Labour set back in Scottish voting/British politics is competitive again
Labour set back in Scottish voting
By Alan Cowell
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: May 4, 2007
LONDON: In a stunning reverse, the separatist Scottish National Party emerged narrowly Friday as the biggest political grouping in Scotland, ending 50 years of dominance there by the Labour Party and redrawing Britain's political landscape.
The result emerged from a series of regional votes across Britain as Prime Minister Tony Blair began a long and choreographed goodbye to British politics. The outcome represented a sharp farewell rebuke to Blair and a troubled, embarrassing debut for Gordon Brown, a Scot who is expected to become Britain's next prime minister, challenged by opposition in his own home territory as he seeks to stamp his authority and spread popularity farther south.
Although he was not a candidate, Brown, who is now chancellor of the Exchequer, had traveled to Scotland to campaign vigorously against the Scottish National Party, staking his prestige on a Labour victory.
But as the results emerged after a chaotic night in which tens of thousands of Scottish ballots were declared invalid, Alex Salmond, who leads the Scottish National Party, declared: "Never again will we say Labour has a divine right to rule Scotland. They have no moral authority left to govern."
The vote, Salmond said, shows a "wind of change" in Scottish politics.
In the voting for the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Party surged to increase its number of seats to 47 from 25 while Labour fell back to 46 from 50, according to results tabulated by the BBC with all the votes counted.
The outcome meant, however, that no single party could dominate the Scottish Parliament without going into a coalition. It was not clear on Friday how that coalition might be formed.
The vote was severely disrupted by glitches with counting machines and by as many as 100,000 spoiled ballots, apparently resulting from voter confusion with complex voting forms and technical problems with newly installed computers. Salmond said the procedural problems had "profoundly unsettled" Scotland and demanded an inquiry.
Labour also fell back in Wales as its share among the 60 seats in the Welsh Assembly slid to 26 from 29, while the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, increased its share to 15 from 12, according to final results. That outcome also seemed likely to lead to a coalition government in Wales.
In a further setback for Labour, the Conservatives expanded their position significantly in elections for local councils, claiming support outside their traditional heartland in the prosperous south of the country. With votes counted from most of 312 local councils, Conservatives had won about 5,000 of the 10,500 seats up for grabs. Both Labour and the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats lost heavily in the English local council voting.
"We're the one national party speaking up for all of Britain," the Conservative leader, David Cameron, declared. "I think we can really build from this point, really go forward."
Blair had sought to play down the impact of the vote on the prospects of Labour's retaining national power.
"Everyone said we were going to get hammered, it was going to be a rout," Blair told supporters at his party headquarters in London before the outcome in Scotland was publicly announced. "And it's not turned out like that."
He added, "You always take a hit in the midterm, but these results provide a perfectly good springboard to go on and win the next general election."
The voting did not affect the composition of the Parliament in London, but it was the biggest sampling of political sentiment since the last general election in 2005. The next general election is expected in 2009 or 2010 at the latest, likely pitting the Conservatives under Cameron against Labour led by Brown.
The most challenging for Labour is the Scottish vote. The Scottish National Party has promised its followers a referendum on whether Scotland should secede from Britain and declare independence, ending 300 years of union since May 1, 1707.
While only a quarter of Scotland's five million people are said by political analysts to favor independence, the very prospect of a referendum will set the British and Scottish administrations against one another from the beginning of Brown's tenure. During the campaign, Brown, who is deeply opposed to Scottish independence, said he could not cooperate with the Scottish National Party.
Before the election, there was much speculation that a triumphant Scottish National Party would need to go into coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who are deeply opposed to a referendum on independence.
British politics is competitive again
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 4 2007 21:47 | Last updated: May 4 2007 21:47
A meltdown it was not. Widespread salivation at the prospect of humiliation in local and regional elections for Tony Blair and New Labour turns out to have been something of a metropolitan media phenomenon.
The picture painted by the voters, still not quite complete, is more complex and a lot more interesting.
