Labour set to keep hold of Glasgow East?

According to a poll to be published in tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph Labour is set to hold Glasgow East with a fairly healthy majority:

Labour is on course to win this month’s crucial by-election in Glasgow East, according to an opinion poll.
The ICM survey for the Sunday Telegraph puts the party on 47 per cent of the vote with its nearest challenger, the Scottish National Party (SNP), on 33 per cent.

Liberal Democrats are on nine per cent and the Conservatives on seven per cent.

The poll, the first conducted within the rock-solid Labour seat, is a big boost for Gordon Brown.

Update UK Polling report has some interesting thoughts as to why this poll might not be quite the good news for Labour as the published figures might suggest

Knobbling the Favourite

I'm not much of a gambler. The odd pound on the National Lottery, a couple of bob each way on the Grand National is the whole extent of my experience.

One thing that I do know about gambling though is that the bookmakers set the odds to ensure that no matter what the result they will make a profit. The form has little to do with the odds, stick a million pounds on a donkey and the donkey will suddenly become odds-on favourite.

I've never put a bet on the outcome of an election. If I was to do so I think that I would bet to gain a consolation prize if my candidate didn't win. If the SNP win in Glasgow East - that will be prize enough for me. The return on a tenner, if Labour wins, might ease the cost of drowning the sorrows.

That is why I have never understood the obsession that some political commentators have with who the bookies say are "favourites". What the bookies say is all to do with money placed for diverse reasons, not what the electorate is likely to say.

I doubt if anybody in any constituency changes their vote, based on the bookies starting price. I was going to vote Conservative, but the odds on the Liberal Democrats has shortened to 5/2 so I'm voting LD now!

However if people were influenced by the bookies odds, then the political system could be manipulated by rich people backing donkeys!

The Herald suggests that this might be happening in Glasgow East:

But don't place your money until you hear the apocryphal tale of the election agent encountered in the street during one campaign with a large wad of banknotes protruding from his sports jacket.

His plan was simple. Having collected £1000, a sizable sum, from committed supporters, he was hotfooting it to the local betting shop to skew the odds so wildly that there could be no comeback for the opposition. It was one week out from the vote and the agent reckoned timing was everything. He was right - once the money was over the counter all bets were off and the agent's man was the bookie's surefire winner.

What's the price on democracy down the bookies?!




Cymraeg

The Shame of Flynn

The by election in Glasgow East is going to be unusually important.
On the one hand it will be seen as a measure of just how unpopular Gordon Brown's government has become. If Labour can't hold on to such a traditionally Labour stronghold in his own back yard Mr Brown's days as PM are suerly numbered.

On the other hand the by election will also be an important measure of how well Alex Salmond's SNP government is fairing. Making a mark in places like Glasgow is going to be imperative if Mr Salmond hopes to form a majority government in 2011 and be equally important in any independence referendum.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the battle for Glasgow East is going to be passionate, hard fought and at times even dirty. Having said this I have been pleasantly surprised so far having read the Scottish blogs and newspaper comments sites. So far there has been no evidence of the foul sectarianism that has blighted the city's politics in the past.

I was bitterly disappointed, on turning to the Welsh blogs, to find that one of our own MPs, Paul Flynn, has started throwing the sectarian dirt re Glasgow East:

But there is deep reassuring loyalty from the ‘Labour until I die’ folk of Glasgow. There are more of them in this constituency than anywhere else in Scotland. Religion may be a factor with a Baptist SNP candidate and a Labour one with an Irish name.

Shameful!