The UK’s Labour government and Prime Minister Gordon Brown are in deep trouble — terminal trouble. That is the unmistakable message from Thursday’s by-election in the Scottish city of Glasgow, which Labour lost by a landslide to the Scottish Nationalists.
In general, local and by-election results should not be used as a barometer to a government’s chances of winning a subsequent general election, whether in the UK or elsewhere. They are a snapshot of public opinion at a particular time — and public opinion can easily change. But there are exceptions to the rule and the contest in east Glasgow is one. The seat was one of the party’s safest in the country; the electorate there has voted Labour for as long as the party has existed. Indeed, if the Labour Party can be said to have been born anywhere in the UK, it was in east Glasgow. If it is now being rejected there, where else in the UK can it call its own? Nowhere. No wonder its pummeling is being called a political earthquake. The Conservatives, not even in their dark days of deep unpopularity in the mid-1990s when John Major was prime minister, never lost their core support.
The reason is no mystery. Labour’s unpopularity is not simply a reflection of public concern about the economy. The situation is much worse than that. The reality is that the British are tired of Labour (and it was Labour that lost in Glasgow, rather than the SNP that won). And they strongly dislike Gordon Brown whom they did not elect as premier. At the last election, they voted for Tony Blair.
Brown has been a conscientious and dignified prime minister since taking up office but unfortunately for him, his style does not resonate with the times. It is more in keeping with the 1930s. In an age of sound byte politics and politicians who wear their heart on their sleeve, that is his undoing. Aided and abetted by a now virulently hostile media, the British public sees him as remote, aloof and cold. Even his successes are viewed as failures. When one commentator somewhat maliciously suggested recently that Brown is the only man who could raise the spirits of everyone in a room simply by leaving it, he expressed a sentiment widely felt in Britain today. It is no exaggeration to say the majority of Britons await his departure from Downing Street eagerly. He will want to soldier on. He does not have to call an election until June 2010. But he is likely to find events spinning out of control as a result of this by-election, thus adding to its momentousness. Labour MPs turned against Tony Blair because they feared he would lose them the election. With nemesis now most certainly staring them in the face, it will be a miracle if they do not start plunging the knives into Brown in the vain hope that another change of leader will save them. It would be disaster. A leadership challenge or even just a frightened, squabbling party would make Brown’s position untenable. He would feel forced to call an early election if only to clear the air — an election he would lose badly. Labour’s only hope is a massive scandal at the heart of the Conservative Party or that it tears itself apart on Europe. Neither seems likely.
