Notes from the Shires (The East Renfrewshires)

By Panda Paws

In 2010 I woke up around 4am and decided to switch on the TV and see how the election results looked. I was soon confronted by a very smug looking Jim Murphy. Granted he had every reason to be so since he had increased his majority in what was then the Tories top target seat in Scotland. Next, there was a split screen interview with him and Douglas Alexander and the first thing a smirking Jim said was “Did you win?” To a man in standing in a seat where Labour votes are weighed not counted! 

Alexander had indeed won with around 60% of the vote. It was the overwhelming sense of entitlement and complacency that struck me. These were people who had decided that the narrow SNP win in 2007 at Holyrood was an aberration and the people were back where they belonged, voting Labour. Labour owned them. 

They would surely come back home in 2011.Except they didn’t. 

The referendum would easily be won 70-30 except it wasn’t. 

And now Labour find themselves in an unknown position, far behind the SNP in Westminster polling. I don’t think for a minute that the SNP will win over 50 seats or anything like it, though I do think they will exceed their previous best. To be fair that was 11 out of 72 so it’s not a big ask. But areas that have been Labour since before the Second World War are looking decidedly shaky.

You’d think Jim would be safe though given:

General Election Turnout: 2010 51,181 (77.3%) +5.1		Labour hold Majority: 10,420 (20.4%) +6.4 Swing: +3.2% from Con to Lab		Jim Murphy	Labour	25,987	50.8	+6.9
				Richard Cook	Conservative	15,567	30.4	+0.5
				Gordon MacDonald	Liberal Democrat	4,720	9.2	-9.0
				Gordon Archer	SNP	4,535	8.9	+2.0
				Donald McKay	UKIP	372	0.7	N/A

But the last Ashcroft polling (sample size 1000) showed only a 1% lead over the SNP who had been fourth in 2010, over 20,000 votes behind him.

I live in one of the affluent parts of the constituency. There have been 3 SNP leaflets, all hand delivered. The Tories have hand delivered one and chapped my door offering another, perhaps hoping for a chat, which was politely if frostily declined. 

Now I know what it was like last year for Labour – standing beside Tories and saying “no thanks”! 

It’s also the first time I’ve EVER had activists chap my door at a General Election and I’m older than Nigel Farage! (Which frightened the life out of me; still I consider it proof positive of the premature ageing effects of excessive booze and fags.)

Bottom line Jim is facing a pincer attack by the SNP on Labour’s left and the Tories on the rig… actually his left!

So how is Jim reacting to this pressure? 

Basically by being on the TV so often I’m sure he has his own room at Pacific Quay, by touring Scotland with a message of old Labour conveniently forgetting his own Blairite credentials (he was David Miliband’s leadership campaign manager), the credentials that enabled him to win in an old Tory area. 

Except old Labour members can’t stand him. 

I’ve had some tell me it’s the one seat they hope to lose. He’s a right winger, a member of the Henry Jackson Society, ardent supporter of the Iraq war and Nu Labour to the core. Facts all the MSM “fluffers” in the world aren’t going to change. 

He’s also someone who voted for tuition fees; which if we’d had them 20 odd years ago would have cost him a fortune, given his nine years at Strathclyde.

Even when he says the right things, he does it in a way that undermines his message. 

For example he’s correct: the amount of NHS money spent on mental health is not only paltry but a disgrace. However, standing in front of a Scottish Labour conference when the party is in turmoil and baldly stating “25% of you have a mental health problem”, well did anyone with an ounce of sarcasm not think “as few as that?” 

The only Labour leaflets I’ve had have been delivered by the postman and, though he’s been seen in Barrhead (according to his twitter feed), there is no sign of any Labour activists in my area. Indeed I hear the Barrhead sighting had as much to do with him by being interviewed by Sky News than him actually canvassing.

He and Ed Miliband are not friends nor allies. Ed’s too far to the left for him. Tommy Ball’s blog suggested Murphy wants Labour to lose the election.

That way, Ed will be purged and the Blairites will be back in the ascendant. Murphy can either bid for the leadership or be assured of a plumb post in the next Labour cabinet. 

It’s an interesting notion but if Murphy presides over the loss of the biggest number of Scottish Labour seats in living history this would not serve him well in his Westminster ambitions. 

However, he has his back-up plan - his bid to be FM in 2016. 

Stop laughing at the back!

If Ed becomes PM, the best he can hope for is Scottish Secretary, the biggest non-job in the cabinet. The Scottish Office where there is so little to do, they invent conversations that didn’t happen in meetings they didn’t attend.

This election promises to be the most interesting in years. I’ll be staying up all night to watch, hoping for many Portillo moments. And whilst just a few months ago I’d never have believed East Renfrewshire might provide one of them, now I’m not so sure. East Ren now looks a three way marginal. 

Can someone buy the popcorn please?

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Panda Paws is just some wummin, with an internet connection and some opinions, whom Munguin and Tris have foolishly allowed atl. She knew those photos would prove useful ;-)  A Yes voter last year, in an independent Scotland she’d vote Green. But we don’t have an independent Scotland and usually she doesn’t have any Green candidates to vote for. All sarcasm is her own, though heavily influenced by the Wee Ginger Dug whom she’d like to be if and when she grows up.  

[Editor's note. If you keep quiet about the photographs (I tell you there's nothing between me and Annabel Goldie) you can have a regular column at the usual rates... OK?]