New role for McConnell averts crucial by-election

GORDON BROWN has appointed former first minister, Jack McConnell, as his special envoy in Africa, provoking accusations that the move was "blatant political manipulation" to avoid the possibility of an embarrassing by-election defeat in McConnell's Motherwell and Wishaw seat.

McConnell's planned appointment as the High Commissioner in Malawi - which would have sparked a by-election - will now be delayed, as Downing Street put it last night, "for a few years".

With Downing Street clearly expecting accusations that McConnell's appointment was simply to avoid a contest that could have heaped further damage on Labour in Scotland, Number 10 said that conflict resolution in Africa and the need for Britain to play a more influential role, had long been identified as an urgent need by the prime minister.
advertisement

However, first minister Alex Salmond said: "This is blatant political manipulation in order to avoid defeat in a by-election.

"It is a sign of how out of touch they are that Labour think they can manipulate the process in this way, but sooner or later people are going to say to Labour, enough is enough'."

McConnell will have the tough job of improving the continent's capacity to engage in conflict resolution. The new envoy's role will also see him working outside Africa in wider global problems, working alongside, the United Nations.

His appointment is the latest surprise to be announced by Brown in a matter of days. It follows the shock return to the Cabinet of Peter Mandelson, who today will give his first television interviews and offer a full explanation of why he decided to leave Brussels in order to serve in a Brown government.

McConnell's appointment means that he will remain a member of the Scottish parliament - and avoid a possibly damaging by-election for Labour Although McConnell held a majority of 6000 over the SNP, the nationalists electoral victory in the Glasgow East by-election and their overall improving popularity after they won control of Holyrood suggested that the seat was at risk.

In his speech at the John F Kennedy Library in Boston earlier this year, Brown argued that everyone was affected by what happened in Asia, Latin America or Africa.

Delivering the Kennedy Memorial Lecture, Brown said no country can say that a failing state isn't their problem. He said he wanted international and regional institutions to do what they failed to do in the Rwanda genocide 15 years ago. The prime minister said this would require new actions to prevent and respond to the breakdown of states and societies.
To do this, Brown told the audience in Boston, would require the creation of a new kind of global peace and reconstruction corps which had an international stand-by capacity of trained civilian experts to go anywhere at any time and help rebuild states. ForMcConnell, a move onto the international stage where he will be required to work effectively and diplomatically alongside season UN diplomats, seems a quantum leap promotion. The SNP agreed. First minister Alex Salmond said: "Jack McConnell was offered the post in Malawi because of his involvement in the country, not because he was a professional diplomat. But this seems like creating a post to avoid a by-election. "Labour now has a Scottish Secretary without a job but with a campaigning role - and now they have a roving envoy who wants to stay on as an MSP. Kenneth Ross, of the Scotland Malawi Partnership, told the Sunday Herald he was informed McConnell would not be taking up his role of High Commissioner yesterday afternoon. "Clearly it was unexpected," he said, "but we are living in lively political times and we are not unaware of the current political dynamics."