. Who, he wonders, is the continuity candidate?

Fagan does not answer the question, muttering something about Labour “falling into its old, losing ways”. “I don’t think a kind of continuity Starmerism is what we need right now,” he adds, which is a fair if very basic point, given what just happened to Keir Starmer.

Marra insists that he “doesn’t feel like… the continuity candidate”, pointing to various briefings against him. That only happens “when you are the person who is actually a threat to the establishment”, says the man with the air of an accountant.

This is all very lovely, suggests Mackay, but we’re not hearing a lot about the difference between the two men. Both of them keep agreeing that there is much they agree on, agreeably.

Fagan suggests what distinguishes him is that he “wants to win”. Marra says his USP is that he had a “hinterland beyond politics”.

Neither is a particularly convincing argument. Why does either man even want, as Sarwar describes, the hardest job in Scottish politics? The answer remains a mystery.