Livingston and Glasgow Cathcart by-elections thread

[sihhi]

This is tonight-- hopefully the SSP won't be too bad with their performance.

 

[pingupete]

turnout dismal

In Livingston just 38.6% and in Cathcart just 31.97%, which is a Scottish all time low apparently.

 

[pingupete]

livingston result

Labour 41.8% (12,319)
SNP 32.7% (9,639)
Lib Dems 14.8% (4,362)
Tories 6.8% (1,993)
Greens 1.8% (529)
SSP 1.4% (407)
Others 0.5%

 

[pingupete]

cathcart result

Lab 5,811 (37.7%)
SNP 3,406 (22.1%)
Con 2,306 (15.0%)
LD 1,557 (10.1%)
Ind 856 (5.6%)
SSP 819 (5.3%)
Greens 548 (3.6%)

 

[Fisher_Gate]

If the nats pick up any votes it won't be off the Lib Dems. Maybe in a place like Angus but not in the central belt. The liberals outpolled the SNP across Scotland in the general election and, while I don't see Kennedy's lot doing anything here, these are ultimately two rural parties with little resonance in Glasgow or Livingston. Don't think it will be all that tempting to jump from one to the other. The SNP will take a few votes off Labour in Cathcart but ultimately the whole Watson episode will keep people away from the polling booth.

The Liberals are already irrelevant in the cities apart from around the universities. You're starting from a very low base line.

The story of Scottish politics in the last few years is the SNP crumbling. Whether this can be reversed remains to be seen.

Looks like you were wrong and I underestimated the extent that the SNP would pick up protest votes. Turnout is the real story though.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Here's how my predictions fared:

Fisher Gate Prediction Actual Difference

Livingston:

Turnout 35% 38.60% 3.6%

Lab 45% 41.8% -3.2%
SNP 25% 32.7% 7.7%
Tory 10% 14.8% 4.8%
LibDem 10% 6.8% -3.2%
Green 4% 1.8% -2.2%
SSP 3% 1.4% -1.6%
UKIP 1% 0.4% -0.6%


Cathcart

Turnout: 28% 32% 4.0%

Lab 35% 37.7% 2.7%
SNP 25% 22.1% -2.9%
Tory 15% 15.0% 0.0%
SSP 8% 5.3% -2.7%
Green 5% 3.6% -1.4%
Lally 5% 5.6% 0.6%
LibDem 5% 10.1% 5.1%

Underestimated the SNP and the LibDems in Cathcart, but otherwise not bad predictions at all I would say.

 

[hibee]

Looks like you were wrong and I underestimated the extent that the SNP would pick up protest votes. Turnout is the real story though.

Perhaps I was, although with reduced turnout it looks as though the nats were just marginally better at getting their vote out. Still pretty pathetic results for the "opposition" party. These are seats they should be challenging for if their breakthrough was on the cards. And more importantly, where were the SSP?

If Labour can hold onto Cathcart in these circumstances someone is doing something wrong.

 

[tollbar]

Perhaps I was, although with reduced turnout it looks as though the nats were just marginally better at getting their vote out. Still pretty pathetic results for the "opposition" party. These are seats they should be challenging for if their breakthrough was on the cards. And more importantly, where were the SSP?

If Labour can hold onto Cathcart in these circumstances someone is doing something wrong.

Looks like the loss of vote by the SSP is much in line with the decline registered at the Westminister election. I suspect that there are a combination of factors involved here including, the sheridan affair. the fact that there were a number of parties fighting on what must have seemed to a lot of the electorate like very similar ground and a massive dissolusionment with politics in general. I would think that people closer to Cathcart than myself would know more detail.

 

[sihhi]

And more importantly, where were the SSP?

There was the opportunity to say there's no chance of allowing Tories in by the backdoor like in the general election stick two fingers at the government vote SSP yet ...
407 votes in Livingstone, just 819! in Glasgow Cathcart which contains Castlemilk Estate
a poor result however you look at it despite Tommy problems.

 

[Charlie Drake]

SPGB - 32 votes

Thought the Cathcart result was piss poor for the SSP

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Thought the Cathcart result was piss poor for the SSP

The thing you have to remember though is that the party has been in disarray now for some time, ever since the Sheridan resignation really although that isn't the sole cause of the problems. It's not a great result, but saving their deposit is respectable in the circumstances.

 

[mutley]

The thing you have to remember though is that the party has been in disarray now for some time, ever since the Sheridan resignation really although that isn't the sole cause of the problems. It's not a great result, but saving their deposit is respectable in the circumstances.

All of the above is true, but the question is can the SSP err stop being in disarray (appropriate verb for this is..?) or will the Sheridan years prove to have been the high point? Discuss.

