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October1974 · Standing in a Council Ward Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 425

the date is confirmed, seems such a sudden rush.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/scotland_politics/7483790.stm

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Holebender · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject:

Does holding the election during Glasgow Fair fortnight help Labour or hurt them? I suspect it will work against getting the Labour vote out.
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Reluctant Hero · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 9:47 pm Post subject:

Since Labour are in the position to influence the timing of the by-election, I would imagine it has been calculated that their best shot of winning it would be during the Fair fortnight.

Or maybe they are trying to get it out of the way before any more stories of the retiring MP surface in the press?
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Reluctant Hero · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:15 pm Post subject:

Salmond is questioning the date in the Herald tomorrow.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politi...r_of_panic_on_byelection_date.php
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Rinty · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:22 am Post subject:

It isn't unusual for dates to be set very quickly after the news breaks. Labour will have an advantage as they decided on this a few weeks ago but the SNP are already started on their campaign as well.

The SNP will choose their candidate tomorrow.

I don't know whether this will help Labour or the SNP but I dont think that the date is advantageous to anyone apart from whoever takes Wendy's job as they will want every byelection out of the way so that they diont get the blame for it!

Alasdair · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:25 am Post subject:

How democratic is it to set a date so soon after the announcement, particularly in light of the holiday? How many people will miss the vote because they are getting away and fail to arrange a proxy or postal ballot.
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Rinty · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:50 pm Post subject:

that will be the same for voters of any party so it shouldnt affect the result. This is quite normal for a byelection in my experience

October1974 · Standing in a Council Ward Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 425

by-elections were not held as quick as this one. Parties tend to have time to plan postal/proxy votes. It used to be weeks before they held after the death or resignation.
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Rinty · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:01 am Post subject:

In the Cathcart bylection Mike watson resigned officially on the 2nd september the byelection was officially called on the 4th and was held on the 29th.

The recent Henley byelection was called on the 5th June and was held on the 26th.

There has been some that are not as quick as this and many about the same. When it is because of a death then there are more delays as they wait until after the funeral and then have a procedure to resign the seat posthumesly, but stil the time between the announcement and the actual election will be similar to this. When Robin Cook died the official annoubncement of his seat being vacant was given on the 2nd Sept and the election held on the 29th of the same month.

But I don't see how the quickness, or the Glasgow fair, gives Labour any advantage.

Campaigning cannot start until the date is announced and a candidate is registered. So the SNP should havetime to organise this, I know we have in Solidarity.

If the SNP cannot react quickly to things like this then they have very real problems. But I dont think the party managers in the SNP will hold the same view as you on this. I am sure that they were aware this was going to happen, have plans in place, and will be ready to campaign when they announce their candidate later today.

chicmac · Standing in a Council Ward Joined: 18 Mar 2008 Posts: 448

Rinty · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:39 am Post subject:

Actually chic. all electoral evidence suggests that the SNP do less well in working class areas, especially glasgow. And I think that people from the country's poorest areas are less likely to be away on holiday at the fair than most.

As the industrial base has declined the Glasgow Fair is not a fixed holiday for many people. And the poorer paid workers, mainly in retail in that area, dont have the same flexibility or time, or money for holidays.

By-elections tend to have poor turnouts, this area doesnt have a record of great turnouts, so the timing and the suddenness of that campaign will not help that.

But I don't think that it can be said that the working class vote for the SNP, perhaps this is emerging as a new reality but is certainly not a given from past evidence, and not something the SNP can assume.

Labour dominate this area as they do most largely working class areas, and usually the poorer and more deprived the area, the higher the Labour majority.

The only area where the SNP do well in Glasgow is Govan, an area where the seat changes hands regularly and a small swing is usually required from either Labour or SNP.

This by-election is going to very difficult for the SNP and I cant see them winning, there is no evidence of them doing well in the area, or making much inroads on the Labour vote at all.

If you look at last years council elections, in Shettleston, the SNP took 1,800 1st preference votes to Labour's 4,500. In Bailleston the SNP came much closer, within a thousand votes of Labour in 1st preference votes, but the SNP's second candidate got elected on 2nd and 3rd preference votes from others and Solidarity's candidate had nearly twice as many 1st preference votes than the SNP's David MacDonald.

In a straight first-past-the-post fight, I can't see the SNP taking this seat, although the strong anti-Labour and anti-Gordon Brown protest vote will help them make a big effort.

By-elections are unpredictable though and moods can change dramatically over a few weeks.

