Were Labour and The Conservatives to have their way, the election in Scotland would be a straight fight between the two parties. This would allow Labour to hoover up the majority of the available seats irrespective of whether they enjoyed a majority of the national vote and it would allow the Tories to pick up seven or eight seats, not a bad return under the circumstances.
To leverage this preferred situation, Labour members in particular are harking back to 1979 and suggesting that the SNP let the Tories in then and are in danger of doing so again now in 2010. As a strategy it is unconvincing but effective.
Back in the last Labour administration before Blair's, James Callaghan endured an ignominious fall from grace, failing to win a vote of confidence. This coming after not calling an election at the right time, a period of striking discontent and a perception of arrogance from the public. The following election saw Labour get hammered, the Lib Dems pick up 11 seats and the Tories hold onto power for 18 long, hard years.
Noone wants a repeat of those days but any objective assessment of 1979 would clearly conclude that, rather than 11 Scottish MPs in a UK Parliament, it was the British people that ushered the Tories into Westminster simultaneously consigning Scotland to considerable economic pain. The underlying reason for the defeat in Parliament and in the election, was Labour inadequacy and unpopularity so, fastforwarding to the present day, one can only assume that it is a glossing over of their shortcomings with that perpetuated myth of the SNP that propels them, otherwise they'd be happy to fight on their record.
The suggestion therefore that the SNP’s 11 MPs ‘brought down’ the Labour Government and let the Tories in is clearly palpable nonsense. And yet, much like the bizarre Tartan Tory tag, the myth lives on.
So, taking Labour’s philosophy to its logical conclusion, the notion that the SNP should stand aside to let Labour take its winnable seats, one would expect the Labour candidates to drop out of Angus, Moray and Perth where each SNP MP has a Tory PPC challenging from second place. Labour dropping out of the contest would no doubt guarantee the already highly likely chances of Mike Weir, Angus Robertson and Pete Wishart winning through. Still, you can’t be to careful with those nasty Tories waiting in the wings, can you Comrade?
But of course Labour wouldn’t do that, and nor should they. The public deserves as wide a choice as possible and to plead for votes not on merit but on 'we’re not quite as bad as the other lot who might form the Government' isn’t good enough.
The Labour group fell in 1979 because they didn’t have the support of the Parliament or the people. If the same happens in 2010, it would be churlish to start pointing the finger at other parties for one’s own failures.
As Patrick Harvie put it so neatly, 'Vote for us, because the only wasted vote is a vote for something you don't really believe in.'
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The following election saw Labour get hammered, the Lib Dems pick up 11 seats and the Tories hold onto power for 18 long, hard years.
Not exactly.
Fair enough Alex, "hammered" is a bit strong.
But given Labour were convincingly ahead in the 78 polls, it was still a thumping Tory victory if not in numbers but in nature.
Funny I was sure that the torys held on to power for 18 long hard years.
Did I miss something?
Same old same old, this comes from the same school of politics as Glasgow is being ripped off by those horrible folk in Edinburgh.
Don't let the horrible fact of 13 million odd folk voting for the tories get in the way of a good old labour myth.
I just find it ironic that SNP Tactical voting quotes from Patrick Harvie stating not to vote tactically :)
Ha, nice one Anon. The most worrying aspect is that I didn't even register the irony as I typed. I've tended to see Westminster elections as a straight shoot-out and Holyrood as more of a tactical voting hotbed given the regional vote but there'll still be tactical swings all over the place in May which, as good as Patrick's quote is, will be interesting to follow.
I think Alec is refering to the lack of a party called the Liberal Democrats in those far off days.
That said, the substance of the post is correct - Labour's government in '79 deserved to fail, and would have lost the eventual election even if there had been no no-confidence vote. Having scuppered the referendum with their 40% and half-arsed campaigning they didn't deserve the confidence of the SNP, and having failed as a government they didn't deserve the confidence of the people.
They can shift the blame all they like, but the fact remains that Labour's own incomptance as a government cost them '79, and their incompetance as a party cost them '83-'97
There's also the factor that, had Labour brought in the "assembly" for which Scots had voted, the country would have been insulated from the brunt of Thatcherism.
But yes, Labour's main compliant that the SNP ushered in Thatcher should seem bizarre to anyone who believes in democracy, as it was the electorate, not the SNP, who chose the Tories (and resoundingly rejected the SNP). What Labour object to is the SNP giving people that choice. I think this probably isn't a cynical pose: their party's history suggests that they sincerely believe that electoral democracy, both internal and external, is something to be avoided as much as possible.
Tulloch.
Not really sure they deserved to fail. The ecconomy was improving after several years of ecconomic hardship. The UK was coming out of the woods. If anything the failure was the inability to plan ahead. If only Callaghan hadn't scuppered "In Place of Strife" in 1969...
I think the (New) Labour gripe is that the SNP voted with the Tories to bring down the government. Am I right in thinking that it was an SNP resolution in the first place, adopted by the Tories? I seem to remember among the 30th anniversary programming last year that Callaghan would have gone for an early June election anyway.
http://humbug3.blogspot.com/2009/03/night-government-fell.html
Mmmm... it is worth noting that the SNP actually moved the vote of no confidence in 1979. What was their intention if not to bring down Labour?
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