Peter Jones: Labour's victory is no surprise after a look at the roots of party's candidate

Published on Friday 13 November 2009 21:22

THE impressively large majority stacked up by Labour in the Glasgow North East by-election looks inexplicable given that the Labour government is at the nadir of unpopularity.

Just as astounding is the dismal showing by the SNP. It is still enjoying popularity as the Scottish Government, yet in parliamentary by-elections since it won power in 2007 its performance has steadily worsened.

From a triumphant victory in adjoining Glasgow East, it went to a merely respectable failure to oust Labour in Glenrothes, and now to a complete failure to make any significant progress in Glasgow North East.

Two sets of factors offer an explanation. One set is entirely local. In Glasgow East, the SNP's victorious John Mason was a veteran local activist, whereas Labour's Margaret Curran stumbled about whether she was local or not.

The candidates' credentials were reversed in Glasgow North East. Willie Bain, the new Labour MP, had worked the area for years as the heir apparent to Speaker Michael Martin, whereas the SNP's David Kerr's local roots appeared frayed.

The lesson is fairly clear: in a by-election, voters prefer a local hero and Labour managed to provide one in both Glasgow North East and in Glenrothes, where Lindsay Roy, a former local headteacher was a well-known face.

Labour also campaigned in both these seats not as the party of government, but as the party of opposition to the SNP. It is an odd and apparently absurd stance, but it nonetheless worked.

In both the last two campaigns, the SNP made the mistake of handing pre-election gifts to their opponents – increased home help charges on the elderly made by SNP-controlled Fife Council, and the cancellation of the Glasgow Airport rail link by the SNP government.

The other set of factors are national. Glasgow East took place as the financial crisis had started and recession was not yet evident. By Glenrothes, the credit crunch was biting severely and the banks, who have a lot of employees living in Fife, had received their bail-out billions. And when the voters turned out in Glasgow North East the recession had already done its baleful job-destroying worst.

In such bad times, which have global, not local, causes, voters tend to stick with the people they know rather than risk a punt on the lesser-known.

Some of this pattern will carry into next year's general election where national rather than local factors will be more important. The SNP will still be able to make an impact, but Labour is likely to be just as concerned by the fact that the Conservatives managed to come third and save their deposit in a seat which is usually lost-deposit territory for them.

Unlikely though it seems, the Scottish Tories' long-promised but never-materialised revival might just have begun in the Glasgow streets of Maryhill and Springburn.