Inverclyde, the scene of the latest UK parliamentary by-election this Thursday, perhaps demonstrates the Conservatives' difficulties in this belt of industrial Scotland. Having witnessed a huge decline in population in the latter decades of the twentieth century, blamed by many on Thatcherism, there is no chance that the Tory candidate David Wilson will follow the example of his wonderfully named predecessor Henry Scrymgeour-Wedderburn, MP for Greenock (a previous incarnation of the Inverclyde seat) until the end of the Second World War.
Inverclyde, in whatever form it has taken, has been rock-solid Labour territory ever since. With the Tories and Liberals the only opposition, Labour candidates have not had to work up much of a sweat in order to retain the seat. At last year’s general election, David Cairns – whose death last month at the age of just 45 prompted the contest – secured 56 per cent of the vote, a majority of nearly 40 percentage points over the Scottish National Party.
Thus, on the face of it this should be a comfortable hold for the Labour candidate Iain McKenzie. The required swing of nineteen percent is not unheard of in parliamentary by-elections, but would be almost unprecedented for an opposition party to lose on a swing that large. Labour, of course, is not in power in either Westminster or Holyrood. On the other hand, Labour’s position as a receptacle for protest votes is tempered by the continued affection for Alex Salmond’s Holyrood government – this Westminster seat will see protest votes against only the Tories and, especially, the Lib Dems. Labour has even lost one thing that they had in their favour in 2010, namely a Scottish leader in the form of Gordon Brown.
Yet despite the awesome task faced by the SNP to try and snatch the seat from Ed Miliband’s party, there are admittedly faint whispers in political circles that Labour could be in danger. David Cairns was a hugely popular constituency MP. In 2010, Cairns added seven percentage points and over 3,000 votes to his majority, and the swing to him from the SNP far outstripped the Scottish average. The personal vote unwind therefore may play into the hands of the nationalists.
What is most worrying to Labour, however, was its disastrous showing in last month’s elections to the Scottish Parliament. The SNP crushed all three major opposition parties, leaving Scotland – on the constituency map – as a sea of nationalist yellow, with just a sprinkling of red, blotches of blue and extremities of Lib Dem orange.
It is true that one of those red sprinkles was the near-equivalent Holyrood constituency, Greenock and Inverclyde. The Inverclyde Westminster seat does not have the same boundaries, but as a reference, the Scottish Parliament constituency result will surely make Labour palms sweat. Although the party’s MSP Duncan McNeil held the seat, his thirteen-point majority was slashed to less than two points. The SNP increased their vote by a half, primarily from disaffected Liberal Democrat and Conservative voters, while Labour’s own gain from those parties was cancelled out by the voters who left the party for the SNP, a pattern repeated the length of Scotland.
The SNP will hope to squeeze the Westminster coalition parties’ votes and gain a significant number of those who chose David Cairns rather than his party in 2010. It would be no less than an extraordinary result should the nationalists defeat Labour on Thursday, at least on a par with their nationwide triumph in May. The SNP are likely to erode Labour’s majority, but to take the seat would be a step too far. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will both see their vote shares decline, though, as they will be starting from a much lower base, it will probably be less than the Labour equivalent.
If Ed Miliband is questioned about a poor performance, it is not difficult to see him pointing to the probable rejection of the coalition parties. But Inverclyde is about as far from a Coalitionista hotspot as there is, and it is to be hoped that such an opinion, if it is forthcoming, receives little media attention. If Labour does well, even increasing its majority, on the other hand, it will bring relief to the beleaguered Miliband leadership in Scotland, which was so tarnished by the failings last month, nominally under the party’s outgoing Scottish leader Iain Gray.
2010 result:
Lab 56
SNP 18
LD 13
Con 12
UKIP 1
Predicted 2011 result:
Lab 47
SNP 36
Con 9
LD 6
UKIP 2
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