Reasons to be Cheerful

The car-crash that is Scottish Politics provided another spectacle yesterday with the drones of Cathcart and Livingston returning two Labour Automatons back into office. This in the week when Labour hustled an octagenarian out of their conference, announced a re-commitment to nuclear power and Iraq continues it's tail-spin into violent chaos. That the candidates were of the calibre of Devine and Gordon is severely depressing, yet they prevail.

Turnout was 31.97%, the lowest ever at a by-election in Scotland. Faith in the political classes is collapsing and its easy to see why.

Reasons to be cheerful? The awful Pat Lally was largely ignored. The Lib-Dems confirmed as an embarrassing irrelevance, and, er, that's about it.

Iain Old from the Scotpol Scottish Politics Discussion Forum here, writes more optimistically:

"Personally, I was surprised at the results. I expected the SNP to do worse in Livingston (a Westminster election) and better in Cathcart scottish parliament). In hindsight (as always) it's possible to explain why simply by looking at the winning Labour candidates.

In Livingston, Devine clearly wasn't a candidate with the standing of Robin Cook, which explains the 9.3 % drop in the Labour vote. The SNP vote increased by 11.1 % allowing them to make a considerable dent in the Labour majority.

The Lib Dems and Tories both saw their votes fall. If you remember the press reports, Labour and the Lib Dems were both claiming that this by-election was a two horse race between Labour and the Lib Dems. It looks like the Lib Dem Westminster bandwagon has come to a sudden halt.

The Tories have even more to worry about, being down 3.4 % on an already poor 2005 poll.

The other six candidates (Green, SSP, Ind, UKIP, Sin, SPGB) made no impact, polling a total of 4 % between them.

In Cathcart, many assumed that there would be a reaction against firestarter Lord Watson of Invergowrie. However, Charlie Gordon's comments that it was Watson who had raised the fire, not the Labour party, may have borne fruit. Unlike in Livingston, the previous member was seen to be a scoundrel, but the electorate were prepared to give his successor the benefit of the doubt. The fact that the Labour candidate clearly detests and despises the First Minister may even have played in his favour. The Labour vote only decreased by 1.5 %.

Another factor may have been that in 2003, the Labour vote had already fallen by 8.9 %, down to it's core vote, and wasn't likely to fall much further.

The SNP will undoubtedly be disappointed that their vote only increased by 5.8 %, but with the Labour vote only falling by 1.5 % and seven other candidates fighting for votes, it's difficult to see where they could have take more votes from.

The Toris can be quietly satisfied that after a reasonable Holyrood campaign in 2003, they increased their vote by 2.0 %.

For the Lib Dems, the result must be a bitter disappointment. The BBC never failed to point out that their candidate, Arthr Sanderson, had come second in Glasgow South in May 2005 (Cathcart makes up 70% of that Westminster constituency). Yet the Lib Dems failed to consolodate their claim to be the "second party of Scottish politics", and came not second in Cathcart, but fourth.

Pat Lally, who had been seen by some as a possible MSP or at worst the Kingmaker in Cathcart, scored only 5.55 %, coming fifth.

The party which must be most disappointed of all are the SSP. In 2003 they were 3 rd with 12.6 % in the constituency itself, and a very close third after the SNP with 15.1 % in the regional vote in
Cathcart. At the by-election they fell to sixth place and lost well over half their vote. A similar result in 2007 would see the SSP back to just on MSP - Tommy Sheridan.

Ditching Sheridan as leader was probably not a good idea. The childish antics which led to them being expelled (trivial) and the families of 80 victims who died after contracted hepatitis C in blood transfusions not getting compensation (extremely serious) may or may not have contributed to the collapse in the SSP vote.

In conclusion, Labour has most to be pleased about, and can breath a sigh of relief that it has held both seats. The SNP will be bitterly disappointed that they failed to win a seat, but can be consoled that they have firmly re-established themselves as the second party of Scottish politics.

The Lib Dems appear to be on the decline and have failed to capitalise of their excellent results in May 2005 when they polled more votes than the SNP at the Westminster elections. The SSP appear to be in meltdown and could lose all but one of their MSPs in 2007 if their electoral decline is not reversed."