Prospects for Scottish Labour

I recently wrote the following article on LabourList responding to an article suggesting that the parties fortunes were sinking up north. Regular readers of this blog and with Scottish politics will be familiar with the arguments and the opinion polls but nevertheless here are some extracts from the article:

Far from dwindling fortunes, Scottish Labour has actually seen a bounce recently as we approach the general election and people focus on the choice at hand to decide if they want to have Gordon Brown or David Cameron in Downing Street.

Just look at the opinion polls. Whilst we trail by 10-15 points UK-wide; in Scotland a poll in the first week of January showed Scottish Labour 11% ahead of the SNP. Replicated at a general election this would engender a grand loss of one MP.

Hardly facing electoral oblivion.

The truth is that Scotland, always to the left of the rest of the UK, is rebelling against an alleged guaranteed Tory victory. In the above poll, the Scottish Conservatives see their vote go up by a mere one percentage point. What’s more, consistent polling shows that most SNP supporters would rather a Labour victory than a Tory one, meaning that – as the ‘2-horse race’ message is repeated – Labour’s poll lead is likely to increase.

This isn’t an erroneous poll either. A poll in November actually showed Labour with a fifteen point lead in Scotland which would mean we would actually increase our number of MP’s by one.

Yet there can be no opinion poll like an election, so just look at the Glasgow North East by election where a by election towards the end of a 3rd Labour term actually resulted in Scottish Labour increase their share of the vote by over 6 percentage points.

There are legitimate arguments about tactics in terms of the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary elections – and how to show how Scottish we are and that we will do what is best for Scots – but let us not kid ourselves.

Scottish Labour is on an upwards trajectory.