Analysis: Glenrothes result
Analysis: Glenrothes result
Friday, 07, Nov 2008 06:20
Labour are resurgent. The SNP train has hit a brick wall. But what does Glenrothes mean for UK politics?
Today marks the first categorical proof of Gordon Brown's political resurrection. There had been several polls offering strong suggestions of a revival since the banking crisis gave him a new lease of life. But there had been nothing truly definitive, nothing solid for Labour officials to hold in their hands and feel reassured.
Today, we have proof. Is it enough to suggest they can win a general election? Not at all. It's way, way too early for that. But there's no point downplaying it: in the summer, political commentators thought tonight would be the straw that broke Mr Brown's back. The way things looked then, tomorrow morning would have been one of his last days in Downing Street.
And there's no overstating the damage tonight does to the SNP's image as an unstoppable electoral force. Alex Salmond's political stock is nose-diving. His previous calls for an 'arc of prosperity' incorporating Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Norway is fast becoming a joke, given that only one of those countries can now be cited as even remotely stable.
His vision of a future economic alliance is not the only casualty of the financial crisis. The new financial climate – and the changed political landscape that comes with it – seems to be having the same effect on the SNP as it has had on Tories, albeit for different reasons. There's good reason to believe voters are hearing Mr Brown's message that the crisis demonstrates the weakness of an independent Scotland.
Mr Salmond is also suffering the nasty side of being in government. The SNP fought this election as incumbents. This gave Labour ample opportunity to attack the party, specifically on homecare. It's something the nationalists had better get used to. There's always room for more voter resentment when you're in government. This last point sounds a note of caution for Labour. They won’t be able to treat the Conservatives as a governing party at the next general election.
Today's result makes you want to reappraise what happened in Glasgow East. At the time, we happily accepted it as a demonstration of Labour's lack of popularity, but we also marvelled at the success of Mr Salmond's agile and resolute electoral machine. Perhaps we should have stuck with the first half of that statement. It's now starting to look like Glasgow East expressed an irritation with Labour and nothing more. Voters opted for the SNP not for any positive reason, but because they were the ones in a position to do the requisite kicking.
Giving ruling parties a kicking is one of those phenomena analysts should never underestimate. A lot will be said over the next few days about the local focus of the campaign, with the assumption that its ramifications on national politics are therefore negligible. It's true, of course; the campaign was locally focused. But when people want to give you a kicking, they go ahead and kick you. If Gordon Brown was as universally despised as we were once told, no amount of local issues could have stopped the people of Glenrothes from hammering him into the ground just like the people of Glasgow East did.
Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with his handling of the financial crisis at all. People are more sympathetic to local boys, maybe that played a big role. We can't be sure. But we know he is not provoking the level of dislike which saw Labour go into freefall earlier in the year. This is especially pertinent because of his regular visits to the area. With three campaign trips under his belt, any defeat here would have been treated as a stamp of failure on him personally. The victory must therefore be considered a vindication.
The Tories, by the way, did terribly. They lost their deposit and there is still no sign at all they can rebuild support north of the border. The Conservatives are dead in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats did even worse, losing their position as third party and dropping horribly to less than thousand votes.
Every silver lining has a cloud, and Labour can look back with regret at their juvenile and opportunistic decision to time the vote in the shadow of the American election. Their flagrant attempt to bury what they thought would be bad news has been thrown back in their face. Labour's most significant political victory for a good long time has been overshadowed by Barack Obama. That's not irony. That's poetic justice.
Ian Dunt