From tv and internet (and William Hill), there seem to be a lot of people talking up the SNP's chances of winning the Glasgow East by-election - though it is hard to see why. The result from Glasgow East last time shows the SNP a long, long way behind and indeed shows that their share of the vote fell last time - it was was the Lib Dems (and the Tories on a very miniscule level) who actually increased their vote, with the SNP declining slightly.
The announcement on Monday night of Labour finally selecting their by-election candidate, Margaret Curran, was covered in style by ITV's evening news. Concentrating on her intention to stay on as an MSP and do both jobs at the same time, along with the delays in picking the Labour candidate, they were working hard to generate a sense of inevitable doom for Gordon Brown - as well as a likely victory for the SNP candidate.
Yes, the SNP were in 2nd place last time. But the number of votes they were ahead of us (or even the Tories) is marginal when compared with Labour's majority. At the same election, as the SNP vote fell, the Lib Dems in Glasgow East doubled their vote share and moved from 5th to 3rd place. With a good campaign, it seems that just about anyone could win the seat - and while the smart money has got to be on a Labour hold, by-election campaigns are a Lib Dem speciality.
Anyway, we didn't have the problems Labour did in getting a strong local candidate in place - Ian Robertson is your Lib Dem choice for Glasgow East. Good luck to him and the rest of the team, the campaign will be short but they'll be working hard towards another great result.
7 comments:
Wow; what are you on and can I get some?
The reality is that the Lib Dems will be lucky to achieve the 5% required to save their deposit.
By-elections may or may not be a Lib-Dem speciality, but then the SNP have proven to be fairly adept at them as well in the past...particularly in Glasgow.
The Lib-Dem performance in 2005 was a bit of a flash in a pan, based largely on the popularity of your then leader who you couldn't wait to ditch not long after that election.
Add this to the fact that Glasgow East is not exactly a fertile source of Lib-Dem territory I imagine that your posting will be shown up to be the mugwump (i.e. Lib-Dem) hyperbole that it is once the votes have been cast and counted in Glasgow East. Also, your suggestion that "just about anyone could win the seat" with the inference that even the Tories are in the running is bonkers to be frank.
Have you ever even been to Glasgow East?
All this is to echo the comments of Anonymous #1 - what are you on and can I get some?
Gosh, people do seem to get worked up about these things.
Thought it was pretty clear I was just looking at the base numbers from the last general election:
Name Party Votes % +/- %
David Marshall Labour 18,775 60.7 -3.0
Lachie McNeill SNP 5,268 17.0 -0.1
David Jackson Liberal Democrat 3,665 11.8 +6.0
Carl Thomson Conservative 2,135 6.9 +0.8
George Savage Scottish Socialist Party 1,096 3.5 -3.4
Majority 13,507 43.7
Turnout 30,939 48.2 +1.6
i.e. SNP 13,507 behind Labour, only 1603 ahead of the Lib Dem and 3133 ahead of the Tory.
It wasn't based on any local knowledge, of course - I've only been to Glasgow once, had a lovely time but no idea where the constituency boundaries are or if I even passed through Glasgow East.
I think you've lost the plot, Matt. You're becoming Mark Pack's 'Mini Me'. This is a real shame as you started off as being a fairly independent-minded blogger with a range of different posts. Now you just compete with The Evil One on spinning the facts.
Justin, you should really
(1) read posts properly before commenting on them
(2) read your own comments again before posting them
then you might make more sense!
So Matt, how did the Lib-Dems get on with winning Glasgow East then?
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