 | 'What Dennis Canavan does next is up to him. We have made out position clear and if he wants to stand twice it's his decision - he won't win.' An anonymous Labour party spokeswoman, 18 th November 1998. |  |
| 'What Dennis Canavan does next is up to him. We have made out position clear and if he wants to stand twice it's his decision - he won't win.' An anonymous Labour party spokeswoman, 18 th November 1998. | |
The move will rub salt into the wounds of party bosses, who were enraged last week when the veteran left-winger announced he would stand against the party's official candidate in the Falkirk West constituency.
In a development that will cause acute embarrassment for Labour, Mr Canavan wants to give himself two chances of winning a seat by also standing in the party list section of next May's election.
Under the electoral rules for Holyrood, candidates will be elected by the traditional first-past-the-post system for 73 constituency seats. But, under the party list mechanism, 56 additional MSPs will be elected by proportional representation and candidates can stand for both the first-past-the-post and PR seats.
It is this system which has allowed Mr Canavan to throw his hat into the ring twice in the hope that if he fails to win in Falkirk West he could capture one of the "top-up" seats in the Central Scotland constituency.
Mr Canavan, the Falkirk West MP at Westminster, thinks standing as a list candidate could offer his best chance of becoming an MSP - a guerrilla tactic that could be exploited by other disgruntled rebels.
Academic experts have advised him that he could be elected in Central Scotland by winning just 6.25 per cent of the vote or less.
Last week , Mr Canavan exchanged bitter words with Donald Dewar, the Scottish Secretary, who accused him of going off in a huff and said he had not been chosen as a candidate because he "was not good enough".
However, deciding to stand in the list part of the election would signal he was standing in an earnest attempt to win rather than simply as a protest.
Last night - speaking from Westminster - Mr Canavan said: "My main commitment at this stage is to stand in Falkirk West constituency under the first-past-the-post system.
"But as an additional option - not as an alternative - I could also stand for the region which includes Falkirk West. The region covers other constituencies such as Cumbernauld and Kilsyth and North Lanarkshire.
"I used to represent Kilsyth before my seat was changed by boundary changes and I have received a lot of messages of support from there.
"Originally, the top-up list was intended to be for parties only, but I distinctly remember that, during the passage of the legislation, Donald Dewar said the Government would introduce a system whereby candidates who were not affiliated to a party could stand."
Mr Canavan says his decision to stand will depend on his level of support, chances of success and additional financial costs of standing twice as a candidate.
However, amendments to the Scotland bill - which legislated for the Scottish parliament - may make it easier and cheaper for him. The original £1,000 electoral deposit threshold for the top-up list has been reduced to £500 to make it more attractive for individual candidates to stand.
Last week, the Falkirk West MP was warned by Mr Dewar that he could not expect to remain a member of the Labour Party if he stood against an official party candidate.
Mr Canavan has already decided to drop his threat of seeking a judicial review at the Court of Session to his exclusion from the candidates list - despite insisting that he had been advised that he had a strong legal case.
Yesterday, John Curtice, a lecturer in politics at Strathclyde University, said Mr Canavan had a good chance of being elected from the top-up list.
He said: "There's no complete threshold, but if you won 6 per cent or so of the vote you would have a pretty good chance in the list. Mr Canavan is certainly not up a gum tree and the idea is perfectly rational.
"It depends how the cookie crumbles electorally in that area, but conceivably you could get less than 6 per cent and be elected. The danger for Mr Canavan is that outside Falkirk West, in wider Central Scotland, voters might not care tuppence.
"However, if he says he has support in Kilsyth then he could make it. He might even be in the embarrassing position of winning his seat in Falkirk West while also winning a seat in the top-up list."
Last night, a Scottish Labour spokeswoman dismissed Mr Canavan's plans. She said: "What Dennis Canavan does next is up to him. We have made out position clear and if he wants to stand twice it's his decision - he won't win."
Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, said: "I think that Dennis Canavan is not the sort of person to be intimidated out of putting his name forward for the Scottish parliament by the bully boys in the Labour Party."
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