However if, as expected, John Mason is the candidate, he has a good record and attracts votes in the area so it isn't impossible. Mason took more first preference votes last year than any of the Labour candidates in either Bailleston or Shetleston.

I expect the turnout to be lower than 30% and that Labour will have enough loyal voters to win in such a tight turn-out.

chicmac · Standing in a Council Ward Joined: 18 Mar 2008 Posts: 448

Rinty · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject:

Can you show me this demographic evidence chic?

And the idea that the highest support for independence comes from this group does not equate with an snp advantage in this constituency as the breakdown for Lavour votes will show the same thing, in probably higher numbers.

You say the highest % support for SNP is in the working class who will be on holiday. It is obvious that highest support for labour also comes from the working class and ALL electoral evidence shows that the SNP do not do well in post-industrial deprived areas. Also, I cannot see the evidence for working people being on holiday during the fair, the biggest recent employer in the area is the retail jobs at the Fort and I can't see the shops closing for a fortnight.

"I think you may be conflating working class and non-working class, a common error. "

No, I am not, I think you may be confusing the % breakdown of the SNP vote with the % breakdown of the overall vote.

I am a socialist, so talk about working classs in political terms, if you are talking demographics then working class isn't a factor as it breaks down into socio-economic groups. Non-working class isn't a term in demographics or in politics apart from some media using it.

A worker who earns #500 a week is working class as is a call-centre worker on #150 as is an unemployed person. All three would be in different socia-economic groups for demographic purposes. You are mixing terms and terminology.

This area has the highest number of people out of work in Scotland and the vote for Labour is one of the strongest in the country, the same will be true in similar areas across Scotland and the UK.

Red Justice · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject:

Rinty said:

"I am a socialist, so talk about working classs in political terms, if you are talking demographics then working class isn't a factor as it breaks down into socio-economic groups. Non-working class isn't a term in demographics or in politics apart from some media using it."

I agree with Rinty as I use the term working class to include also non-working poor (unemployed and disabled workers) as I recognise the importance of unemployed workers as part of the working class. That his how I understand this in social and political terms.

What a socialist candidate would do is offer a better alternative and expose how New Labour betray the working class depriving them of a share in the country's wealth and opportunies in life. Successive governments have betrayed the people of Glasgow East and this realisation would make not just an ordinary SNP voter but also a Labour supporter vote for a socialist party such as if Solidarity were standing.
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Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 2753

Chic wrote (to Rinty) "I think you may be conflating working class and non-working class, a common error ".

I think the error is in seeing “working” and “non-working” as being a significant class division. Since discussion of class is highly relevant to the subject of East Glasgow, and since there has recently been a discussion of class on the anarchy-list, I’m going to recycle what I wrote there.

********************************************************************

Dean wrote

> On top you have those who rule society (call them the Ruling Class).

I frequently do.

> This includes the owners of big capital and their families,
> the high level politicians (the President of the U.S. fits
> into other categories this time.), and other people with major
> power in society. On the bottom are the working class and
> the underclasses.

I think the "underclass" idea is very nebulous.

> The working class are those who work for a living

Correction.

The working class is that class from which the wage slaves are drawn. At any given time, some of this class will be unemployed, some of this class will be eight years old (or whatever) and not yet entered the work force, and some of this class will have reached the past-working advanced age at which their services are no longer required. Nevertheless, this group as a whole is the group from which the workers are drawn, this is the working class.

> and have no power, as Marx says, "Nothing to lose but their chains".
> But they have a relationship to the capitalist class in that they
> generally work for them and therefore the capitalists need them to
> continue making money for them. Below the working class, are several
> other groupings, the lumpen (i.e., criminals, especially those who
> have no power but steal mainly from the working class.)

Describing "criminals" as a class is a bit misleading. A "criminal" is just somebody caught and sentenced for breaking the law. Breaking the law is what many millions of people of all classes do every day. Just occasionally, you can get some capitalist being convicted of fraud of millions of dollars. They are criminals, but their lifestyle hardly looks like "underclass". But of course it is the working class that is more likely to be caught and sentenced. In the UK, there is far more hot air in the media about small scale "benefits fraud" by working class folk who are working at some crappy ill-paid job and claiming unemployment benefit at the same time than there is about the capitalist who steals millions of pounds.

But yes, although criminality is carried out by folk of all classes, there is also such a thing as the professional criminal. Does this group count as a "class"? I'm not sure, but if they are, they are a relatively small and insignificant class.

