The full glare of Labour's duplicity on by-election dates was beamed brightly in Westminster today as the SNP deftly attempted to move the writ for the Glasgow North East contest in time for August. A political stunt? Of course, but with a point well worth making.Despite Norwich North being held this Thursday and Glasgow East being held during the Fair Fortnight holiday last year, Labour still meekly put up a defence that it would be wrong to hold a vote during the summer holidays when partisan advantage is the real reason for the delay.
In the shadow of the expenses scandal and Brown's promise to clean up parliament, it is clear the Prime Minister's moral compass has gone haywire yet again and at the worst time.
Tom Harris, no friend of Gordon Brown, took a particularly odd take on the events on his Twitter feed:
SNP motion defeated. They complained that the Glasgow East by-election was in the summer, now moaning that North East will be Nov. Lambs!
With newspapers adopting a "you live by the sword then you die by the sword" attitude and Labour activists digging no deeper than a "what goes around comes around" philosophy, one has to wonder who will make the first, brave step towards a fairer style of Politics in the UK.
Stewart Hosie tried making that first step today and was rebuffed by Labour's 238 votes to the Freedom Fighters' 127.
We will have to wait until November to see how heavy Labour's price will be in the Glasgow North East by-election.
(Note - If North to Leith can have corny headlines, then I am letting myself think that I can too...)
Update: The Herald has somehow contrived that the SNP are partially to blame for the November date as they didn't try hard enough to win the vote on today's writ. The article also states that Labour's defence that they shouldn't hold a by-election during the summer holidays is "true" despite the potential date of August 20th being 4 days after the summer holidays end.
I can understand why whoever wrote the article decided not to put their name on it...
13 comments:
Unlike Glenrothes the SNP will go into this election as the under-dog. It was assumed by quite a large section of the media after Glasgow East that the SNP only need to have their name on the ballot paper and they would win Glenrothes. Alas sections of the SNP got carried away with it as well.
'Events dear boy', to quote a phrase could determine the result either way. I think it might suit the SNP to have a longer campaign but no flooding the seat with leaflets. Door knocking is the key to this seat. Winning over hearts and minds. Labour should be wary of using the Press as surrogate campaign helpers. Speaking to a couple of devout catholics ( I am an aethist) today and they perceived the weekend stories about the SNP candidate 'as anti Catholic' by Labour. Not a wise move me thinks. How many in the seat think the same.
It might be prudent to remember that the SNP won Glasgow East by a mere 500 votes.
Voter id, through Activate and promoting positive change are the key factors to winning.
"Events" in Glenrothes of course included a strange jump in postal votes for Labour and a "misplaced" voting register.
I agree with both sentiments. Leaflet overload would probably be a bad idea but Activate and smart campaigning will be a distinct advantage.
I also think learning from Glenrothes and hammering the council over the local issue of school closures should help. The SNP never really shook off that social care costs attack in Fife.
As a non-practising Catholic, I also took the Opus Dei story a little bit personally I have to say Marcia. Labour seemingly didn't push the story initially but once Richard Baker jumped onboard to stir things up, they lost the chance to wash their hands of it as Willie Bain himself commendaly tried to do.
The only attack that's really stuc is the Glasgow Caley thing but if that can't be put down as banter then I don't what world some people want to live in any more...
If you look at Willie Bain's website you will see that he is runing a poll on what are the most important issues.
Crime and anti-social behaviour (devolved) 17%. Local health care (devolved)17%. Education and schools (devolved)16%. Problems with First Bus (devolved, I think?)15%. Job cuts at Diageo (both devolved and reserved issue, I think?)15%. Housing and GHA (devolved although I am sure the SNP wish the GHA wasn't)16%.
Other )0%.
So he's campaigning on local issues that he can do bugger all about that Paul Martin can't, and he's totally ignoring what he could do things about in Westminster, like the recent changes in benefits especially the backdating rule.
Hint to SNP canvassers - power prices, *especially* pre-payment meters. Labour have promised action time and time again and have done bugger all. Fuel poverty is a big issue in this area.
As a former student of Caley, let me just say that everything David Kerr said about it was true!
Slight side issue, but has any SNP motion at Westminster ever got 127 votes..? A victory in itself, I say.
Maybe it got 127 votes because Stewart Hosie misled Parliament by saying the by election could be held on 20 August. In fact it cant be held after 13 Aug- during school holidays. Forgive me but didnt the SNP hammer Labour for holding a by election when people were on holiday! Hypocrisy me thinks!
Erm.... the school holidays finish on the 18th of August here in South Ayrshire. Don't know when they finish in NE Glasgow. Is 'anonymous' presuming that the school hols in Scotland are the same as they are in England?
Marcia, I think everybody expected the SNP to win Glenrothes and they didn't so they certainly weren't the underdog.
Jeff, you commented on my blog that you thought the SNP didn't really want to win the vote today, cos they'd prefer a longer run up given the disastrous week they've had with David Kerr.
While I agree that it was a win win situation for the opposition, I do think it could have been better organised and there was a chance of a Government defeat.
Caron - er, isn't what Marcia said precisely that the SNP weren't the underdogs in Glenrothes?
I agree that Labour have probably blundered by failing to move the writ and capitalise on the unfortunate start to the SNP campaign. The only possible reason I can see for this is that Brown wants the by-election to take place after the Labour conference, when it's definitely too late to depose him, and is willing to increase the SNP's chances of winning to achieve this.
Glasgow schools will be back on the 20th. To be fair the point 'Anon.' was making was that moving the writ on Tuesday meant that the by-election would have to be held before the 20th. A Thursday is not mandatory, but it is our convention now so the 13th would have been the last possible Thursday (definitely still within the school hols). But since the other 'convention' of moving the writ within three months of the vacancy occurring is being flouted, there is no reason why the date could not have been 'agreed'.
According to the Herald today:
"Labour has always claimed they would play Glasgow North East long after learning a lesson that last July's Glasgow East by-election left supporters disenfranchised."
Do you remember Labour officially announcing this at any point? I don't.
Post a Comment