It shows setbacks for Labour, no decisive breakthrough for the Conservative party, unexpected retreat for the Liberal Democrats and, north of the border, a big advance for the Scottish National party but no mandate for independence. In short, after a decade of Labour dominance, British politics is competitive again. About time.
The principal messages seem to be: Labour can count on some residual good will, maybe because voters know Mr Blair, deeply unpopular because of Iraq, is finally going; there is no national desperation to elect Tories, but they are reinvigorated by David Cameron’s breezy leadership; and the Liberal Democrats under Sir Menzies Campbell have stodgily missed the chance to break through on their own. There is a lot to ponder here for strategists and spinners in all parties.
Ministers and Labour leaders have seized on the fact the party’s share of the vote is slightly better than it managed two years ago – after which it went on to win a third general election. Conversely, while the Tories broke through the psychological barrier of 40 per cent of the popular vote, that is still short of the 47 per cent won by Labour two years before Mr Blair won the 1997 general election.
The Tories did well but should have done better against a government midway through its third term. They have made modest gains in the north but not in cities such as Liverpool and Manchester, and are marooned on the margins of Scottish and Welsh politics.
But Labour is losing its foothold in the south – ominously for the Scotsman Gordon Brown’s ability to win the next general election. This cumulative loss of local councils not only signals Labour’s retreat to its heartlands but the erosion of the activist base it must maintain to win power in Westminster.
The Lib Dems may point, in contrast, to their more evenly spread national presence and largely intact local cadres. But their real hope is that these results point to a hung parliament at the next election, handing them the balance of power.
In Scotland, the high drama of the future of the Union sank to the low farce of electoral cock-up, with tens of thousands of spoiled ballots. The SNP has emerged from this mess as the leading party, ending what its leader Alex Salmond scornfully called Labour’s “divine right to rule”. The nationalist victory is democratically healthy. But it is still not certain it can muster a big enough alliance to displace the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition at Holyrood – and two-thirds of voters still back the Union.
By Alan Cowell
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: May 4, 2007
LONDON: In a stunning reverse, the separatist Scottish National Party emerged narrowly Friday as the biggest political grouping in Scotland, ending 50 years of dominance there by the Labour Party and redrawing Britain's political landscape.
The result emerged from a series of regional votes across Britain as Prime Minister Tony Blair began a long and choreographed goodbye to British politics. The outcome represented a sharp farewell rebuke to Blair and a troubled, embarrassing debut for Gordon Brown, a Scot who is expected to become Britain's next prime minister, challenged by opposition in his own home territory as he seeks to stamp his authority and spread popularity farther south.
Although he was not a candidate, Brown, who is now chancellor of the Exchequer, had traveled to Scotland to campaign vigorously against the Scottish National Party, staking his prestige on a Labour victory.
But as the results emerged after a chaotic night in which tens of thousands of Scottish ballots were declared invalid, Alex Salmond, who leads the Scottish National Party, declared: "Never again will we say Labour has a divine right to rule Scotland. They have no moral authority left to govern."
The vote, Salmond said, shows a "wind of change" in Scottish politics.
In the voting for the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Party surged to increase its number of seats to 47 from 25 while Labour fell back to 46 from 50, according to results tabulated by the BBC with all the votes counted.
The outcome meant, however, that no single party could dominate the Scottish Parliament without going into a coalition. It was not clear on Friday how that coalition might be formed.
The vote was severely disrupted by glitches with counting machines and by as many as 100,000 spoiled ballots, apparently resulting from voter confusion with complex voting forms and technical problems with newly installed computers. Salmond said the procedural problems had "profoundly unsettled" Scotland and demanded an inquiry.
Labour also fell back in Wales as its share among the 60 seats in the Welsh Assembly slid to 26 from 29, while the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, increased its share to 15 from 12, according to final results. That outcome also seemed likely to lead to a coalition government in Wales.
