David Maddox: Hell of a week

In a week where one leading Scottish politician was complaining about the forces of hell being unleashed on him, while another was apparently trying to suggest that he was next to God (or was that God next to him?) it turns out that a third is actually going try to take on the fiery inferno herself.

But whilst Chancellor Alistair Darling's motive may have been revenge on the Prime Minister and Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy was seemingly hoping to gain some electoral advantage, SNP MSP Christina McKelvie's (pictured top right) stunt is for charity.

Whilst many politicians would walk on hot coals to get elected later this year, Ms McKelvie is to literally do that on 12 March to raise money for motor neurone disease, a condition her father suffered from.

Anybody wishing to sponsor her should go to this link.

*I have just been reminded that this is not Ms McKelvie's first experience of playing with fire. She once admitted to having an interesting tattoo of a dragon.

Caron's Musings: Labour slammed by Electoral Commission over Glasgow NE by-election

The Electoral Commission has criticised the Labour Government for leaving it almost 5 months to hold the by-election to replace former Speaker Michael Martin, who was forced to resign over the MPs' expenses scandal.

Labour's excuse, that the parliamentary Summer recess got in the way is not even half way to being plausible. For a start, they had several weeks' notice that Michael Martin was going to resign. They could have moved the writ on 22 June and had the by-election in mid July.

It's not as if the recess itself is a barrier to holding a by-election - the Livingston by-election was held in recess in 2005. Ok, there are some funny rules about advertising in the London Gazette, but it's not beyond the wit of anyone to do it.

We all know the real reason Labour delyed the by-election - there had just been the Euro election meltdown where James Purnell, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint had resigned, the Euro and local elections had been a disaster for Labour and they knew fine that the almost certain loss of one of their safest seats in a by-election would mean the end for Gordon Brown.

The reason this was shameful was because, if you hadn't noticed, there's a recession on. People are losing their jobs. Pressure is put on Government departments like JobCentrePlus and the people who work there with a vastly increased workload. Mistakes are bound to be made. The intervention of an MP can literally make the difference between someone being able to eat that day or not. The people of Glasgow North East didn't have an MP to turn to in order to help them with benefits, CSA, immigration issues for more than a third of a year.

When it's suited them politically (ie when they were trying to stop our campaign gaining momentum in Dunfermline in 2006, they can call an election when the previous MP has barely been buried). Obviously that didn't work!

It's high time for those sorts of electoral timing decisions, and that of the General Election for that matter to be taken out of the hands of those with a direct interest in it - it should be done independently and within an agreed time frame, like it is in the Scottish Parliament.

Lib Dem Shadow Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael said:

“By-elections should be called for the convenience of the public, and not for the political advantage of the party holding the seat.

“Reform of this is long overdue. Frankly, however, I doubt we will see any commitment from Labour to act on this. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.”



Just as an aside, we shouldn't forget the SNP's incompetence in all of this. Their attempt to move the writ just before the recess might have amounted to a bit more than showboating if they'd tipped off the other opposition parties about what they were going to do, as I wrote at the time.


It's also worth noting that Labour were also criticised for their failure to promptly deliver voters' postal vote applications to the Council in Glasgow. They held on to some of them for a whole MONTH and then handed them in just before the deadline. Political parties are supposed to hand forms in within 2 days. What if a form had been completed incorrectly? People might have been denied a vote if they were, for example, working or away on the day of the election. That's an absolute disgrace.

I'm sure the Liberal Democrats (and quite possibly the SNP for that matter)would be only too happy to support the necessary changes to the law to make by-election procedure quicker and more efficient and they could I think be rushed through Parliament before it's dissolved for the General Election. What's the betting that Labour won't bother to do it?

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (28) - What is the Cameron effect?

Fascinating Yougov poll around today with the Scottish sample a decent size at 562. It gives the first taste of political opinion since David Cameron's visit to Scotland for the Tory conference in Perth and the back end of last week.

