Seconds Out in Glasgow North East

One day to go until the people of Glasgow North East go to the polls and I must admit I'm not sensing the early tremors of a political earthquake, merely drizzle from the ever-darkening skies that will ensure turnout is very low indeed. Postal vote ballots may be significantly up but I doubt that will be replicated by people walking into polling stations on the day.

I suspect the SNP's deliberate dampening down of expectations will pay off and their cheers and jeers after sharply reducing Labour's majority in the area will be valid.

It seemed to escape many people's notice that the odds for this by-election were identical to the odds of David Haye vs the giant Nikolai Valuev at the weekend. Haye was the favourite with Valuev's odds slightly longer. Little Dave ducking and diving and avoiding those clunking fists of the slow, pedestrian man from the North is something we've all become used to from Westminster but the situation has continued in Glasgow North East.

Willie Bain and the Labour campaign have stepped back for most of the contest and lunged forward sporadically with jabs and even, occasionally, a combinations of left and rights that have helped to ensure that David Kerr has staggered rather than sailed through the contest.

Religion, locality, knife crime and ripped off Glasgow are some of the topics that have dominated the campaign when all three, arguably, should not have been close to the core narrative. The SNP, to be fair, has perhaps compounded this narrow debate by releasing press releases focussed on locality and who is 'ripping off' Glasgow rather than changing the subject.

This no doubt suggests that Labour's attacks were gaining traction and the SNP campaign had to put out the fires but it's just a shame that Trident, Afghanistan and the economy never really took off as issues as they are (1) directly related to Westminster where the candidates after all are aspiring to work and (2) terrain where the SNP has the upper hand, perhaps even the killer blow if landed accurately.

Willie Bain is the favourite going into tomorrow and, at the end of the day, the people of Glasgow North East are no mugs and whatever the result is, even though it will come down to points, it should be respected.

We can't go treating the voters like German boxing judges after all and, whatever happens tomorrow, David Kerr is still a giant of a man given the way he has conducted himself over the past few months...