Chris Mackie: By-election speculation
There is an interesting piece of counter-intuitive thinking in this blog post by Evening Standard lobby hack Paul Waugh on the difference between the Norwich North and Glasgow North East by-elections.
His contention is that the delay in scheduling the Glasgow by-election is less to do with the Labour Party running scared of a Nationalist defeat and more to do with the thought that they might actually win the vote.
Here is the key section: "Why the difference between the two? Well, there's the obvious reason that Labour thinks it will actually win Glasgow whereas it seems to have given up hope in Norwich.
"But more relevant must be Labour's last by-election victory. Unlike Glasgow East, where the SNP gave Labour a kicking, Glenrothes saw Lindsay Roy sweep home relatively easily because lots of work had been put into finding the right candidate and doing the hard work on the ground."
There is undoubtedly some truth to this, but the delay in the Glenrothes campaign was not just about doing the hard work on the ground - it was also about mobilising a Labour machine in a constituency in which it had not faced credible competition for many years. Despite losing a seat they were confident of taking, the very fact Labour had to work so hard to win in Glenrothes was a triumph of sorts for the SNP. It points very clearly to a general election campaign to be fought in battlegrounds in which Labour activists are unused to fighting genuine contenders.
That must be a particular headache for local parties used to routinely returning incumbent Labour MPs, especially in the case of Glasgow North East, where, by virtue of Parliamentary convention, Labour has faced no notable opposition apart from the SNP in each of the elections since 1997. The headache might well become a migraine when the party studies its - already parlous - finances and finds that funds earmarked to fight nationally important marginals, have to be diverted to shore up its core vote in previously safe seats.
So yes, Labour may be confident of winning in Glasgow North East, but the apparent need to give its local activists as much time as it possibly can to run an effective campaign shows how fragile that confidence is.
His contention is that the delay in scheduling the Glasgow by-election is less to do with the Labour Party running scared of a Nationalist defeat and more to do with the thought that they might actually win the vote.
Here is the key section: "Why the difference between the two? Well, there's the obvious reason that Labour thinks it will actually win Glasgow whereas it seems to have given up hope in Norwich.
"But more relevant must be Labour's last by-election victory. Unlike Glasgow East, where the SNP gave Labour a kicking, Glenrothes saw Lindsay Roy sweep home relatively easily because lots of work had been put into finding the right candidate and doing the hard work on the ground."
There is undoubtedly some truth to this, but the delay in the Glenrothes campaign was not just about doing the hard work on the ground - it was also about mobilising a Labour machine in a constituency in which it had not faced credible competition for many years. Despite losing a seat they were confident of taking, the very fact Labour had to work so hard to win in Glenrothes was a triumph of sorts for the SNP. It points very clearly to a general election campaign to be fought in battlegrounds in which Labour activists are unused to fighting genuine contenders.
That must be a particular headache for local parties used to routinely returning incumbent Labour MPs, especially in the case of Glasgow North East, where, by virtue of Parliamentary convention, Labour has faced no notable opposition apart from the SNP in each of the elections since 1997. The headache might well become a migraine when the party studies its - already parlous - finances and finds that funds earmarked to fight nationally important marginals, have to be diverted to shore up its core vote in previously safe seats.
So yes, Labour may be confident of winning in Glasgow North East, but the apparent need to give its local activists as much time as it possibly can to run an effective campaign shows how fragile that confidence is.
Labels: by-election, Chris Mackie, Glasgow North East, Norwich North
posted by Administrator at
12:12
4 Comments:
"the Glenrothes campaign was not just about doing the hard work on the ground - it was also about mobilising a Labour machine"
Yeah, a postal-vote-rigging machine, followed by a register-disappearing machine.
Want to provide us with some evidence to back that up there, Stuart?
I'm no fan of Labour but you can't go throwing around baseless accusations like that.
They're hardly baseless, are they? The register IS missing, isn't it?
No, they are completely baseless. What you seem to be saying is that because an electoral register went missing and there was a Labour victory, then there must have been fraud on a massive scale. You might wish that were the case but there is absolutely no evidence for it.
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