| Things always look brighter after the storm |
[Feb. 10th, 2006|03:01 am] |
Well stuff me sideways with a yaffle iron, as the man once said. We won in Dunfermline. I?m frankly astonished and delighted - I thought in the end that it was going to be a near miss, which would have been a great result in itself. Suitable donation on its way to party funds.
It?s a bloody awful result for Labour, but in terms of the other parties, the story is what didn?t happen, not what did. The SNP weren?t disgraced, far from it, but if they ever wanted to overtake Labour they ought to have been the ones winning tonight. And the Tories can shrug at the result - a two per cent change either way at the bottom of the poll is of no importance. But you can be sure they?d have been a lot happier if they?d gone up 10 per cent because of the changing perceptions of the party under that nice Mr Cameron.
So in summary - it just got a lot harder to laugh at the Lib Dems, but the biggest story is that Brown and Cameron have been proved not to be the electoral Viagra their most fervent supporters hope they are, just a couple of decent politicians who win some and lose some and don?t have a magic wand.
Business as usual over the next few years then - electoral miracles are off the agenda.
I?m not sure the result will have any effect on the leadership election, partly because a lot of votes are already in but mostly because it was an ?us against them? scenario in Dunfermline - them being the rest of the world - and not a battle between party personalities or factions.
Some people have said a by-election victory will help Chris Huhne, because it would prove everything was now stable enough to abandon Ming's safe pair of hands and take a flyer on the unknown bloke. I don't agree. There may indeed be a change of mood among members, but it?s likely to involve walking around wearing silly grins rather than changing voting intentions.
Question Time earlier in the evening, with the three leadership candidates, was interesting - I scored it a narrow victory for Simon Hughes, maybe 8/10 for him, 7.5 for Ming and 7 for Chris Huhne, but so close as to not being much use to anyone who hasn't yet made their mind up.
But what I am pretty sure about is that it was a good advert for the party. They all came across pretty well. None of them are what Paddy or CK were at the zeniths of their leaderships - but those two both made slow starts and grew in stature so I'm pretty relaxed about whoever wins.
I still think Ming's the right choice though - if the next election looks like it's heading for a hung Parliament, he's the candidate who will most inspire confidence about the Lib Dems' role afterwards. And I still think he's the best bet for exposing the weaknesses in Cameron. If Labour are scared off from Brown because of tonight and lurch towards a Milliband, so much the better!
All in all, quite an evening. |
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