We have come to the final weekend of the excessively short Glasgow East by-election campaign and having been in the constituency on numerous occasions, my verdict is that despite the opinion polls, it is very much all to play for. Whilst I am not quite calling it for the SNP, as Calum Cashley has done, I believe that there is a swing coming to the SNP and that Labour are in utter disarray.
There has been a Sunday Times mole within the Labour Party camp who has described the "air of desperation" hanging over the Labour campaign and saying a motivational plea pinned to an office wall "smacks of desperation". He went on to quote a senior local Labour figure as saying the result would be "scarily close".
This is further proof of the panic besetting the Labour ranks in Scotland. They are outnumbered and are being out campaigned on the streets and doorsteps by a buoyant SNP which had over 1,000 activists in the constituency on "Super Saturday". The reception from the punters in this notional Labour stronghold has been very warm, leading many to conclude a major swing is on the way and that it will be very close indeed.
The fact that people are even considering this election to be a close run thing is a miracle in itself and is a testament to the work of all those involved in the campaign for the SNP. The very idea of the SNP breaking the stranglehold of Labour on the throat of a Glasgow constituency would have been unthinkable two, three, five or ten years ago and yet now they are on the cusp of something amazing.
If the SNP can win in this, Labour's third safest Scottish seat then there is nowhere that will be considered out of reach for them, come the national Westminster elections. Make no mistake, this would be a body blow to a Labour Party already smarting from defeat in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2007 and the loss of their leader in said Parliament, Wendy Alexander. There is no doubt that momentum is everything in politics and the SNP have it in spades. They enter the final week of this campaign with the wind at their backs and their eyes on the prize. There has never been a better opportunity for those in Glasgow East to choose a better future and for the SNP to make major inroads into Labour's Glasgow heartlands.
There has been a Sunday Times mole within the Labour Party camp who has described the "air of desperation" hanging over the Labour campaign and saying a motivational plea pinned to an office wall "smacks of desperation". He went on to quote a senior local Labour figure as saying the result would be "scarily close".
This is further proof of the panic besetting the Labour ranks in Scotland. They are outnumbered and are being out campaigned on the streets and doorsteps by a buoyant SNP which had over 1,000 activists in the constituency on "Super Saturday". The reception from the punters in this notional Labour stronghold has been very warm, leading many to conclude a major swing is on the way and that it will be very close indeed.
The fact that people are even considering this election to be a close run thing is a miracle in itself and is a testament to the work of all those involved in the campaign for the SNP. The very idea of the SNP breaking the stranglehold of Labour on the throat of a Glasgow constituency would have been unthinkable two, three, five or ten years ago and yet now they are on the cusp of something amazing.
If the SNP can win in this, Labour's third safest Scottish seat then there is nowhere that will be considered out of reach for them, come the national Westminster elections. Make no mistake, this would be a body blow to a Labour Party already smarting from defeat in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2007 and the loss of their leader in said Parliament, Wendy Alexander. There is no doubt that momentum is everything in politics and the SNP have it in spades. They enter the final week of this campaign with the wind at their backs and their eyes on the prize. There has never been a better opportunity for those in Glasgow East to choose a better future and for the SNP to make major inroads into Labour's Glasgow heartlands.
