• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • blog
  • About
  • Book Publications
  • Other Reading
  • Social Wall
  • Back Pages
  • Contact Me
< Back

By-Election Ripples

July 26, 2009

By-Election Ripples

By-elections happening and awaiting – Norwich North and Glasgow North East – have been causing waves and having an impact.

Norwich North’s Tory victory is being presented in the simple one-track media story of ‘Brown is doomed’ which some of the usual suspects (step forward Charles Clarke) are then trotted out to validate. The truth as always is more ambiguous. David Cameron’s limited rebranded new look Conservatism is not sweeping all before it, and is not striking a convincing chord with voters.

Labour is in a deep hole with lots of problems and it does seem that disenchantment with Labour is what is most significantly contributing to the partial and relative shift to the Conservatives. This is a party – which in the depths of recession and with acres of favourable media coverage – is struggling to consistently win 40% of the national vote.

Interesting my comments on last week’s Newsnight seem to have caused a few ripples in different places. The Scots Independent describes myself as a ‘Labour apparatchik’ along with ex-apparatchik Lorraine Davidson – and lambasts both of us for talking down the SNP’s prospects (1). All I said was that Scottish Labour despite everything is polling reasonably well in local government by-elections and the Nats, contrary to myth have an appalling record in parliamentary by-elections – with six victories out of 74 contests since 1945.

And at the same time some people have commented on my statement about David Kerr’s right wing views on top of his Opus Dei membership. I ran an event a couple of years ago at BBC Scotland with senior staff where Kerr gave us the benefit of his well-thought out views on the world. ‘What is the point of social work?’, he asked, before going on to bash Glasgow City Council’s education policies declaring that their per head spending and results ‘proved the failure of their policies’.

Does Kerr still hold such views, as he was widely known in the Beeb as a walking pile of right-wing clichés before he resigned? If he does not hold them, maybe he could tell us when his conversion was from the anti-state zeal he used to espouse? Or maybe the SNP never asked when they choose their third by-election candidate for the seat?

1. http://www.scotsindependent.org/

Filed Under: Blog

Primary Sidebar

categories

  • Blog
  • Events
  • Futures Thinking
  • International Conversations
  • Longer Essays
  • Short Essays
  • What Gerry's groovin' to
  • What Gerry's reading
FacebookTwitter

featured publication

Scotland Rising: The Case for Independence

Click here to buy Gerry’s latest book.

what Gerry’s groovin’ to

My Musical Highlights of the Year

December 17, 2021

what Gerry’s reading

My Favourite Books of the Year 2021

December 15, 2021

tags

Scottish politics | Scottish Independence | Scottish Review | British politics | The Scotsman | Scottish Nationalists | Scottish Nationalism | Open Democracy | Nicola Sturgeon | Scottish Labour Party | Scottish society | Sunday National | The British State | Sunday Mail | Brexit | Boris Johnson | Social Democracy | Scottish National Party | Conservative Party | British Labour Party | Alex Salmond | Jeremy Corbyn | David Cameron | Popular Culture | The National | Scottish Parliament | Bella Caledonia | Scottish Media | Scottish Independence Referendum | British Conservatives | British Nationalism | Social Justice | Scottish Unionism | The Future of the Left | Scottish Men | 2021 Scottish Parliament elections | British Society | Scottish Culture | Football | CoronaVirus

Categories

Footer

about Gerry

Gerry Hassan is a writer, commentator and thinker about Scotland, the UK, politics and ideas.

More >

recent

  • How the 1970s began for me and how I was nearly written off at the age of five
  • Independence is not about process politics. It is about democracy
  • What Scotland’s big independence debate is about and should be about

search

FacebookTwitter

Terms of Use | Privacy Statement
Copyright © Gerry Hassan - writing, research, policy and ideas. All Rights Reserved.
Illustration and website design by Infinite Eye