Adopted Domain

"Naw they couldnae" as Holyrood Chronicles succinctly put it.

The SNP lost three out of 1, 2, 3 elections to Labour this week. Even though Labour themselves thought they were losing right up to the call. Needless to say Labour are delighted, nay overjoyed , at the fact that there seems to be some substance to the Brown bounce.

Are there lessons to learn from all this? In Glenrothes and Fife, Labour made astute candidate choices. They rejected the old guard, and chose new, but well kent, local faces with no previous public political convictions. This contrasts to the SNP whose candidates political exploits and ambitions were well known. The similarities don't stop there though.

In both Glenrothes and the Forth Ward, Labour could easily campaign on local social justice issues against the SNP who are in power in both local authorities. In Glenrothes, the issue was means tested care for the elderly. In Forth ward, the issue was the huge cuts made to a range of services in the area as a result of a reallocation of 'regeneration money,' to better off areas. Certainly there are people in Forth ward who almost take this personally and see it as Cllr Cardownies (the leader of the Edinburgh SNP group] personal crusade to settle old scores against his old Labour colleagues. Despite the fact that he defected to the SNP from Labour because he didn't like the New Labour drift to the right.

So local elections, won on local issues. But is that the whole story? It's notable that over in Baillieston Labour won, even when they control the local council, and in an area that had swung so far towards the SNP a few months before. Were those previous SNP victories down to local people punishing corrupt local Labour politicians and nothing to do with a general swing to the SNP afterall?

All the papers are claiming that the way Alex Salmond has handled the banking crisis has lost the SNP critical momentum, whilst Brown has benefited. There is perhaps some truth in this, but also I wonder whether there has been an "Obama effect" that has infused left leaning voters with a new confidence. I know - everyone is claiming an Obama effect on everything, but bear with me. Where people had become very cynical of the New Labour narrative, could it be that Obama has articulated a new vision of a vaguely progressive left politics that might rub off on voters wavering between the SNP and Labour?

Afterall, Obama has had more media covereage here than any of the local Scottish elections. And concious that this perhaps sounds trite, the US election has perhaps inspired people to believe in the power of democracy to change things and shown everyone that politics can be about a little bit more than just the narrow constitutional issues that animate the SNP. Whether it comes to pass or not, the hype around the Obama victory has given people hope that they can come together, despite their differences, around a progressive project. This message is anathema to the divisive politics of the SNP.

This, combined with the ongoing economic turmoil, says to me that parties that can successfully lay claim to some form of track record on social justice and dealing with crises are going to benefit. If this is the end of the SNP honeymoon, then it is because the gloss is coming off their populist polices for the people who aren't represented by a lobby group with a loud voice - the SNP losers. The fact is that the origninal lobby group for the poorest people in Scotland, who seem to be the main SNP losers - is the Labour party. Even if they haven't been very good at coming up with any solutions.

However, we can take the Obama link too far. His rhetorical skills may have encouraged people to lean leftwards, but his central theme was "change." And, the fact that Labour won all three elections means nothing will change locally. Labour are still in power in Glasgow and Westminster, and the balance of power in Edinburgh remains the same. It means the Gordon Brown will probably lead Labour into the next general election even if Labour in Westminster are still faced with the same problems. If Labour learn anything from this success, I'd hope it is that they must find a way to connect, and show they can move beyond the New Labour project. If Labour see this as an endorsement of the status quo and fail to change, then their traditional voters might yet be tempted to vote for another party instead come the next general election.

How did the other parties fair? The SNP did make gains on Labour in all the elections, but usually at the expense of the other parties and the LibDems in particular. The LibDems lost their deposit in Glenrothes,as they did in Glasgow East, coming in fourth behind the Tories. Tavish Scott must surely be starting to worry. It seems that far from challenging Labour, could it be that in some parts of Scotland the SNP are really becoming the credible protest vote for the more conservative, middle way, (with a small 'c') middle classes that the LibDems used to be?

The Greens stood in both council elections. Kate Joester, the Green candidate in Edinburgh did well to roughly hold onto the Green share of the vote, despite the SNP squeeze, so the Greens remain in fifth place in the ward. The talk in the Edinburgh branch is of how much extra work it would take to get Greens into fourth place. Afterall, it is a ward that elects 4 councillors. That is probably a decision that will need to be taken at the next local government elections. Sadly, the Green candidate in Glasgow got just 32 votes, beaten even by the BNP.

Parenting lessons from the SNP. Presumably 'Kalashnikov' Councillor Hanif was training his kids up for the Commonwealth games?

83% of people think he should quit according to the Evening Times Poll. That's a remarkable 17% of people who think handing a kid under 10 a machine gun to play with is 'just a bit of fun.' Govanhill must be getting worse than I thought.

