What does Glasgow East Change?
So what does Glasgow East Change? The headlines suggest it spells the end of Brown and the usual suspects are calling for a leadership challenge. However of course many forests have already been lost in the facilitation of such hyperbolic nonsense throughout history and this is no exception. Before drawing an irrational conclusion it is worth considering the following: contrary to anonymous whispering campaigns there is no mood within the Labour party for such a contest- no up and coming minister would want the poisoned chalice and it would be a huge miscalculation for the party to appoint a second un-elected leader within only 2 years. In Westminster the fortunes of the SNP are of little consequence, even the clear message that Labour can’t even win in their heartlands will be ignored by the party hacks who’ll no doubt complacently give the usual array of sound bites about listening closely to “the message of the electorate.” Gordon Brown will weather the political storm for another few months and with only 2 years until the next election there will not be time to change leader even if they wanted to.
However, while very little has changed in London this result could be a turning point for the Scottish Labour Party. Following the long overdue resignation of Wendy Alexander the Scottish wing of the party are without a leader and no longer have the safety cushion of the West Coast to fall upon for votes. What has happened here is that we have seen people who would normally vote Labour switching their allegiance in order to punish the PM. Will these voters return in droves for the next Scottish election? With the extended honeymoon of the SNP and the real possibility of a Tory government south of the border the prospect of a renaissance of Scottish nationalism is a real possibility.
Regardless of who becomes leader the Scottish Labour Party they will be in a state of turmoil: Alexander’s last act was to commit the party to supporting an independence referendum and a potentially divisive contest could leave the party split in to factions and still unable to find a consistent line of attack against the SNP. For too long, especially in Scotland, the Labour party has been run, with few exceptions, by a core of politically sterile Blairites. It’s been over 15 years since the party last had any serious internal ideological debate and in the current climate it seems pertinent that they should almost certainly have one. Ironically a rising support for the SNP has coincided with a distinct cooling in attitudes towards independence, however with a Tory victory down south almost inevitable this is subject to change.
The last few months have seen the government achieve their worst local election results since 1968, following that they lost a strong seat against the Tories in Crewe, then they came 5th behind the BNP in Wales and now they’ve managed to lose in their Glasgow heartlands. The government machine however will manage to hear no evil and see no evil and will be as contented as ever to chug along to electoral oblivion. In this regard their fate south of the border seems to be exactly the same as it would have been had they won the seat: even if they had won in Glasgow East, where the Conservatives are irrelevant it wouldn’t have been much of a revival and it would do little to change the fact that the only thing keeping the Prime Minister in a job is the fact that there is no-one in the cabinet who has enough charisma or public support to take over.
So what does Glasgow East Change? The headlines suggest it spells the end of Brown and the usual suspects are calling for a leadership challenge. However of course many forests have already been lost in the facilitation of such hyperbolic nonsense throughout history and this is no exception. Before drawing an irrational conclusion it is worth considering the following: contrary to anonymous whispering campaigns there is no mood within the Labour party for such a contest- no up and coming minister would want the poisoned chalice and it would be a huge miscalculation for the party to appoint a second un-elected leader within only 2 years. In Westminster the fortunes of the SNP are of little consequence, even the clear message that Labour can’t even win in their heartlands will be ignored by the party hacks who’ll no doubt complacently give the usual array of sound bites about listening closely to “the message of the electorate.” Gordon Brown will weather the political storm for another few months and with only 2 years until the next election there will not be time to change leader even if they wanted to.
However, while very little has changed in London this result could be a turning point for the Scottish Labour Party. Following the long overdue resignation of Wendy Alexander the Scottish wing of the party are without a leader and no longer have the safety cushion of the West Coast to fall upon for votes. What has happened here is that we have seen people who would normally vote Labour switching their allegiance in order to punish the PM. Will these voters return in droves for the next Scottish election? With the extended honeymoon of the SNP and the real possibility of a Tory government south of the border the prospect of a renaissance of Scottish nationalism is a real possibility.
Regardless of who becomes leader the Scottish Labour Party they will be in a state of turmoil: Alexander’s last act was to commit the party to supporting an independence referendum and a potentially divisive contest could leave the party split in to factions and still unable to find a consistent line of attack against the SNP. For too long, especially in Scotland, the Labour party has been run, with few exceptions, by a core of politically sterile Blairites. It’s been over 15 years since the party last had any serious internal ideological debate and in the current climate it seems pertinent that they should almost certainly have one. Ironically a rising support for the SNP has coincided with a distinct cooling in attitudes towards independence, however with a Tory victory down south almost inevitable this is subject to change.
The last few months have seen the government achieve their worst local election results since 1968, following that they lost a strong seat against the Tories in Crewe, then they came 5th behind the BNP in Wales and now they’ve managed to lose in their Glasgow heartlands. The government machine however will manage to hear no evil and see no evil and will be as contented as ever to chug along to electoral oblivion. In this regard their fate south of the border seems to be exactly the same as it would have been had they won the seat: even if they had won in Glasgow East, where the Conservatives are irrelevant it wouldn’t have been much of a revival and it would do little to change the fact that the only thing keeping the Prime Minister in a job is the fact that there is no-one in the cabinet who has enough charisma or public support to take over.
The situation in Scotland though is in some ways even worse, without a leader and without any momentum they run the risk of becoming politically impotent, if they have to plough time and resources in to winning in the Glasgow then Alex Salmond is right in saying there really is no such thing as a safe Labour sea
No comments:
Post a Comment