Con 21 Lab 37 Lib Dem 15 SNP 21

According to Scotland Votes, the Scotsman's election calculation partner website, this provides the following results in a general election for Scotland (changes from 2005 in brackets) :

Con 2 (+1) Lab 39 (-2) Lib Dem 11 (no change) SNP 7 (+1)

Amazingly different polling results to 2005 but very little change with just Ochil and South Perthshire going from Labour to the SNP with Labour also losing Dumfries and Galloway to the Tories.
But the important thing is that makes a lot more results very close and could see many more seats changes hands.
This is shown by the different prediction from Electoral Calculus:

Con 4 (+3) Lab 39 (-2) Lib Dem 9 (-2) SNP 7 (+1)

It suggests that the Tories also gain Argyll and Bute and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk from the Lib Dems on top of the gain for them and the SNP predicted above.

But what this poll really shows is that the Tories are in play for all 11 targets, including ones held by the SNP such as Angus and Perth and North Perthshire. But it does not really take the Tories beyond the margins of support they have been polling in for a long time now, which leaves a question mark over the Cameron tartan effect of last week even though 21 per cent is at the high end of Conservative support in Scotland.
It does illustrate again how the boundaries work in favour of Labour and the Lib Dems and against the Conservatives and SNP.
But what it does is suggest that in Westminster terms at least the SNP vote is collapsing and that they are leaking support to Labour.
If this is true it is a victory for the Labour tacticians in Scotland who have relied on what they believe is an innate anti-Toriness in Scotland and are trying to squeeze the Nationalist vote by portraying a Westminster election as a competition between the two big parties.

Eddie Barnes - Scotland in full unemployment crisis

Unemployment figures out this morning are calamitous for Scotland. An extra 10,000 people have joined the dole queue in the three months up to the turn of the year, representing the fastest increase across the whole of the UK. That's 10,000 families deprived of an income and instead reliant on the State - 10,000 more people now facing up to one of the most pyschologically damaging experiences that life can throw up. As the STUC notes this morning: "Beyond serious illness or the loss of a loved one, unemployment (particularly prolonged periods) is about the worst thing that can happen to an individual; increasing as it does susceptibility to mental stress, depression and illness." The usual response from Edinburgh - that. don't worry, unemployment in Scotland is lower than the UK - has become virtually irrelevent; the difference in the rate is now a mere 0.2%.

If this trend of rising unemployment in Scotland continues, it could become one of the dominant themes in the coming general election north of the border. It is a very dangerous story for the SNP. If people see that unemployment is going down across the UK, but going up in Scotland, what conclusions will you draw?

So no surprise that the SNP Government was quick off the mark this morning with Enterprise Minister Jim Mather responding to the figures with an unusually sharpened political message. "Recovery is fragile at UK and Scottish levels, and now is not the time for the Westminster Government to turn off the tap of stimulus measures," he says. It's clear what the message is going to be from the SNP: it's the UK government which is to blame.

Eddie Barnes - The Dave and David show

If the gossip floating around Scottish Tory circles is to be believed, the event which took precedence in David Cameron's diary when he came to Scotland last week was not the party's one-day conference in Perth, but Cameron's lunchtime engagement at the Scottish Press Fund lunch in Glasgow which preceded it. The reason? Mostly because the event was being organised by David Dinsmore, the editor of the Scottish Sun, Scotland's largest selling daily newspaper.

The background to this episode goes back to last autumn when the English edition of the Sun decided to leap into bed with the Tories. Dinsmore, however, decided to play hard to get, declaring that he was "yet to be convinced". With the Tories polling only 20% in Scotland, it was not hard to see why. Nor is it hard to see why Team Cameron is now so keen to woo Dinsmore....if there's one thing about open doors, it's that you want to push them.

The Scottish Sun editor is clearly enjoying being a Tory tease - at the lunch last week, he made a few barbed comments in Cameron's direction about his difficult it was to get a date in his diary. Cameron responded with a light-hearted comment noting that, while he respected devolution, he hoped that in the case of the Scottish Sun, they would follow London's example. It was like watching a Jane Austen courtship ritual. It remains highly unlikely that David will actually agree to Dave's advances, but that's not to say the charm-offensive isn't working. Even Scottish Sun columnist Bill Leckie offers some grudging praise for Cameron in his column today.