In a further setback for Labour, the Conservatives expanded their position significantly in elections for local councils, claiming support outside their traditional heartland in the prosperous south of the country. With votes counted from most of 312 local councils, Conservatives had won about 5,000 of the 10,500 seats up for grabs. Both Labour and the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats lost heavily in the English local council voting.
"We're the one national party speaking up for all of Britain," the Conservative leader, David Cameron, declared. "I think we can really build from this point, really go forward."
Blair had sought to play down the impact of the vote on the prospects of Labour's retaining national power.
"Everyone said we were going to get hammered, it was going to be a rout," Blair told supporters at his party headquarters in London before the outcome in Scotland was publicly announced. "And it's not turned out like that."
He added, "You always take a hit in the midterm, but these results provide a perfectly good springboard to go on and win the next general election."
The voting did not affect the composition of the Parliament in London, but it was the biggest sampling of political sentiment since the last general election in 2005. The next general election is expected in 2009 or 2010 at the latest, likely pitting the Conservatives under Cameron against Labour led by Brown.
The most challenging for Labour is the Scottish vote. The Scottish National Party has promised its followers a referendum on whether Scotland should secede from Britain and declare independence, ending 300 years of union since May 1, 1707.
While only a quarter of Scotland's five million people are said by political analysts to favor independence, the very prospect of a referendum will set the British and Scottish administrations against one another from the beginning of Brown's tenure. During the campaign, Brown, who is deeply opposed to Scottish independence, said he could not cooperate with the Scottish National Party.
Before the election, there was much speculation that a triumphant Scottish National Party would need to go into coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who are deeply opposed to a referendum on independence.
British politics is competitive again
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 4 2007 21:47 | Last updated: May 4 2007 21:47
A meltdown it was not. Widespread salivation at the prospect of humiliation in local and regional elections for Tony Blair and New Labour turns out to have been something of a metropolitan media phenomenon.
The picture painted by the voters, still not quite complete, is more complex and a lot more interesting.
It shows setbacks for Labour, no decisive breakthrough for the Conservative party, unexpected retreat for the Liberal Democrats and, north of the border, a big advance for the Scottish National party but no mandate for independence. In short, after a decade of Labour dominance, British politics is competitive again. About time.
The principal messages seem to be: Labour can count on some residual good will, maybe because voters know Mr Blair, deeply unpopular because of Iraq, is finally going; there is no national desperation to elect Tories, but they are reinvigorated by David Cameron’s breezy leadership; and the Liberal Democrats under Sir Menzies Campbell have stodgily missed the chance to break through on their own. There is a lot to ponder here for strategists and spinners in all parties.
Ministers and Labour leaders have seized on the fact the party’s share of the vote is slightly better than it managed two years ago – after which it went on to win a third general election. Conversely, while the Tories broke through the psychological barrier of 40 per cent of the popular vote, that is still short of the 47 per cent won by Labour two years before Mr Blair won the 1997 general election.
The Tories did well but should have done better against a government midway through its third term. They have made modest gains in the north but not in cities such as Liverpool and Manchester, and are marooned on the margins of Scottish and Welsh politics.
But Labour is losing its foothold in the south – ominously for the Scotsman Gordon Brown’s ability to win the next general election. This cumulative loss of local councils not only signals Labour’s retreat to its heartlands but the erosion of the activist base it must maintain to win power in Westminster.
The Lib Dems may point, in contrast, to their more evenly spread national presence and largely intact local cadres. But their real hope is that these results point to a hung parliament at the next election, handing them the balance of power.
In Scotland, the high drama of the future of the Union sank to the low farce of electoral cock-up, with tens of thousands of spoiled ballots. The SNP has emerged from this mess as the leading party, ending what its leader Alex Salmond scornfully called Labour’s “divine right to rule”. The nationalist victory is democratically healthy. But it is still not certain it can muster a big enough alliance to displace the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition at Holyrood – and two-thirds of voters still back the Union.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 7:27 AM
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What will this do with their relationship with the United States.
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