Iain McKenzie, coincidence, and cosmic beauty

A woman walks along a random street, hundreds of miles from home. She passes a phone box where the phone is ringing, and out of curiosity answers it. On the other end of the line is her husband, who addresses her by name. He thinks he is talking to her on her mobile phone, but has got the wrong number.

Some people are scared by a coincidence like that. They assume that it could not possibly happen by random chance, and must have some underlying meaning. In many ways that's the foundation of superstition - and perhaps of one or two religions as well.

But, in truth, science tells us that it's statistically inevitable that these amazing coincidences will occasionally occur - so much so, in fact, that we ought to be far more frightened if they don't happen. So when we discover that Inverclyde's Labour MP Iain McKenzie rented a flat using taxpayers' money, and by completely random chance discovered later that he had accidentally ended up with a fellow Labour MP as his landlady, we shouldn't be scared, and we certainly shouldn't be sceptical of his story. We should simply embrace it as one of those extraordinary phenomena, like the aurora borealis, that enrich our world with so much beauty. And when we discover that, even more remarkably, three other MPs also accidentally rented flats from fellow MPs, we should feel even more enriched.

This is, it must be said, a special moment for those of us who predicted that something truly wonderful would happen if the people of Inverclyde had the good sense to elect McKenzie as their MP.

* * *

I've just heard that George Osborne has been caught sitting in the first-class compartment of a train with a standard-class ticket. He asked the conductor for special permission to stay where he was to avoid having to mix with the plebs, but was refused. As per what happened on a ScotRail train last year, I trust a "big man" arrived on the scene to deliver swift and violent justice to the fare-dodger, with the cheers of fellow passengers and the right-wing press ringing in his ears?

Inverclyde by-election : SNP vote share up 15% from general election

Labour have held Inverclyde more comfortably than had seemed likely at the close of the campaign, but nevertheless there was a hefty fifteen-point surge in the SNP's vote, with the Liberal Democrats once again being squeezed almost to the point of embarrassment.  Here is the full result -

Labour 54% (-2)
SNP 33% (+15)
Conservatives 10% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 2% (-11)
UKIP 1% (-)

That represents a headline swing of 9% from Labour to SNP, although as with the Holyrood election it seems likely that there was heavy movement from the Liberal Democrats to both SNP and Labour, with a middling shift direct from Labour to SNP.

I've noticed quite a few Labour-friendly online commenters suggest tonight that what this result shows more than anything is the difference between voting patterns for Westminster and Holyrood.  Well, I have to say, I still don't buy that for a moment - unlike general elections, by-election campaigns for each parliament tend to be more or less interchangeable, and my guess is that a Holyrood by-election in the equivalent constituency would have produced a similar result.  However, the contrary point of view is ironically a useful enough fiction for the SNP, so by all means let Labour peddle it if they really want to!

I always felt that Objective One for the SNP in this election was to avoid a Glasgow NE-style drubbing, and the inevitable subsequent headlines about "the bubble bursting". They've achieved that, although clearly a victory or a defeat that was narrower still would have been preferable.  However, I don't think we should overlook how much more difficult it is to win safe Labour seats in by-elections when Labour are in opposition at both Westminster and Holyrood.  It's not impossible to do so, but it's always going to be like trying to climb a down escalator, and therefore what happened in Inverclyde is certainly not directly comparable with the contests in the previous parliament when an unpopular Gordon Brown was still in Number 10.  In time, this result could end up looking extremely creditable for the SNP - although in truth the long-term impact in either direction will probably be minimal.

Oh, and a final thought - the acceptance speech by the new Labour MP was excruciatingly, ridiculously awful.  It may seem like sour grapes to say that, but it's simply a fact.  I've felt all along that McKenzie was the weakest of the four main candidates, so depressingly there's more than a whiff of the old "monkey with a red rosette" syndrome about the result.

