Kenny Farquharson: What Labour needs is some six appeal

Published on Friday 25 June 2010 13:29

SCOTLAND has been a divided nation over the past few days. I don't mean divided between Catholic and Protestant, although that has occasionally been making the news of late. No, I mean divided between those enjoying the Easter holiday sunshine and those, primarily on the east coast, left shivering in a North Sea haar.

Last week in this column I characterised the Holyrood election as a fight between optimists and pessimists - or, if you like, between the sunny side of the Scots psyche and the side shrouded in icy gloom. If this weather apartheid continues as we head for polling day, we might be sacking our pollsters and employing the Met Office instead.

How does the election look with ten campaigning days to go? Our poll today is truly awful for Scottish Labour and for Iain Gray, with every single number a political coffin nail. The bookies believe the SNP already has this election in the bag. Is Labour, therefore, a lost cause? Well, probably, but not necessarily. So today I offer six ways in which Scottish Labour could defy all predictions, win back the lost ground and stage the most famous comeback since Liverpool recovered from 3-0 down at half time to win the 2005 Champions League final against AC Milan.

1. Talk up independence. No-one predicted this was going to be a factor in this election. But with polls now pointing to a SNP-Green majority at Holyrood - and consequently a majority for a referendum - independence is now front and centre. The problem for Salmond is that only a third of Scots favour breaking up the UK. In fact, more than one in four SNP voters is against independence, so it makes sense for Labour to use this anomaly to try to prise them away from the Nationalists. Will Scots take kindly to the idea of Holyrood becoming obsessed with a dramatic constitutional change that isn't wanted? Especially when voters would prefer their politicians to be concentrating on jobs and frontline services? This one has traction.

Holyrood 2011 coverage in full

• Iain Gray under fire after poor show in new poll

• Eddie Barnes: concerns of leaking support in once-solid constituencies is a measure of the task facing Iain Gray

• Kenny Farquharson: What Labour needs is some six appeal

• Aidan Smith: Annabel Goldie risks becoming a national institution, despite her politics

• Target voters: OAPs

• John Curtice: The OAP vote

• Peter Ross: Socialists who go it alone

2. Don't let up on the message that Scotland needs Labour now the Tories are back in power at Westminster. This strategy has come in for a lot of stick, and yes, of course, Holyrood elections should primarily be about Holyrood matters. But SNP criticism of Labour's approach is rank hypocrisy. Salmond spent years predicting that a Tory government in London would drive voters to the SNP. He seemed happy then with the idea that the state of play at Westminster would be a factor in the contest for Holyrood. He can't suddenly change his mind because it now inconveniently favours Labour. Getting out the core vote is going to be crucial for Labour, and this one presses the right buttons.

3. Go for the SNP's record in government. Salmond's strategy is a three-legged stool - record, team and vision. Our YouGov poll last week showed that one of those legs is mighty shoogly.

• Live webchat: Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie will be online on Wednesday at 12:30pm. You can submit your questions beforehand or during the event. Click here to set a reminder.

• All the latest news, comment and analysis

• Who is standing in your area? Find out on our Scottish Election Map

• Visit The Steamie, our Scottish politics blog

• Election update: a daily briefing of the main stories from the campaign trail

• Follow our election coverage on Twitter and Facebook

Scots are unimpressed with the SNP government's record on almost every key policy. Asked if things had got better, got worse or stayed the same while Salmond was in power, only 18 per cent said education had improved, and only 20 per cent saw an improvement in the fight against crime. On transport, only 14 per cent believed things were better, and only 27 per cent reported an improvement in the NHS. Just 12 per cent said policies on family life and child care has got better. In fact, on every policy except the environment and the Holyrood powers, the numbers of Scots believing things had got worse outnumbered those who saw an improvement. Record? What record?

4. It's the economy, stupid. As I've been saying throughout this campaign, the politician who most convincingly feels the voters' pain about the damaging effects of the recession will be tapping into the dark leitmotif of this age. Labour has a coherent narrative on apprenticeships, training, literacy in schools and job creation. Perhaps more coherent than the SNP's. It all depends on which party can make their case sound more compelling. All the polls say the economy is by far the most important issue in the campaign, and it could still be the deciding factor on 5 May.

5. Wheel out Laura Norder. On most policy areas, Labour and the SNP have triangulated each other to the point where their manifestos are mostly indistinguishable. Except on law and order. Here, Labour's tough line on knife crime and automatic early release are distinctive and - to a certain section of the public - appealing. Not much polling has been done on this, but I suspect Scots have a more unforgiving and hard-line attitude to criminals than the SNP believes. Add in public opposition to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, and the Labour message that the Nats are a soft touch on crime could still make its presence felt.

6. Finally, for goodness sake do something about Iain Gray, so we can have a contest worthy of the name in the final week and half. Is it possible to get him to lighten up a bit? Maybe he always has that "did you spill my pint?" look on his face. Maybe, short of popping a couple of Amitriptyline in his teamug, it's impossible to make him look relaxed. But at least we could find out a little bit more about him and what makes him tick.

In today's poll, a third of respondents did not feel able to pass judgment on Gray's qualities; the figure for Salmond was 8 per cent. This is unforgivable for Gray, a man who has been in office since September 2008. It may be far too late in the day, but how about a party election broadcast with friends describing "the Iain Gray I know"? Just now he is auditioning to be the Neil Kinnock of Scottish politics - the man who, like the Labour leader in 1992, was all set for victory only to be denied power because the voting public just didn't like the look of him. Can Gray avoid the same awful fate?

• Live webchat: Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie will be online on Wednesday at 12:30pm. You can submit your questions beforehand or during the event. Click here to set a reminder.

• All the latest news, comment and analysis

• Who is standing in your area? Find out on our Scottish Election Map

• Visit The Steamie, our Scottish politics blog

• Election update: a daily briefing of the main stories from the campaign trail

• Follow our election coverage on Twitter and Facebook