Cameron isn't the first ambitious politician who has set out to win hearts at News International - and the rewards and the dangers remain the same. In Scotland, the reward within his grasp is the country's biggest-selling paper if not on his side, then certainly offering an open mind. That is probably as much as the Conservatives can hope for north of the border at present. The dangers, however, are that the courtship of one stable ends up enraging other media outlets, especially if they feel that announcements and interviews are drip-fed through certain favoured publications. As Labour long ago found out, this all soon spins horribly out of control, amid much gnashing of teeth - a noise which Cameron might have heard at the tables of certain newspapers last Friday.

In summary, the Sun might be creeping through the clouds for the Scottish Tories, but as is usually the case in Scotland, that doesn't mean it isn't raining elsewhere.

Caron's Musings: Piers Morgan interview shows good man, but not good PM

This is basically my first, unfiltered reaction to Gordon Brown's interview with Piers Morgan. What did we learn?

That Piers and Gordon are great buddies. You can tell that - I've never seen the PM so comfortable during an interview. He was nervous, cos he really doesn't like doing that sort of thing, but he managed to laugh and giggle a bit while Piers did the sex and drugs innuendo.

That Gordon Brown is a human being who's gone through some really tough things, including the loss of a child and he's emotionally articulate enough to talk about it despite the obvious pain.

That he loves his wife, incredibly much, and their bond is very strong. Many couples split up after losing a child because they can't cope with the terrible grief. What struck me was his empathy for what Sarah had gone through. You can't learn that from a script - you get the impression he felt it with her. I expect many women particularly will have seen that and liked it.

That his children mean the absolute world to him.

Absolutely not one bit of this was a surprise to me - it's always been totally obvious. I remember when little Jennifer was born commenting to my husband how happy he looked. We were a couple of years into our parenthood at this stage and we totally got how he was totally bowled over by his wee girl. I cried for them days later when they lost her.

If the objective of this interview was to get over to the public that Gordon Brown is a human being, a real person with feelings who's just like us, then it worked. Whether that sort of thing was necessary is another thing.

Piers set up a series of straw men, like Gordon's failure to kiss visiting ladies properly, the You Tube debacle and his seeming social discomfiture which he then blew aside himself with each fawning guffaw as the hagiography continued.

Of course, this being a puff piece, there was no intense probing on policy, on the disparity between Brown and Darling on future spending plans, on the fact that a Government of which he was a senior member was complicit in torture, of Iraq, which he bankrolled (obviously not personally but you know what I mean) and which, of couse, Piers Morgan was opposed to as editor of the Daily Mirror. Not a word about Brown's forthcoming appearance at the Iraq Inquiry.

There was nothing in tonight's interview that showed Gordon Brown as a man of vision, a man of who could lead, a man with people skills, a man with sound judgement. All of these things are vital in a Prime Minister but we didn't see them tonight and nor have we seen them in any sufficient quantity in his time in office. He's presided over a Government whose best hope of clinging to power is to pursue a brutal, cynical "I'm not them" campaign. This, of course, is an argument which has no resonance in Scotland given the irrelevance of the Tories here.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that Nick Clegg has all of these qualities in boatloads - we've seen it in the way he's set out his fairness agenda, how he's worked with people on the Gurkhas, how he seems to have tamed the passionate and ubercritical Lib Dem membership and activists as he's made changes in the party for the better, as he's stood up for common sense and fairness on immigration.

David Cameron, of course, is just slick, opportunistic and smarmy - and people know it. A mum at my daughter's school said to me that Cameron gives her "the boke". I doubt she's alone in that.

So, we know from tonight that Gordon Brown is a good man, a genuine man. We might even like him. This does not, however, make him a good PM, or his Government anything other than the cynical, tired, overly authoritarian monolith it has become. Nothing excuses their failure to do something radical to help the poor and most vulnerable and Brown has to take the blame for that as its head.

Caron's Musings: Glasgow Cllr Leaves SNP for Liberal Democrats

Respected Glasgow City Councillor Alex Dingwall has decided to join the Liberal Democrats. He was until yesterday an SNP Councillor for Maryhill and Kelvin. However, recent threats by the Holyrood Government to take away care of the elderly and schools from Councils prompted him to leave the party he'd been a member of for 31 years.

He said:

"the decision to leave has not been an easy one but the move away from a local to a centrally set income tax and the recent threats to take away control of schools and care for the elderly from local authorities show the SNP simply doesn’t trust its councillors, preferring instead to govern local communities by ministerial decree."