Labour's Inverclyde candidate fails to learn the lessons from the first debate

Although Iain Gray didn't exactly sparkle in any of the leadership debates during the Holyrood campaign, he never quite repeated his finger-jabbing low of the first STV debate, which suggested that he had at least analysed what had gone wrong and learned from it.  Sadly, the same can't be said for Labour's Inverclyde by-election candidate Iain McKenzie, who made an idiot of himself in the first debate by trying to shout down the 20-year-old Lib Dem candidate and failing, and who in the second debate yesterday simply tried yet more of the same.  Having spent much of his own first answer lambasting Anne McLaughlin of the SNP without any interruption, it looked absolutely ghastly when he reacted with such fury to McLaughlin returning the compliment that he instantly boomed "I'LL NEED TO STOP YOU RIGHT THERE".  It also didn't look great when he later tried to shout down the moderator Isabel Fraser when she was admonishing all the candidates for speaking over each other - McLaughlin, by contrast, looked completely in control of herself and just smiled mischievously at the collective telling-off.  Angus Macleod suggested on Twitter that McKenzie's agitated performance may be a sign that Labour are worried about losing the seat - I've no idea if that's true, but you'd certainly be forgiven for suspecting that.

McLaughlin had also very cleverly prepared a "heads I win, tails you lose" trap for McKenzie - she again asked her question from the first debate about whether he, as the head of the Labour-Tory coalition on Inverclyde Council, could guarantee that there would be no compulsory redundancies.  If he had repeated his non-answer from the first debate, the implication would have been obvious - as it was, the fact that he gave a completely different answer this time and offered a firm guarantee allowed McLaughlin to claim a first success as a prospective MP for Inverclyde.

A quick word about Sophie Bridger of the Lib Dems - I thought she had improved markedly from Thursday, although her hesitant response on the question of whether the operational life of Hunterston should be extended gave the impression once again that she simply hasn't done her homework on the local area properly.  Her best moment, ironically, came when Isabel Fraser challenged her on her agent's comment that the Lib Dems couldn't win - Bridger refreshingly didn't try to flannel her way out of a sticky question, but instead smiled and admitted her agent had been foolish to say it.  David Wilson of the Tories, by contrast, after a reasonably impressive first debate, came across as insufferably smug this time.

Overall verdict - another clear win for Anne McLaughlin, but this time without anyone laying a glove on her.

Anne McLaughlin (SNP) 9/10
Sophie Bridger (Liberal Democrat) 7/10
David Wilson (Conservative) 5/10
Iain McKenzie (Labour) 4/10

The moment the Labour candidate for Inverclyde was made to look two feet smaller

The Politics Now debate between the four main Inverclyde by-election candidates was considerably more entertaining than expected, albeit mostly for the wrong reasons. At least three of the four candidates had mildly excruciating "I really wish you hadn't asked me that question" moments, and for all that she won the debate hands down, it has to be said that the SNP's Anne McLaughlin was one of them. Yes, it was monumentally pointless for Bernard Ponsonby to persevere with the questions on defence policy when she'd more less put her hands up and admitted she didn't know the answers (Andrew Neil is similarly petty in asking his guests complex economic questions he knows perfectly well they can't answer), but all the same this sort of thing has happened so often that you'd think the SNP high command would by now have got everyone together and made sure they know the detailed proposals for an independent Scotland's defence capabilities off by heart.

The undoubted highlight of the evening (and a rare case of me finding myself cheering on one of Clegg's mob) was 20-year-old Lib Dem candidate Sophie Bridger's hugely satisfying slap-down of Labour's Iain McKenzie. He'd been quite simply refusing to let her complete her answer to his question about why she didn't support mandatory prison sentences for carrying knives (that old favourite), repeatedly interrupting her with the moronic and faintly patronising line "don't take that on the doors of Inverclyde, Sophie". Eventually she paused, fixed him with an icy glare, and asked him : "are you going to lecture me or are you going to let me answer your question?". The effect was extraordinary - McKenzie fell completely silent and instantly looked about two feet smaller.

