Glasgow East and the aftermath

The election in a fortnight’s time promises some real drama, but first I have been rather intrigued by the run-up to it.

The newspapers report that the favourite for the Labour Party nomination, George Ryan, changed his mind, and didn’t turn up to the selection meeting. So the selection was cancelled. But what about the other candidates for the job, the second and third favourites and so on? Why wasn’t one of them chosen? Not really fair on them, effectively being told they were just there to make up numbers. Instead it is said that Gordon Brown has been helping the constituency by phoning round possible candidates for the job and ‘they’ are ‘likely’ to pick Margaret Curran, a former minister in the devolved Scottish Executive.

Now, either Mr Ryan was not in fact ‘the favourite’ but a one man shoo-in, or Labour have some serious democracy issues to settle within their own party. Either way it is not a good start.

So, what if Labour loses? Would Gordon Brown have to go, or would HMQ finally pluck up the courage to say she didn’t fancy the idea of two unelected Prime Ministers on the trot and insist on an election? Ironically Brown could find himself in exactly the same position as Blair, only able to cling to his job by promising to leave before the next election. The country has the unwelcome prospect of a lame duck Prime Minister (a bad advert for the Labour Party), a second unelected PM (which could be just as bad), or an election. Whichever, it seems likely that New Labour will have been swept aside before long. Traditional Labour is still unelectable and the prospects of a new centre party are slim because the LibDems have chosen someone closer to the Tories than to Labour. We might be about to see a period of the Tories against the rest. Interesting times.

Nevertheless I have just a slight feeling that the Labour Patty might win the by-election in Glasgow East.

But it won’t do them any good. People will rather resent Gordon Brown for putting the kibosh on a more exciting story.

In politics, when you’re a goner, you’re a goner.