 

[comstock]

Interesting, that in Livingston the SNP vote plus the LibDem vote is (quite a bit) greater than the Labour vote. IMHO Labour would have lost this had the Libdems not run

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Interesting, that in Livingston the SNP vote plus the LibDem vote is (quite a bit) greater than the Labour vote. IMHO Labour would have lost this had the Libdems not run

LibDems are in coalition with Labour in Scotland. It's very debatable whether a large enough number of voters would move from LibDems to SNP, if they were not to stand. In any case all three of the major parties contest every seat in Britain, and the SNP every seat in Scotland, whether it's a hopeless case or not.

What this illustrates though is how unrepresentative first past the post is. There are a number of cases in Scotland of winning parties having low votes. There were 14 seats in the general election in Scotland (out of 59) where the winning party had less than 40% of the vote (8 of them Labour). The seat with the lowest proportion for the winning party was:

Ochil and South Perthshire
lab 14,645 31.4%
snp 13,957 29.9%
con 10,021 21.5%
ld 6,218 13.3%

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Sorry forgot Lib Dems stood down in Wyre Forest. Nearly every seat ...

 

[parallelepipete]

There was the opportunity to say there's no chance of allowing Tories in by the backdoor like in the general election stick two fingers at the government vote SSP yet ...
407 votes in Livingstone, just 819! in Glasgow Cathcart which contains Castlemilk Estate
a poor result however you look at it despite Tommy problems.

I know it's a controversial thing for me to say, being a green type an' aw, but my SSP neighbour (he's been well into socialist politics in Scotland for 30+ years and knows Sheridan fairly well) reckons that they did suffer after their MSPs' suspension. His PoV was that a lot of the public saw it as a stunt rather than the principled stand they meant it to be, and it does seem to have turned quite a few potential voters off. This effect will probably have faded away by 2007 IMHO.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

All of the above is true, but the question is can the SSP err stop being in disarray (appropriate verb for this is..?) or will the Sheridan years prove to have been the high point? Discuss.

Can they? Certainly.
Will they? It depends.

They need to get away from the stunts and back to the kind of community and workplace activism that built their initial base in the first place.

 

[hibee]

They need to get away from the stunts and back to the kind of community and workplace activism that built their initial base in the first place.

Absolutely right. This was the case even before the Sheridan shenanigans. The SSP are being seen as good copy by the Scottish press, but for the wrong reasons: they are getting headlines for writing words on their hands and having rows with the parliament rather than actually getting stuff done at grass roots level.

This is all very disappointing as, unusually for a trot, Sheridan built his entire reputation on community work in Pollock, the anti-poll tax movement etc. Indeed without this base he'd be just another lefty pontificating to empty church halls. I have political differences with the SSP but there's little doubt he used to be good at all this, indeed continued doing so by single handedly putting warrant sales on the agenda. What happened to all that?

Gimmicks have their place in moderation (clenching your left fist when you recite the oath etc) but only in moderation; do it too much and you end up looking like a cabaret act. See Colin Fox on Argyle St dressed as Robin Hood.

 

[hibee]

I think it's also worth making the point (and I say this as an active trade union member) that the SSP/Sheridan's base was built largely in communites rather than in the workplace. A roadsign for the left?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

A roadsign for the left?

I think more a quirk of timing.

The base of the SSP and before it SML was built in a period when there was fuck all going on in terms of workplace activity. What struggles there were tended to happen in the community. As a more general principle community activism is more helpful in an electoral sense than workplace stuff, but building a base in the workplace is vital for much more basic reasons.

 

[hibee]

Or there's the more obvious point that Sheridan's community work won over a lot of people who he could never have reached through workplace activity. Not that I'm saying by any means that union work is dead, just that faced with the reality of pathetically low membership the left have to stop acting like it's 1929.

 

[comstock]

LibDems are in coalition with Labour in Scotland. It's very debatable whether a large enough number of voters would move from LibDems to SNP, if they were not to stand. In any case all three of the major parties contest every seat in Britain, and the SNP every seat in Scotland, whether it's a hopeless case or not.

Good point. However I noticed the Liberal-Democrats ran a campaign saying it was neck and neck between them and Labour, and the SNP couldn't possibly win. Not sure if this made any difference, but I wonder how many leftish-but-not-Labour voters were fooled into voting Lib-Dem not SNP. IMHO Labour would have lost this under first/second preference, although I'm no expert on Scottish politics.

FWIW I support Labour nationally(with reservations),and I'm glad they won. But I think they were lucky here.

 

[tollbar]

Absolutely right. This was the case even before the Sheridan shenanigans. The SSP are being seen as good copy by the Scottish press, but for the wrong reasons: they are getting headlines for writing words on their hands and having rows with the parliament rather than actually getting stuff done at grass roots level.