That masterstroke couldn't, however, disguise the fact that it was otherwise a very patchy performance by Bridger, who herself looked utterly panic-stricken when the Tory candidate David Wilson asked her a question she didn't have a scooby about. Understandably, he decided against letting her off the hook at that point - she'll clearly have to brush up on the indispensable art of the non-answer as a matter of urgency. And when the tables were turned and she had the chance to grill Wilson, her efforts to get him to admit that the Lib Dem contribution had made the coalition government "fairer" were swatted away with ease, as he on four separate occasions gave her precisely the opposite answer to the one she was clearly anticipating!

As if that wasn't enough, Bridger was also skewered by Ponsonby when he asked her what the coalition's biggest mistake had been. Wouldn't he rather hear about all the good things the government had done, she implored? "No" was the rather foreseeable answer to that one. Then the subject turned to Lib Dem MPs voting in favour of higher tuition fees. Now, if you thought Tavish Scott's stock line during the Holyrood election of "for heaven's sake go and ask them about that" had been weak, Bridger surpassed it with ease with her astounding "I...wasn't...an...MP, I...can't...comment". So let's get this straight - we're not allowed to ask the Scottish Lib Dem leader about the way Scottish Lib Dem MPs vote (including his own deputy) and we're not allowed to ask a prospective Scottish Lib Dem MP either. Is there anyone who actually is available to comment? It's starting to remind me of the old joke about Gerry Adams, when he makes a series of detailed demands of the British government, the Irish government and unionist politicians, but when asked if the IRA should disarm he indignantly replies "well, it's not for me to tell the IRA what to do"!

It wasn't just Bridger who had repeated dodgy moments. Iain McKenzie tied himself up in knots when pressed about Iain Davidson's charge that the SNP are "neo-fascists". McKenzie stressed that he wouldn't have used such language himself because he didn't want to drag politics down to "that level", but when asked if it had been gutter politics he replied : "it's not gutter politics, it's Iain's type of politics". OK, so Iain Davidson is not a gutter politician, but he is, it seems, very much at "that level" of politics. Not to worry, Mr McKenzie - I'm sure no-one will have spotted the implication, let alone found it side-splittingly funny.

Anyway, here is how I scored the debate -

Anne McLaughlin (SNP) 8/10
David Wilson (Conservative) 6/10
Sophie Bridger (Liberal Democrat) 5/10
Iain McKenzie (Labour) 4/10

Reading the Inverclyde runes

Returning briefly to the subject of PoliticalBetting.com, after my 'conversation' with Plato concluded yesterday I spotted this tantalising nugget of on-the-ground intelligence from Marcia...

"The soundings from Inverclyde are more in tune with the movement in Glasgow East rather than Glasgow North East or Glenrothes. Still over a week to go. Getting the vote out on the day will be key as a low turnout is expect."

In a way I was surprised to hear that, but I don't really know why - after all, there's such a feel-good factor about the SNP at present, and Labour are hobbled by being between leaders at Holyrood, Ed Miliband's travails at Westminster, and their alliance with the Tories at local level. It's a bit difficult to claim to be "protecting Inverclyde from the Tories" if you demonstrably prefer to share power with them than with any other party! And I also never really bought into the idea that the "Westminster frame" of this election would by definition handicap the SNP - that may be the case in a general election, but in by-elections the government of the UK isn't at stake. Glasgow East was an out-and-out Scottish contest, and if anything Glenrothes turned into a referendum on the SNP/Lib Dem-run Fife Council.

All the same, Glasgow East-style canvass returns don't necessarily point towards outright victory - the nominal swing required for the SNP is gargantuan. And the Edwin Morgan bequest (if confirmed) won't come in time to help out, so if by any chance you have a tenner burning your pocket, you could always put it to good use by going here!