> people on the dole

The vast majority of people on the dole are working class. It is actually quite rare for any worker to manage to get through an entire working lifetime without ever experiencing unemployment. And before you start giving any examples to contradict this, ask yourself - what age are they now? On the other hand, if we look at "people on the dole", we will find that most of them, even the ones that seem like dedicated work-avoiders, experience employment at some point in their "entire working lifetime". A minority of workers may actually manage to get through a lifetime without experiencing unemployment, and a minority of "people on the dole" may never experience employment, nevertheless, the MAJORITY of "people on the dole" are working class.

> In the middle, you have the middle classes

Well like I said in a previous post, this is not really a "class" as such, it is just the amorphous mass in between two more clearly defined groups. Many folk who think of themselves as "middle class" are in fact working class.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 2753

Another thing that came up in that discussion of class on the anarchy-list was that somebody objected to me using the word "criminal", because they preferred the more romantic term "outlaw". And yes, I have known a couple of folk from the East end of Glasgow who liked to see themselves in this way. My own comment was

"Outlaws are just folk who go outside the law. That's it. That's all. Virtually one hundred percent of the population go outside the law at some time or another. Everybody who has ever used an illegal drug (a category which has included at least one US president as well as at least one present presidential candidate) went outside the law. Everybody who filled in a dodgy tax return went outside the law. Every driver who has ever exceeded the speed limit went outside the law. Some go outside the law very rarely, and some do it on a daily basis. But it's a gradual continuum, rather than a sharply defined thing. There is no 'class' of outlaws. A 'class' implies a group with some common interests. There isn't one."

William_Cleland · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:38 pm Post subject:

Red Justice · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject:

The SNP support in Dundee was built by that party over years with a corrupt or useless right-wing Labour council. Dundee East could float between Labour's John McAllion (now in SSP) and the SNP in the voting history, with the East of the city traditonal nationalist vote coming from the popularity of former SNP leader Gordon Wilson.

Labour areas have traditions of families voting for a party they thought represented the working class, and it has taken the SNP years to break into that vote certainly in Dundee City.

As for Glasgow East being a Labour stronghold the SNP or smaller parties will have to rely on Labour voters staying at home perhaps not sure because of the Gordon Brown factor. Saying that votes lost to Labour will go either to SNP or smaller parties and the result will be interesting. However I agree with Rinty that Labour could take the seat (with a much reduced majority) but nothing is impossible.
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http://scottishsocfree.blogspot.com

Rinty · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject:

There will be occassional exceptions William but is a generalisation that tends to apply across the board, more or less.

In some areas you see a high number of unemployed in the same constituency as better off and more rural areas, especially in mining areas.

Glenmavis lost it's mines in the early 70's and is mainly owner-occupied and doesnt hit the deprivation indexes due to a large increase in new private build houses and commuters to the village. When it was industrial and in the immediate aftermath of the mines closing I am sure the SNP didnt do that well.

If you are referring to Dundee East, it was always a seat that swung between the two and the SNP shored up their hold on the constituency with the addition of rural areas after boundary changes in 2005 with 20,000 voters added from Angus. Like the other Dundee seat it includes a mix of working class and middle class areas. Another factor in the SNp taking the saet in 2003 was that the SSP decided not to stand against John McCallion, a pro-independence socialist, believing that the SSP would damage his vote. This worked out in a surprising way and led to the SNP winning.

The same also applies, surprisingly to the socialist vote, you would expect it to be higher in the most deprived areas but that doesnt tend to happen.

In the area of this by-election we have a high number of people not registered to vote at their current address and also a low turnout in elections.

But I can see no evidence that the SNP can win this seat based on electoral evidence OR that the SNP voters will be more likely to be on holiday than Labour voters.

In the last general election labour took 60% of the vote!

Red Justice · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject:

There has been a few boundary changes in Dundee but areas now back in Angus were a mix of middle or working class. Dundee West seat and first SNP MSP was not won overnight but with some effort from the nationalists.

I should imagine the areas in Glasgow East consist very large working class housing schemes and density compared to the somewhat smaller housing areas in a city the size of Dundee. And yes there is a mix of housing in so far as electoral boundaries can also include areas of middle, lower middle or better off working class in Dundee.

Working class areas do have a low turn out at elections in general and often can include a high number not registered to vote.

60% is a tall order but I would predict should Labour win their vote will be considerably reduced.

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“For socialists, independence is not about the colour or type of flag flying on our public buildings. It is about creating a better society. It is about putting people before profit"
Tommy Sheridan
http://scottishsocfree.blogspot.com