This is all very disappointing as, unusually for a trot, Sheridan built his entire reputation on community work in Pollock, the anti-poll tax movement etc. Indeed without this base he'd be just another lefty pontificating to empty church halls. I have political differences with the SSP but there's little doubt he used to be good at all this, indeed continued doing so by single handedly putting warrant sales on the agenda. What happened to all that?

Gimmicks have their place in moderation (clenching your left fist when you recite the oath etc) but only in moderation; do it too much and you end up looking like a cabaret act. See Colin Fox on Argyle St dressed as Robin Hood.

Colin Fox is a fucking embarrassment quite frankly, who was put where he is solely, to keep the seat warm for the return of TS. The party suffered another embarrassment yesterday when an event was organised outside the scottish parliament as a celebration of the end of the ban on the 4 msps and as a continuation of the partys on/off campaign in support of last years Calton Hill declaration regarding a scottish socialist republic. During the week the SSP announced that Eddi Reader and Teenage Fanclub were to play at this event and it now turns out that they had never been booked. This, supposedly important mobilisation attracted 120 people. Whatever stand one takes on the scottish independance issue, it is party policy and should, if it was going to be done at all, should have had a degree of active mobilisation, instead we again have the spectacle of the party leadership paying lip service to party policy, leading to more demoralisation.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the SWP front group, The Glasgow Committee To welcome Refugees "coincidentally" organised a demo in support of those refugees in Glasgow who have been getting the midnight knock which attracted 800. While, of course, everyone supports the campaign to have the deportations halted, many cannot see why there was any need for the demo to be held yesterday, thus splitting an agreed event, except because the SSP event didnt suit the agenda of the swipes. Now, next weekend we have the Socialism 2005, supposedly organised by the SSP that has an agenda that makes it more like Marxism on the Clyde. You dont need a weatherman...

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Colin Fox is a fucking embarrassment quite frankly, who was put where he is solely, to keep the seat warm for the return of TS. The party suffered another embarrassment yesterday when an event was organised outside the scottish parliament as a celebration of the end of the ban on the 4 msps and as a continuation of the partys on/off campaign in support of last years Calton Hill declaration regarding a scottish socialist republic. During the week the SSP announced that Eddi Reader and Teenage Fanclub were to play at this event and it now turns out that they had never been booked. This, supposedly important mobilisation attracted 120 people.

Typical really. The independence convention was a bad idea and all of the related sub-SNP posturing including Carlton Hill has been a collossal waste of energy and resources.

The fact that yesterdays stunt was so badly organised and wasn't mobilised for makes things worse, but really what were they thinking calling an event like this in the first place? Combining the worst nationalist excessess of the party with drawing attention to the SSP's predeliction for "stunt politics" was a terrible idea.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the SWP front group, The Glasgow Committee To welcome Refugees "coincidentally" organised a demo in support of those refugees in Glasgow who have been getting the midnight knock which attracted 800. While, of course, everyone supports the campaign to have the deportations halted, many cannot see why there was any need for the demo to be held yesterday, thus splitting an agreed event, except because the SSP event didnt suit the agenda of the swipes.

It's good news that the march got 800 but yes that is the kind of behaviour which isn't likely to endear the SWP to anyone else in the party.

Now, next weekend we have the Socialism 2005, supposedly organised by the SSP that has an agenda that makes it more like Marxism on the Clyde. You dont need a weatherman...

Has there been any discussion of that inside the SSP?

 

[tollbar]

[


Has there been any discussion of that inside the SSP?[/QUOTE]

Not much, except from the republican end of the party. I suspect that the main motivation of the SSP leadership in its current weakened state is to buy off Respect (or unity at all costs).

A sample of the fare at Socialism 2005. Somebody from the SEA going on about the horrors of being a young socialist in the 6 counties.

 

[sevenstars]

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the SWP front group, The Glasgow Committee To welcome Refugees "coincidentally" organised a demo in support of those refugees in Glasgow who have been getting the midnight knock which attracted 800. [/QUOTE]

I was in Bolton for a similiar demo on saturday, my own view is that opposition to deportations is also longstanding SSP policy, with a greater deal of urgency attached to it to than the independence stuff at the moment.

I support a republican socialist position and would welcome a scottish republic as a step in the right direction. But the fact that only 120 people could be mobilised for such a demo says a lot about the limits of that issue as a rallying cause for a workers party right now. Even with 800 people in Glasgow, most of whom probably came from the west anyway.

I am just finding the nationalism in the party tedios at the moment, even more so than the stunts. Its another short cut to popularity but more dodgy because it comes with an entire mytholgy around it. Kevin Williamsons recent Voice columns have been really weak in this respect and if i was living in scotland i would be calling for someone fresh to have a turn in the paper

I do agree with you about the Socialism 2005 event. There are enough broad formations in europe plus venezula etc to provide interesting speakers from a range of other traditions