You heard it here first

"Labour admits meltdown in crucial election seats"

This kind of story is what I love to read. Strip out the actual politics and let's talk about who is winning and who is losing.


Sadly, there is not much breaking news in there for me but then (1) I'm a geek who has been looking into the constituency battlegrounds for a few months now and (2) with the SNP taking big leads in the polls, it's not such a great shock that Labour are going to lose a few marginals.


But still, I felt duty-bound to assess the article paragraph by paragraph:


Glasgow Govan is the first seat mentioned. Nicola is indeed well placed to finally win there for the SNP. Gordon Jackson has been close to standing down as the Labour candidate, infact I am still not entirely sure who will be standing as the SoS reports it is Gordon standing for a third (and final) time. Either way, Nicola will walk it.


Dundee West is "a goner" apparently. As mentioned here, Joe Fitzpatrick should indeed take this constituency from Labour as Jill Shimmi is making a bit of a hash of the election campaign.

Kilmarnock & Loudon and Cumbernauld & Kilsyth are said to be going well for the SNP. Good news for Willie Coffey and Jamie Hepburn who are running there. Both seats are in the Central constituency.


The remainder of the article discusses the potentially damaging Labour approach of SNP-bashing. It ignores the other parties and allows them to maintain or grow the support they enjoyed in 2003.

Edinburgh Central is mentioned in the Lothians. It has been no secret that Labour and Sarah Boyack in particular are worried about their chances of holding on to this constituency. I still think they have a good chance as some Lib Dem votes will go to SNP and some Labour votes will go to Lib Dem and Sarah has a strong majority to begin with. It is a genuine 3way race basically and I have called it for Labour though I secretly hope Shirley Anne Sommerville can win it for the SNP and I think she has as much right to be optimistic as the Lib Dems.


Dumfries is mentioned as having a strong Tory challenge there. It is certainly a two-horse race and as I will soon suggest in my South of Scotland predicition, tactical voting for Murray Tosh is a good plan there. I do not see the Tories having a spectacular night on May 3rd, but Dumfries could well be one of their success stories.


The final seat that is mentioned is that of Greenock and Inverclyde. The SoS states that the Lib Dems are hopeful of a shock win in this constituency and I personally wouldn't see it as too much of a shock. Ross Finnie of the Lib Dems is a well known figure and usually that alone can give you a good bump in any seat. He stands against Duncan MacNeil of Labour and I can quite easily seeing the Lib Dems pulling off a gain there.

Again, in the interests of SNP Tactical Voting, putting your x for Ross Finnie in this constituency is a good plan.


And that was it. A good if somewhat short article. The reason for the news article is strange though since it came from a Labour source. Were they trying to get the Labour vote out by explaining how desperate things are? Or maybe they were just having a bad day and fancied a wee rant.

Either way, it is nice to know that my predictions on the election battlegrounds have been compounded by a Labour source.