Politics Watch

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past couple of days, or try to avoid the political section of the media, you will probably have heard about Labour’s disaster in Glasgow East, where they lost the seat in a by-election to the Scottish National Party. Whilst the SNP only won by a small margin (365 votes), they still managed to overturn a huge Labour majority, in scenes reminiscent of the last general election, where Manchester Withington (my constituency) fell to the Liberal Democrats. Interestingly, a similar percentage swing in Brown’s own constituency would lead to him losing his own seat.

After three by-election defeats (Henley, Crewe and Glasgow East) and the London Mayoral elections disaster, the key question on the lips of most people is: “Does this spell the end of Gordon Brown as leader?” At the time of writing, no leadership challenge has been issued, so presumably the result wasn’t quite bad enough to warrant an immediate backstabbing, but it does leave Brown in a precarious position. If one believes the papers, senior ministers are being urged to get rid of Brown, giving him two months to “shape up or go“.

However, fortunately for Brown, he has the rest of the summer in which to boost his support within the Party, as many MPs will be returning to their constituencies or going on holiday during the recess, so the focus on his leadership skills will be diminished for a month or so. He also has the advantage of there being no obvious successors in the way he was clearly meant to follow Blair—though various names have been touted in the press. Furthermore, replacing the leader so soon before a general election is a risky strategy, and Labour may well prefer to keep their existing man—“better the devil you know” and all that. On the other hand, they could simply accept that their time is up—most parties do not win more than three consecutive general elections—and that people are willing to give the Conservatives another chance to run the country.

My personal verdict is that Brown will survive until Labour Party Conference, which will be the tipping point. If a leadership challenge is going to be issued, that is where it will happen, with all the press and public attention focused on the conference. If nothing solid happens at conference (grumblings and mutterings aside), then Brown is safe until the next election—at which point the public will decide whether his party deserves to hold office. A defeat there will definitely spell the end of his term as Labour Leader.

Further reading

• Times Online
• BBC News (with video of results being announced)
• Guardian Unlimited

The Guardian reports that Ladbrokes has cut the odds on Boris Johnson succeeding Ken Livingstone as mayor of London, as polls last night appeared to swing in favour of the bumbling blonde MP. Whilst the betting shops don’t always get it right, they’re certainly not stupid and won’t offer odds that they think don’t reflect a realistic assessment of the outcome. I’m not surprised that it’s turning out to be such a close race though, as both candidates have strengths which oppose their opponent’s weaknesses. Livingstone has the advantage of being the incumbent and well-known to the people of London, but this could backfire given that he’s bound to have upset a lot of people whilst he’s been in office. Johnson, on the other hand, is a new face, has lots of energy for campaigning, and, so far, doesn’t appear to have trodden on the toes of too many Londoners.

Personally, I really couldn’t care less who gets elected as Mayor of London, as I don’t live in the city and only visit it about once a month on average. However, given that London’s mayor actually has a significant budget and a say in matters such as public transport, it’s an important decision for Londoners to make. Also, given the radically different personalities of Livingstone and Johnson, I suspect this will be an interesting race to watch over the next few weeks.

MP’s marathon speech sinks bill via BBC News

The Right Honourable Andrew Dismore, Labour Member of Parliament for Henmon, has managed to “talk out” the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill by delivering a mammoth speech lasting a grand total of 197 minutes. This practice, often known as filibustering, involves debating a motion or proceedings on a bill up until the “moment of interruption” (the time at which the main business of the Commons day ends), when the business is lost or postponed. In other words, Dismore talked the bill out of the Commons by using up all the time available to debate it, and as such the bill now stands no chance of becoming law.

In delivering such a lengthy speech, Dismore also broke his own previous record for the longest Commons oration this century, which previously stood at 181 minutes. He still fell some way short of the six hour speech delivered by Henry Brougham in 1828 though, and even further behind the eleven hour marathon of John Golding on the Telecommunications Bill in 1983 – although the latter speech was delivered at a standing committee as opposed to in the Commons chamber, and therefore the MP was allowed breaks for meals.

More information

• Andrew Dismore’s web site on ePolitix