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Wednesday 10 February 2010

Lessons from Glasgow North-East

Friday, 13th November 2009

The result hasn't been officially announced yet but it's clear that Labour have won a handsome victory in the Glasgow North-East by-election. That's no surprise. I don't think the SNP ever really expected to prevail though, of course, they hoped they might be able to repeat the Miracle of Glasgow East. Still, they thought they'd be more competitive than they have been.

Then again, this seat has been Labour for 74 years so a loss in Springburn might have done for poor old Gordon Brown. Happily for Labour the party was able to run as an opposition party, protesting against the SNP's alleged parsimonious attitude towards Glasgow. The (surprising) cancellation of the Glasgow airport rail-link didn't help the Nationalists; nor, frankly, did their pretty hapless, shambolic campaign. It's not often a good thing when the candidate can't decide where he was actually born. That may have been a trivial item even by the standards of by-elections but there you have it.

Anyway, the Nationalists' dream of 20 seats at Westminister, always fanciful, now looks absurdly optimistic. A dozen might be a more realistic target. Once upon a time that would have been considered a great success; now, thanks to the SNP's over-inflated rhetoric and hubris, it will look like failure.

Equally, the SNP may find itself queezed next year. I suspect that Labour's vote will hold up more strongly in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire than many people might expect. The SNP's tilt to the left - inspired, at least in part, by the need for another assualt on Labour's Strathclyde strongholds - may not be enough to change deeply ingrained voting patterns. For that matter, the Tories may surprise a few folk and be more competitive than many people expect them to be. Five or six seats is not an impossibility.

~~That said, being beaten by the BNP (as looks likely), even in a place like Springburn, is a result that's as tough to spin as Labour's disastrous performance in Henley.~~ UPDATE: Full results here: The Tories squeeked past the BNP to win third. A relief but not exactly a compelling performance. 5% of the vote, even on a low turn out, even in Springburn is not a great result.

Nonetheless, the message of GNE is that some of the gloss has come off the SNP. This was, in a way, something of a protest vote as well as a reaffirmation of ancient tribal loyalties. Both those factors pointed to a Labour win. So, no surprises really. But Jim Murphy has done a good job in this campaign. In Scotland, at least for now, Labour has stopped the bleeding. Whether that's just a temporary measure remains to be seen. Since even a narrow victory would have been disastrous for Labour, avoiding that and registering a comfortable triumph is an achievement. Of course, it's a measure of how parlous their situation is that victories in places such as Springburn are worthy of comment at all...

Filed under: Elections (107 more articles) , Labour (598 more articles) , Scotland (208 more articles) , SNP (58 more articles) , Tories (104 more articles)

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Michael Booth

November 13th, 2009 8:12am Report this comment

A seat that has been Labour for 74 years remains Labour on a turnout of 33% of the electorate - which of course means 66% didn't vote. OK so it is not a surprise that Labour retained its fiefdom (though how 33% can endorse Broon after the litany of disasters and cock-ups his administration has presided over is beyond all comprehension - unless 33% represents the proportion of the electorate claiming benefits)but it does serve to remind us that its Scotland that keeps them in power nationally. What does this mean for the GE? Who can say...

EC

November 13th, 2009 8:14am Report this comment

The tractor production figures in Scotland have never been better comrades!

Wilhelm

November 13th, 2009 11:06am Report this comment

30% turnout so 70% didnt even bother turning up to vote. That means 15% voted liebour, yeah, what a triumph in one of the safest liebour seat in the whole of Britain.

The liebour vote was poor, lack of ambition, poverty of aspiration, low self esteem, on the dole, no qualifications.

And thats the way liebour wants to keep it, thats their core vote, isnt it ? and its not in their interests to change it.

Stick a lot of people with aspiration and get up and go into the liebour utopian socialist slum of Glasgow they would boot liebour out of office.

Amadeus Plonquer

November 13th, 2009 11:54am Report this comment

And I was always under the impression the Scots had a better education system. Then again these are same people who think 'independence' means being a small fish in the big EU pond.

saddleworth

November 13th, 2009 12:33pm Report this comment

Don't knock the result - it is proof that this government's policies are working. Build up a client state and the client state will vote for you. Simple effective and coming to a constituency near you if the Government can keep the the policy going before the markets stop pussyfooting around and grade both sterling and government debt at junk status.

Saltirethinking

November 13th, 2009 12:54pm Report this comment

Alex,how does Mark McInnes at Scottish Central Office keep his job?.

THX1138

November 13th, 2009 1:24pm Report this comment

Crap turn out as all the voters were all at home giving Rodders some constructive feedback :)

Peter From Maidstone

November 13th, 2009 1:24pm Report this comment

Half the working population of Glasgow East are on benefits. Why is it surprising that 12,000 of these unemployed people on benefits chose to vote for a Labour Party that is keeping them out of work?

Andy Carpark

November 13th, 2009 4:13pm Report this comment

There ARE no 'lessons from Glasgow North-East'. It is about as useful a political bellwether as Port Vale securing a goalless draw. As well as finding them smug and de haut en bas, I also find your posts a bit … pointless.

Snowman

November 13th, 2009 4:34pm Report this comment

Peter From Maidstone puts the finger on it, and not only for Glasgow NE. The tied population of voters benefitting from transfer payments, the public sector workers, and now increasingly people in the private sector on contract to the State add up to a lot of votes. I wouldn’t bet against nuLabour doing much better next Summer than any of the pundits predict.

David Lindsay

November 13th, 2009 5:26pm Report this comment

The SNP is in serious trouble. In which case, so is David Cameron, who is as dependent as they are on the assumption that the Tartan Tories, the Cameron Highlanders, part of the family, will hold the balance of power in the coming hung Parliament. Not based on this, they won't.

Nick Clegg is in very serious trouble, his candidate's mere 474 votes placing her behind both the BNP and Tommy Sheridan.

And the Labour vote held up (at least sufficiently to keep the seat), the Tory vote pretty much collapsed, and the BNP vote increased. So, can we finally have no more illiterate gibberish about how the BNP vote comes from Labour and is "white working class"? It comes, as Fascist support always has done, from those in such communities who are or would like to consider themselves a cut above, and from, in British terms, Tories in Labour areas. In this case, there will have been an Orange dimension to that, with the mere thousand votes and the lost deposit giving a fascinating insight into just how little Orange vote, as such, Glasgow now has.

Wilhelm

November 13th, 2009 5:56pm Report this comment

David Lindsay says '' blah blah blah ''.

Ho Hum !!

The Glasgow result is about as irrelevant as the weather in Siberia.

Come the general election, the liebour party is finished, kaput, end of.

anne allan

November 13th, 2009 6:06pm Report this comment

What was the number of Conservative voters at the last election when the seat was contested?

Barbara

November 13th, 2009 7:12pm Report this comment

Its a election worth looking at and when one does it's reveals that most of the citizens don't bother to vote. Should we make voting compulsary? This is not really democracy is it? The Labour vote appears to have been upheld, the SNP have failed, expected when they've insisted on independence, not all want that and the prospect of not having the English support may have changed quite a few minds. The BNP have increased their overall vote, and should be seen has a contender in the future. What was most disturbing was at the count, when the bnp man spoke all the rest left the stage, such ingorance shows their selfishness and lack of respect for other people. What would they think if others did this to them. It won't bother the bnp members for what they've said is coming true and most of the rest are now saying what they've said for years. Makes you think does it not.

Snowman

November 14th, 2009 12:14am Report this comment

Barbara @ 7.12:

good points; quite worrying that nobody seems unduly bothered that more than 80% of those registered voted against Labour, or didn’t bother to vote at all.