 | 'Having had a lost weekend with no candidate, Labour thought themselves fortunate to emerge with Margaret Curran fronting their campaign. She proved to be a warrior for the cause but had the Ballieston MSP not stepped into the breach how much worse might it have been for Labour?' Torcuill Crichton Chief UK political correspondent in the Herald, 23 rd July 2008. |  |
As the ballot boxes began to be opened at Tollcross leisure centre the politicians of the Labour Party, who live and breathe the west of Scotland, were having the air drawn from their lungs.
Early on in the count in Glasgow East, when the last knock-ups of the evening had revealed a high number of switchers to the SNP, these grim-faced politicians confronted the breathless fact that power was slipping out of their hands.
But Shettleston MSP Frank McAveety, who has probably been to more ballot box openings than birthday parties in the constituency, noticed a trend that would freeze the heart of any progressive politician.
The aspirational voters who have done well under Labour, the ones who lived in recognisable wards beyond the media stereotype of Glasgow East, who have been able to buy houses, cars, see their children go to higher education, had voted in large numbers - and they had not cast their ballots for the people's party.
Figures like McAveety and the Labour candidate Margaret Curran make politics "a commitment not a career" to bring about exactly that kind of change in people's lives. But after a good decade these voters are beginning to feel the squeeze of the credit crunch, the fuel crisis and rising inflation on their incomes and they were willing to blame the government and vote against a 90-year Labour tradition.
There was a brief, snarling fightback for a recount when it looked as if the result was going to be far closer than the 1500 majority the SNP were briefing and Labour had allowed itself to believe, but nothing could materially alter the result or the trend McAveety spotted.
Despite a confident exterior Labour insiders now admit that two days out from polling they began to feel the by-election slip away from them. This concurs with a similar assessment from the SNP that Tuesday afternoon was the time at which they began to feel they might tip the balance in the seat.
"People were coming up to us who were Labour voters all their lives but weren't going to vote Labour this time because of the rising cost of their bills," admitted one senior campaigner.
Having had a lost weekend with no candidate, Labour thought themselves fortunate to emerge with Margaret Curran fronting their campaign. She proved to be a warrior for the cause but had the Ballieston MSP not stepped into the breach how much worse might it have been for Labour?
Then there is the Gordon question. Does Labour have the heart for regicide? There is no apparent replacement to rally around and no empirical evidence to show a change of leader will make an ounce of difference.
At a post-mortem press conference at John Smith House, Scottish Secretary Des Browne made a good impression of being a human punchbag, soaking up some of the punishment Glasgow East inflicted on his party the previous day, and placing himself between the press and the premier.
"In Gordon Brown we have a leader who is uniquely well placed to take us through these difficult economic times," said Mr Browne.
"Apart from anything else, our party learnt from bitter experience how much we turn the electorate off if we turn inward on ourselves and divide ourselves. I believe the party should stay united behind our leader."
By-elections change nothing and change everything. Mr Browne compared Glasgow East to the 1999 Hamilton South by-election which led to predictions that his own seat would fall to the SNP, but which he successfully twice defended.
But the atmosphere is changed and profound issues now face Labour in its heartlands. Mr Browne touched on what confronts the union members, activists and politicians at this weekend's National Policy forum when he gave his take on why Labour lost Glasgow East.
"It was about fear that people had for the future, it was about if we can continue to deliver the improvements that these people have experienced in the last 10 years," said Mr Browne. "That's the challenge of politics, who can convince people that they can guide them through what is ahead."
Mr Browne said Labour would not lose its nerve but in the aftermath of an earthquake survivors don't simply dust themselves down and start all over again.
Despite what Mr Browne said senior Labour figures in Scotland believe they have to rebuild the party from the ground up. There is a leadership election at Holyrood, there is a question of a policy on a referendum and a message that chimes with the voters. These are issues for another day, first there is the early lesson in politics that there is no such thing as a grateful voter.
If the people who have benefited most from Labour's 10 years in power don't see the party as the vehicle to take that progression further then what was reflected in Frank McAveety's keen-eyed reading of the Thursday's ballots is very worrying news indeed for Labour - Gordon Brown's party is in serious trouble, in the north, the south, the east and the west.
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