In a brilliant piece of East Glasgow scare mongering John Mason shows that he’s made of sterner moral fibre than the rest saying "I am coming from a faith community background and I am extremely unhappy about any experiments on babies or research, or anything like that."

That’s right John, evil scientists are being given the green light by Labour to experiment on the unborn children of Glasgow East, and only you can stop them. Let's not discuss how propertly regulated research could save the lives of lots of babies in Glasgow East in years to come. Rather than take the harder route of trying to explain how important scientific research is, John Mason chooses the dog whistle politics of religion. Cheap. Really Cheap. And irresponsible.

As an apathetic agnostic, I’m keen on the idea of keeping a big wide separation between the state and religion. After all, one is mumbo jumbo and the other is, er religion.

That’s why I was disappointed with Alex Salmond when he backed the idea of a state funded Muslim state school. A retrograde step, when we should be looking to close down all faith schools and merge them with the rest. They just divide us.

However, it seems there is no end to the populist opportunism of the SNP. Guided as they are by nothing else other than a single minded desire to break up the UK, it would seem that no pressure group can be ignored, even if their demands are based on superstition and hysterical fear mongering. Maybe one day the SNP will succeed in realising an independent Scotland, but if they do I wonder whether it'll be a more divided, backward looking Scotland too.

And as for what Cllr Mason says on sustainable transport....two doctors has got that covered. Whilst I'm not trying to ensure that my byelection prediction comes true by taking shots at the SNP (honest), this guy is not fit for Glasgow City Chambers, nevermind Westminster.

Only a pure numpty would try to predict the outcome of any by-election, especially the Glasgow East one, especially two weeks before. That's what everyone on TV says just before they give their prediction of what the result will be, so I'm going to copy them, and get my oar stuck in early.

The papers insist that anything could happen but my gut feeling says I'm going to feel like I did when John Major was elected in 1992. Basically, just thoroughly flabbergasted that so many people could vote for the status quo.

Glasgow East is a place where voter apathy is the biggest issue. I meet folk in Glasgow all the time who say without any shred of embarrassment 'Politics? Nah I'm not into that stuff.' But, just like one of the guys in this video who's lived there his whole life, you can't blame people, when nothing does ever change. Labour have run Glasgow for decades and politics is done differently there. To  me it seems like everyone votes Labour, and then the real deals are done by 'big personalities' behind closed doors, in the mysterious web of trade unions, regeneration agencies, religious organisations, and council offices that run Glasgow. Or, if you believe one of my work colleagues, it's actually the other way around, and the voting is just a formality that happens after the decisions have been taken.

The last Scottish elections shook Glasgow up, and for the first time, there is some real local opposition and scrutiny in Glasgow, but it's going to take a long time for that reality to make a difference to the culture in Glasgow. People connected to Labour can still pull strings that other people can't. Sadly, I suspect that getting people in Glasgow East to vote for someone else apart from Labour is just as hard as challenging the culture of smoking, drinking, drug taking and fighting that blights the area. Which is a shame, as there are other parties, like the Greens, who in theory at least, have policies that should appeal to left leaning souls.

The SNP might be predicting an earthquake, but I reckon they'll not be sending anyone new to Westminster. Labour have carefully worked it out so that the voting is timed to coincide with the Glasgow fair holiday. That'll mean it'll only be the apathetic knife wielding Ballieston tongs (who won't vote) and the dyed in the wool red or dead auld folk left in the neighbourhood (who will.)

If you look at the stats then it's pretty clear that the SNP would need all of the Tory, Lib Dem and SSP votes just to come within spitting distance of Labour, and that kind of squeeze is hard to imagine. Of course, weird things happen in byelections, and the turn out will be much smaller, so even if things stand still the SNP will be able to claim they've reduced Labours majority. But I doubt they'll win.

Assuming Labours Margaret Curran does win, I suppose it'll mean political silver linings all around in some senses. Alex Salmond might be happy to see another Scottish Labour heavy weight (ahem) out of the race for the Holyrood Labour Leadership, and so will the other Labour leadership contenders. Not only would she leave the field slightly clearer for them, she'd make the local selection process easier when the Scottish MSP constituency boundaries are redrawn. And let's not forget Gordon Brown will be pretty relieved too - even if she's not his first choice.

That's assuming she quit her MSP post of course. At the moment she seems to be keeping her options open, although she did concede that that having an office in Westminster and Holyrood would be 'unsustainable in the long run.'

It does make you wonder whether Ms Curran reckons Alex Salmond has set a precedent. Could this be the start of worrying trend in Scottish politics - party leaders feeling the need to have a seat in both parliaments? Would Scottish folk stand for it? I hope not. 

To sum up. Labour win, but with a much reduced majority. SNP 2nd (swing from Lib Dems and Tories). Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems Squeezed) and Tories (squeezed, but less so) 3rd and 4th. Greens next. SSP and Solidarity split the socialist vote, consigning themselves to utter pointlessness (again).