Glasgow East Election

[TYM]

I reckon a Labour majority of 2,500

[ionnsaigh]

Calls for a recount - emerging scandal of vote rigging - Labour cry foul - SNP win by Eighty Four votes.
The Liberals and save the fire station sounds a big winner to me - then again I'm middle England.
Next time round they should have a firebrand communist in the fight - it would make it so much more democratic and interesting.

[Wee Toon Ajax]

Stunning result for the SNP

What now for Broon and co

[ionnsaigh]

SNP win
Labour call a recount
I miscalculated the result by 281 votes - I must be losing my grip.

[Govangirl]

I cannot believe that my ex-fellow citizens would do this to the poor Prime Minister, a true and loyal, patriotic Scot!!!!!

[EMDEE]

I thought that one of the best comments from last night was that Gordon Brown's luck is so bad at the moment that if he opened a funeral parlour people would stop dying.

[ionnsaigh]

Glasgow East, the constituency Labour lost by a massive 22% swing to the Scottish Nationalist Party, has been one of Labour's rock-solid industrial bases for more than 70 years. Pundits said it was a sign of rejection of Brown and the Labour Party from the mainly poor, Catholic constituency, parts of which have a lower life expectancy than Gambia.

Glasgow East, which is famously rough and has a more than 50% unemployment rate, is said to have delivered its euphemistic ‘Glasgow Kiss' to Brown, the term used to describe a massive headbutt.

The Times of India.

[EMDEE]

Is it a purely a rejection of Brown and the Labour Party or is it not also an endorsement of the first year of SNP government in Edinburgh?

[petewick]

Is it a purely a rejection of Brown and the Labour Party or is it not also an endorsement of the first year of SNP government in Edinburgh?

Uncertain times ahead, I think.

[EMDEE]

Euphemism?

Why is it that political parties that do badly in elections always say "We need to do more to get our message across"? Labour have been saying this over the past few days. This was what was being said by the Tories in their dying years of the mid nineties.

My point is that parties that have been in power for a number of years have already had ample opportunity to get their message across, and if the electorate liked their message they would be voting for them.

"Need to get our message across" = "We've made an arse of it, hope nobody notices".

[Malky]

Why is it that political parties that do badly in elections always say "We need to do more to get our message across"?

I saw an interview where that was said and thought it was funny too. I think the electorate has got the message and their reaction is we don't like it.

And as much as I would like to think that this was an endorsement of the SNP's performance, I suspect it was more to do with voting for the party that had the most chance of beating Labour. I may be wrong though....

Malky

[hugh]

Could it be that "message" has replaced action? Is "perception" now more important than reality, and are carefully selected "stats" replacing objectivity?
The East end of Glasgow may have been a labour stronghold for god knows how long, but that changed nothing. And "New Labour" no longer lives in the real world (think it lives in some presentation room, somewhere, where its members are constantly liaising with each other and sourcing time slots to proactively empower the electorate) so they're not likely to change anything. I honestly think S.N.P. was the only chance for change in that area.