Eyes down, as SNP battles to be Kelly's eye, No 1

Published on Friday 30 October 2009 21:21

LOOKING back, the moment the SNP won the Glasgow East by-election last summer was obvious. Visiting the Garrowhill Bowling Club in Baillieston one Saturday morning, Alex Salmond picked up a bowl and, without so much as a practice swing, rolled it to within touching distance of the jack.

He punched the air and the fates were sealed. A historic victory for the SNP followed.

Mr Salmond was back in Glasgow yesterday, a little further north of his bowling exploits of last year. At the Gala bingo hall in Possil Park, the First Minister had been asked to read out the numbers for the assembled Glaswegian ladies.

He began reciting them: nine, 80, 39 …"Seventy-four", he eventually declared.

"House!" yelled a punter.

The assembled Nationalists watching in the hall began grinning wildly. The SNP's central campaign message of this by-election is that Labour have had their chance here, having held the seat for – yes – 74 years. "You can't fight fate. Fate has moved its mighty hand," Salmond beamed afterwards. "Labour's number has come up," wisecracked Nationalist candidate David Kerr.

This may be the west coast of Scotland, lashed by the constant howl of wind and rain, but even here, lightning surely can't strike twice, can it?

Certainly, it could easily be argued that fate is just about all the SNP currently has to cling to 12 days before polling.

To win, the Nationalists have to overturn the small matter of a 10,000 Labour majority from the 2005 general election. While the reputation of the former MP and Speaker, Michael Martin, has been sullied by the expenses scandal that forced his resignation, the assembled might of the formidable Martin family operation in the area will be difficult to overcome.

What is more, the studious Labour candidate Willie Bain appears to know just about everyone within a two-mile radius of Springburn high street. The biggest grumble in the Labour camp, at present, is the emerging media theme that it's "theirs to lose". Well, that's because it is.

The First Minister had announced earlier this month that he would be keeping a low profile on the campaign trail – a marked change of tack from the SNP's unsuccessful Glenrothes by-election campaign of last autumn, when residents could barely leave their homes without finding him behind the front hedge.

But where there is a political rammy, the First Minister will never be far away. And so he joined his candidate yesterday morning for a tour of the seat.

At the bingo hall, the girls gave him a mixed response.

"I like Alex Salmond. He's for Scotland. I hope he'll win it," declared pensioner Anne Macleod, as she scored off her numbers.

A passing woman was not so impressed. "Alex Salmond? I'd rather have a tin of salmon," she spat.

Meanwhile, Kerr also got credits. "A nice boy," said Jean Ferguson, adding: "I like the SNP, but I'm not for independence."

Resisting the urge to make any jokes about fat ladies, Salmond gleefully told the assembled punters that the visit had enabled him finally to find out why the number 80 is known in bingo parlance as "Gandhi's breakfast" (for the uninitiated, think "Eight Nothing").

His pursuit of the bingo vote continued as he revealed that Kerr, a former BBC Scotland reporter was a member of a Gala bingo club in Dundee. This seemed implausible: BBC journalists are far too middle-class.

So could the tall, clean-cut, smooth-talking Kerr pull off an equally implausible victory in two weeks?

Last summer, in Glasgow East, Salmond had correctly predicted a political "earthquake". Yesterday, he put his ear to the earth. "I think the ground is starting to tremor – quite substantial tremors," Scotland's leading seismologist declared.

But he added: "We are taking nothing for granted. We are working hard for every vote.

"Polling day is two weeks away, and that is when we have to be in front – we are not in front now, but we are closing the gap. We are very satisfied with the way things are going."

He went on: I think folk in Glasgow North East like underdogs. A lot of folk in Glasgow North East have been underdogs, and they like the idea of the SNP trying to unseat 74 years of Labour hold in this seat."

Earlier, Labour's Willie Bain had been out in Springburn, highlighting the SNP government's decision in September to scrap the Glasgow airport rail link, a move he described as "reckless", while Glasgow South Labour MP Tom Harris, a former rail minister, said: "It is ridiculous that Scotland's largest city will no longer get a rail link to the airport."

That decision has hardly helped the SNP cause, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the Nationalists believe the seat is very much in play – they are still behind Labour certainly, but not by enough to cancel the champagne order just yet.

In case anyone should doubt it, Salmond is back in Glasgow on Monday. Two weeks to go, and the race now begins in earnest.