Congratulations to Willie Bain – now to create momentum

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Congratulations to Willie Bain, Labour’s new MP for Glasgow North East.

As with defeat, there are important lessons to be learned from victories – and this was an expected, though reassuring, success.

Labour devised and stuck to a strong strategy in Glasgow. With a local candidate and a lively grassroots campaign, it played to Willie Bain’s strengths – and the party’s. It was built around Willie’s personal narrative and won through comfortably in the end.

Glasgow’s was a much better campaign than the one in Norwich North, where much of the message was anti-Tory and top-down; this was a campaign much more based on local issues and local people.

The result was that, in continued difficult circumstances nationally – and in spite of early fear that this could be another swing away from Labour of Glasgow East proportions – Labour held one of its safer seats with a majority of 8,111 and nearly 60% of the vote. Meanwhile, the Tories were unable to make any ground in Scotland.

But there are worrying signs, too. Turnout was just 33%, low even for a by-election, and the lowest turnout in Scottish by-election history. If Labour cannot come up with the policy to mobilise its base in the general election, we will have severe problems.

And the BNP have gained more traction than in any previous Parliamentary election in Scotland, with over 1,000 votes.

So we cannot pretend that this victory constitutes a turning point: the national polls remain dire for Labour; Glasgow is after all a traditional Labour heartland; and seats like this will not in any case decide the general election.

But what this win does do is to open the general election campaign proper on a very positive and motivating note. It shows that Labour can still generate passionate activism on the ground – and translate that into votes when it matters. In a longer, more considered campaign than the snap-elections in Glasgow East and Norwich North, Labour prevailed. It should be used as a springboard for energy toward the big one next spring.

Willie Bain said yesterday that his victory was a “great endorsement for Gordon Brown in his efforts to set the economy back on track and it shows election is very much game on.”

Few would wholeheartedly agree that this was a full endorsement of Labour or the party’s economic policies – but it is certainly game on.