“That’s why I am pleased to be joining the Liberal Democrats. I share their commitment to local government and to the core principle of keeping local decisions local.

“I will continue to work constructively for my constituents and for the people of Glasgow, but now in a way which is entirely in keeping with my personal and political beliefs.”

I'm sure that he'll find a warm welcome in the Liberal Democrats and will be a great asset to Katy Gordon's campaign to win Glasgow North at the General Election. She has known him for a while as they've both been on the same side on a number of local campaigns - against Labour's school closures, notably Wyndford and St Gregory's and against the ridiculous idea to put a nightclub in the Botanics.

Katy said:

“I’ve known Councillor Dingwall for many years and I’m really pleased to welcome him to the party.

“This is a real boost to the Liberal Democrat campaign in Glasgow North. People are fed up with Labour and Councillor Dingwall’s decision demonstrates once again that the real alternative is the Liberal Democrats.”

My understanding is that Glasgow Liberal Democrats are really delighted to have Alex Dingwall on board - he's an effective Councillor and will be a real asset to the Liberal Democrat group on the City Council.

Cllr Dingwall's remarks add weight to what I hear from various people around the country that the SNP does like to run its Council groups from the centre with the proverbial rod of iron. Denying the locally elected representatives their rightful say is bound to end in tears.

David Maddox: The X Factor election

Just been listening to the fascinating debate on whether the Westminster voting system should be changed, read the reports on it in tomorrow's Scotsman.

Its an anorak's debate, which must be why so many MPs are taking part.

But one speech worth mentioning which may not survive the cut for various articles has just been made by Battersea Labour MP Martin Linton.

He is backing the alternative vote system (AV) which would allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference leading to the final winner after various eliminations having more than 50 per cent of the vote.

It is the system that Gordon Brown wishes to replace the current First Past the Post (FPTP) system with probably because its effect would almost certainly stop the Tories ever getting a majority again.

There have been various arguments about fairness and restoring trust in MPs used for AV tonight, but Mr Linton has possibly appealed to the wider public sentiment.

AV, he says, is the system used over a period of weeks to decide the winner of X Factor.

"If we had first past the post Jedward would have won," he added.

As a bit of a fuddy duddy I'm not entirely sure of the dismerits or otherwise of Messrs John and Edward (pictured top right) but I do remember the press coverage about Simon Cowell threatening to leave the country if they won.

For me this seals the argument in favour of FPTP, although I suspect Mr Linton hoped the threat of a Jedward victory would have the opposite effect.

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (27) - Marginal results

Two sets of polling figures have been produced this week which illustrate why general national polls are not altogether reliable sources electoral success.
The TNS-BMRB poll this week was not good news for the Conservatives in Scotland this week ahead of their annual Scottish conference in Perth and visit by David Cameron.
It had them stuck on 18 per cent for Westminster, a mere 13 per cent for Holyrood constituencies and and even lowlier 12 per cent for Holyrood party list votes.
None of these figures had budged a dot from the year before and suggested that the Cameron effect is negligible north of the Border.
The one crumb of comfort was that it left them above the Lib Dems in support, but it would still leave them with less seats.
According Scotland Votes the latest split on the poll Labour 42%, SNP 26%, Tories 18% and Lib Dems 12% leaves the following Scottish Westminster seat allocations (change from 2005 in brackets):

Lab: 42 (+2) SNP 7 (+1) Con: 3 (+2) Lib Dems 7 (-4)

The Lib Dems would lose Argyll and Bure, and Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirk to the Tories, and East Dunbartonshire, and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to Labour. Meanwhile the SNP would gain Ochil and South Perthshire from Labour.

