Seen through the Labour prism

As is generally the case, the BBC are reporting the SNP's victory in the Glasgow East by-election from a Labour point of view.

"SNP stuns Labour in Glasgow East" - "The Scottish National Party has pulled off a stunning by-election victory by winning Glasgow East, one of Labour's safest seats by 365 votes.

The SNP overturned a Labour majority of 13,507 to win with a swing of 22.54%.

The SNP polled 11,277 votes in the contest, while the Tories came third with 1,639 and the Lib Dems, with 915 votes, came fourth.

SNP candidate John Mason said the victory was "off the Richter Scale", while Labour expressed disappointment.

Voter turnout was 42.25%, down on the 48% figure at the last election, with 26,219 votes cast.

The result was declared at Glasgow's Tollcross Leisure Centre in the early hours of Friday, after a re-count was requested by Labour, which won 10,912 votes in the contest."

The SNP victor, John Mason is given a couple of lines to express his views and then it is straight into Labour party navel gazing, complete with the Labour reflex line from Douglas Alexander that his party needed to "learn the lessons" from the "bad result" and from Margaret Curran that "I do believe the Labour Party has to listen and has to hear the message from the people of Glasgow East." Yet again we hear of the need for Labour to listen and learn; surely the public are speaking VERY LOUDLY and what they are saying is "we are sick of you, please go away".

The BBC allocate another few lines to the SNP further down the article before returing to the Labour party prism:

"BBC Scotland's political editor, Brian Taylor, said it was an appalling result for Labour in a constituency it had held in various guises virtually since the party came into existence.

He said: "Will it add to the pressure on Gordon Brown? Of course. Frankly, though, I don't expect him to stand down any time soon.

"He already knew he faced a tough fight. It will, however, increase the trepidation around him."

I decided to look at the other pages devoted to the Glasgow East result and consequences. The page entitled "'Shockwaves' for Labour" although headed "How serious is defeat for Brown?" on the actual page. This page is devoted almost entirely to the effect of the result on the Labour party's fortunes. The next page is entitled "SNP delivers political earthquake" but begins

"Margaret Curran started her campaign in Glasgow East by declaring that the "Labour fightback starts here"."

and is more of a history of the by-election result than anything else and devotes more time to the Labour party than the SNP.


I shall be listening to the Toady/Today programme to see how funereal it is this morning. If James Naughtie is presenting then I forsee much gloom.