The Glasgow East byelection analysis is largely over now. However, I thought I'd post my thoughts on why I think the Scottish Greens did so badly. The few greens I've heard from are disappointed that the party did so badly in the byelection, but not surprised. No-one expected the Greens to pull off their own landslide,  and some folk were surprised to see the Greens stand at all, because the party has no hope in a first past the post election. But to get beat by both the SSP and Solidarity? That's a poor result.

What are the lessons for the Greens?  To my mind, the party needs to seriously consider how it can broaden its appeal beyond the urban 'muesli belt' where it's core vote lies in Scotland. Green politics are different politics from the Left/Right debate and we've seen that where Greens get a foothold throughout the UK, voters tend to want more. But more thought needs to be put into getting that difference accross in places where the party has very little foothold. Lets look at the launch event:

Oh dear. The Green Doctor seems a bit like a bunny trapped in the media headlights. But all this jargon about 'feeding into the grid?' No-one is going to get that unless they're a renewable energy expert. Most people are mainly worried by the cost of their  bills, and that's what I think the Greens should've focussed on.

Point 1: Vote Green - get cheaper bills. 

Point 2: Greens are already giving communities the resources to cut their energy use themselves.

Point 3: The other parties policies are doing nothing to cut peoples fuel bills or the cost of transport.

To be fair, the party press release was better and Dr Duke does makes a more confident pitch on transport in this video clip. Come to think of it, I'm surprised more emphasis wasn't placed on transport, given the woeful bus service in the area, and the SNPs commitment to waste billions on the climate busting M74 extension project.

However, when you think about it even the idea of an 'energy generating democracy' smacks of the tories 'home owning democracy' slogan. And in fact, all the talk of retrofitting your home with micro renewables sort of assumes that you own your own home in the first place.

Whilst it is probably never a good idea to echo Margaret Thatchers slogans in Glasgow, in East Glasgow there are also a lot of people who don't own their own home. If the Greens had used their photo opportunity to major on the scandalous cost of energy for people on pre-payment meters, and then linked that to the benefits of community owned generation, then that perhaps that might have played better.

The Scottish party maybe needs to look south at  how the England and Wales Green Party have come up with a Green New Deal. I'm liking that positioning much better.

In a polarised by-election like Glasgow East with a huge number of  disaffected Labour voters, the Greens needed to offer their own Green firebrand able to keep their head above the water, when surrounded by the other big mouth personalities involved  - Alex Salmond, Margaret Curran etc. With a clever but quiet candidate and a message with more appeal to the educated middle classes, and little attention from the press, it's little wonder the greens lost their deposit in Glasgow East.