John Curtice: SNP may give Labour pains

Johann Lamont and Ed Miliband are both struggling for success, but the battle north of the Border is a much trickier one thanks to the STV system, writes John Curtice

Nothing illustrates more starkly the gulf that now exists between politics in Scotland and that on the other side of the Border than tomorrow’s local elections.

In Scotland, attention is focused on how severe a mauling Labour might suffer at the hands of the SNP. In England, the commentariat are preoccupied with how much pain Ed Miliband’s Labour will inflict on a Conservative Party whose electoral support seems suddenly to have seeped away. Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont’s nightmare is that her English and Welsh colleagues will enjoy a string of council gains, while she is left without overall control of any local councils at all.

Of course in part Ms Lamont’s potential difficulties are an artefact. London’s mayoral and assembly elections apart, in England and Wales the elections are being held using the first-past-the-post system that, when it comes to seats won, can be expected to exaggerate the scale of whatever swing Labour manages to achieve. In Scotland, in contrast, the elections are being conducted using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) form of proportional representation, a system that makes it difficult for any party anywhere to win an overall majority.

Yet this is far from being the whole story – after all, the introduction of STV for the first time in 2007 did not stop Labour hanging on to majority control in two councils, Glasgow and North Lanarkshire. Yet this time around the former council at least is firmly in the Nationalists’ sights.

Moreover, on the face of it the backdrop to the election is much the same for Labour on both sides of the Border. When in power, parties typically lose ground in local elections. This was the fate that befell Labour in Scotland in 2007 (on the same day that Alex Salmond narrowly first seized the reins of power), and in England and Wales in 2008 (the year in which the seats being fought over there this year were last contested). But when in opposition parties usually prosper on local election night and, of course, now Labour are every bit as much in opposition in Scotland as they are in England.

Ms Lamont’s problem is two-fold. The first part is that while support for the Conservatives together with David Cameron’s personal popularity has taken a tumble, it seems that Mr Salmond and the SNP remain popular. Despite a rougher-than-usual past week thanks to the utterances of Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, nobody has yet dared to suggest that the description “omnishambles” could fittingly be applied to the Nationalist administration. Rather, the First Minister still seems to leave his rivals shuffling nervously in the shadows.

Many have, though, suggested that the word “shambles” could legitimately be applied to the local Labour administration in Glasgow, which has both suffered the embarrassment of losing its leader as a result of mental health and apparent drug difficulties, while its majority in the chamber disappeared after some councillors defected from the party as a result of a reselection row. It is Labour rather than the SNP who seem to have been left with the job of defending its record in the city.

Yet just how embarrassing the results will be for Ms Lamont is far from certain. True, such recent polls of Holyrood voting intentions as have been conducted north of the Border all suggest that the SNP remains well ahead of where the party was in 2007. The same is true of local by-elections held during the last 12 months.

However, this does not mean that Labour is necessarily heading for a serious fall. For example, the most recent Holyrood poll put Labour support up four percentage points on its vote in 2007. And on average the party’s vote has increased somewhat in local by-elections held during the past year. True in both cases the advances are smaller than those recorded by the SNP, but they are still enough to suggest that on Thursday the party may not trail the SNP as badly as it did 12 months ago.

Such a development could bring Ms Lamont vital relief. The party’s control of Glasgow would still be at risk, but much might hinge on the extent of the damage the breakaway Glasgow First group does to Labour’s support rather than just the strength of the Nationalist challenge. Meanwhile, anything very much in the way of a narrowing of the SNP’s national lead as compared with last year could well mean that Labour still hangs on to control of North Lanarkshire, albeit perhaps only by the skin of its teeth.

But there are other prizes that the SNP hopes to claim. Dundee and Perth could be captured by taking seats off the Liberal Democrats as much as from Labour, while even a relatively modest swing in Renfrewshire might be enough to tip the council the SNP’s way. Such successes could mean the SNP having overall control of more councils than Labour even if Ms Lamont manages to avoid a whitewash.

In mitigation in the face of such an outcome, Ms Lamont can also point to another key difference between the task facing her and that which confronts Mr Miliband: there is little that Labour north of the Border can hope to gain from any Conservative difficulty. The Tories have just one seat in both Glasgow and North Lanarkshire. Labour is second to the Conservatives in just two of Scotland’s 32 councils – Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire. Moreover, given that Scots Tories profited little from David Cameron’s past popularity they can reasonably hope that their apparently limited prospects will not be harmed by his difficulties now.

Still, despite all the differences with England, it looks as though one theme will be common on both sides of the Border: more woe for the Liberal Democrats. North of the Border both the polls and recent by-elections point to a halving of the party’s support, a performance that would be every bit as bad as last year when the party was reduced at Holyrood to little more than a rump.

At present the party is a major presence and player in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire as well as in both Highland and Fife. It will not remain so in any of these places if it loses half its vote. But perhaps the biggest challenge facing the party is Edinburgh, where it has had the misfortune to have presided over the trams fiasco. The position of largest party on the council there looks likely to be ceded to the SNP.

Yet in Edinburgh, as in most councils in Scotland, exactly with whom power will lie for the next four or five years will not necessarily be crystal clear even after all the count comes to a conclusion on Friday afternoon. Whatever happens in Glasgow and North Lanarkshire, Dundee and Perth, most councils in Scotland will once again be hung, and who controls what will depend on who is willing and able to do a deal with whom – the SNP has put together a “flying squad” to help their new council teams in the crucial post-election negotiations. Even if Ms Lamont survives the test of the ballot box, she will still need to ensure her party is not outwitted in the ensuing aftermath.

• John Curtice is professor of politics at Strathclyde University