Brown shrugs off poll gloom and says fight is all about jobs

Published on Thursday 21 April 2011 19:28

GORDON Brown claimed yesterday he was "not interested" in polls showing Labour heading for defeat to the SNP, as campaign chiefs insisted they would not change course, despite the sudden slump in their fortunes.

In his first intervention on the campaign trail, he dismissed the surge in SNP support, saying Labour's focus on job creation would resonate with "worried" voters as polling day drew near.

But the latest poll finding, which suggests the SNP is within touching distance of an overall majority, will only confirm growing concerns within the party that the election is slipping out of their grasp as election day comes into view.

Some Labour candidates insist they are untroubled by the poll ratings, claiming voters "on the ground" are backing Labour more enthusiastically than in the 2007 election.

Analysts warned, however, that while Labour's support may, indeed, be staying steady, the SNP was easily beating its main rival by attracting support from outside its traditional areas of strength, with both the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives leaking support to the Nationalists, in an apparent reaction against public-sector cuts.

Mr Brown, the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, was asked by Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray to get involved in the campaign, and the two men campaigned in Fife yesterday. It came as the Ipsos Mori poll put Labour 11 points behind the SNP on the constituency vote, 34 per cent to 45 per cent, and ten points behind on the regional list vote, 32 per cent to 42 per cent.

Asked about the survey, Mr Brown said: "The only poll that matters is the poll on the day. This is about jobs. I've just been talking to people who are worried about the prospects for their children. People are worried about their work prospects for jobs."

He added: "I'm not interested in the polls. I'm interested in the issues."

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Party chiefs said they would not be rethinking their campaign plans in the last two weeks of the campaign, despite the sudden fall in the polls.

The campaign will instead attempt to highlight what it claims are key dividing lines between Labour and the SNP.

It comes after Labour used the pre-campaign period to smother those dividing lines, by first backing the SNP's council tax freeze, and then declaring its opposition to tuition fees.

Party chiefs are also placing great store in the significant number of voters who say they still have yet to make up their minds.

Mr Gray's team is insistent it will stick by its core message to voters: that Labour is best placed to campaign against the Conservative-Lib Dem administration in Westminster.

The Scottish Labour leader said: "The big issues in this election are jobs and the economy. On the doorsteps, voters are telling me that jobs are their top priority - that's why jobs are Labour's No 1 priority. The only job Alex Salmond is interested in is his own."

The Ipsos Mori poll confirmed the trend from a weekend YouGov poll for Scotland on Sunday that showed an established and growing SNP lead. If replicated on 5 May, analysis suggests the SNP would win 61 seats, four short of a majority. Labour would have 45, one down from now, with the Tories on ten, the Lib Dems on nine and the Greens on four. That would enable SNP leader Alex Salmond to turn to the Greens for support in pushing through his referendum on independence.

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• Follow our election coverage on Twitter and FacebookOne Labour source said: "The view being taken locally is just to try and plug on, despite what problems are happening on the national level."

However, John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said: "While Labour has been pedalling furiously in order to stand still, the Nationalists have apparently been able to sail ahead by attracting voters from across the political spectrum."

He added: "All in all, the evidence points to a Labour campaign that has failed to catch fire."