This is not exactly a massive breakthrough for the Conservatives, however, what they claim is that the real key to whether they are succeeding or not is in the polling for target seats and key marginals.
As most people know there are 11 target seats in Scotland for the Conservatives and yesterday they passed on figures of polling they had commissioned in one of those constituencies - Edinburgh South.
This is a threeway marginal which is made even more open by the announcement by its Labour MP Nigel Griffiths that he will not contest it again.
The Tories got an independent poller to ask a series of questions which came up with the following results:

This Labour Government at Westminster looks weak and divided.
Agree: 75% Disagree 19%

The SNP will never have the power or influence to represent your views in Westminster.
Agree 71% Disagree 24%

Do you think it is important to have a strong and stable government at Westminster to help Britain out of recession?
Agree 95% Disagree 3%

It is important to have Conservative MPs from Scotland in the heart of a Westminster government to defend and represent Scottish interests.
Agree 71% Disagree 24%

My local MP would have more influence if he or she was from the Party of government.
Agree 60% Disagree 27%

It is an interesting use of questions designed to eliminate opponents one by one, which will not doubt appear now in leaflets.
The answers say that people think Labour is weak, Nationalism is irrelevant in Westminster and it would be better to have an MP from the party of government which rules out the Lib Dems also have a chance of winning the seat. Logically, that just leaves the Tories as the only option.
Of course, had they simply asked people which party they will support then the result would probably not be so clear cut for the Conservatives.

Eddie Barnes: McCabe's the man for Swinney

We're informed that the SNP Government will unveil the names if the Three Wise Men who will examine their books next week, as part of the Independent Review into the Scottish Government's finances. As I've written in the Scotsman this morning, I suspect there is a lot of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting going on about who they might be, as the make-up of this review will be crucial in deciding what it eventually comes up with.

If the SNP is smart they'll come up with at least one name who has some association with Labour, in order to deflect the attacks from Andy Kerr et al about how they plan to hack back against the poor defenceless people of Glasgow and surrounding villages. How hilarious would it be if Swinney unveiled his precedessor Tom McCabe as one of his recruits? Mr McCabe has not been backwards in coming forwards so far about the scale of problems to come. And he has been extremely candid about the cheque-book politics which distinguished the previous Labour-Liberal administration, of which he was a part. Clearly Mr McCabe would make himself extremely unpopular among his Labour colleagues if he chose to sit on Mr Swinney's panel. But Lanarkshire's grizzliest politician has never quite given the impression he minds having a few enemies.

I doubt it'll happen but there are other options available for Mr Swinney. This could be fun.

Eddie Barnes - Iraq: yet another question that needs answering

Clare Short gives more tantalising evidence today on one of the most fascinating issues raised by the Iraq inquiry - the process by which the Attorney General ended up changing his mind on the legality of the war. Lord Goldsmith revealed last week that what persuaded him to say the war was legal was his visit to the US, where he met Condaleeza Rice, her legal advisers and Britain's Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock.

The former International Development Secretary claimed today that Blair "leaned" on Goldsmith to change his mind. Later, she added: "It was suggested to him that he go to the US to get advice about the legal position......I think all that was leaning on – sending him to America....."

We're getting close to something here, but the inquiry has so far failed to nail this down. Who organised Goldsmith's visit? Who "suggested" it? Did Downing Street and the White House discuss the AG's opposition and decide that a trip across the pond would be just the thing to make him agree? Answers to these questions are vital if the Inquiry is going to reveal the full story of what happened.

This isn't just process: just to recap, Blair said last week that had Goldsmith stuck to his guns that the war was illegal, then British troops wouldn't have gone in.

David Maddox: Banking on Sean and Andy

Just a final thought on the events of the weekend and Andy Murray's defeat to Federer.

Some people may have noticed that there was an attack on one Scottish icon - Sir Sean Connery - for fronting an advert for a French bank on green banking.
Labour put out a quite contorted press release on it having a go at Sir Sean's alleged blunder.

Which got me thinking as I looked up at the TV screen to watch the tennis - "Famous people... advertising banks... making money... what's the big deal?"

And then I took a closer look at Mr Murray again and remembered his sponsorship. Strangely enough nobody seems to be concerned about the Dunblane lad's sponsorship by RBS, the bank whose dodgy practices almost sunk the British economy.

Could one of the differences be that Murray now refers to himself as British (courtesy, reportedly, of his marketing team's advice) while Sir Sean is a well known SNP supporter?

*As an addition the prize for the most pointless Murray political press release - keenly contested over the last week or two - has to go to the Scottish Government's one on Saturday evening telling us that the First Minister Alex Salmond would be sat on his sofa watching the Scottish hero do his stuff against Federer.