 | 'A London accountancy firm has calculated that an independent Scotland could cut income tax by 9p in the pound. The City firm Chantrey Vellacott makes regular predictions about the impact of oil prices on the UK economy, and its findings have been seized on in the past by both Nationalists and opponents.' Deborah Summers in the Herald, 16 th November 2000. |  |
In its final weekend, the brief and unprecedented "double seat, single constituency" campaign had some humour breathed into it with publicity stunts on the streets of the city's western housing estates.
But complaints that the race to replace the late Donald Dewar has been dull and lacklustre have ignored the fact that much of the battling has been going on out of sight, as party call centres target voters with intensive telephone canvassing.
That has been one of the most effective tools for the SNP in the surge it enjoyed against Labour in the last two Scottish by-elections: Hamilton South and Ayr. But more than one third of households in Anniesland are estimated to have changed telephone numbers in recent years, as they have signed up to NTL for cable television and home phones. Only this year has it become possible to change to cable while keeping your old number.
Drumchapel, a housing estate at the west of the constituency and a difficult area for doorstep canvassing, was one of the pilot areas for cabling. And many homes do not have phones, or rely on mobiles, leaving the SNP able to contact only around a third of homes directly.
The parties have been unable to get databases of the new numbers. And as they won't be produced, even in printed form, until next year, it makes it unlikely that any of the parties will be able to phone canvass around one-fifth of homes throughout the UK at the general election next year.
An SNP source says phone canvassing has been a crucial part of its campaign moder- nisation in recent years. It allows party workers to reach many more people in a limited time, particularly in rural areas or flats with street level security systems. Use of the phone also allows for much later calls in the evening than party workers can safely do in person.
According to an NTL spokeswoman, 60% of Glasgow homes now have the potential to switch to cable, and half of those are now with NTL. "The penetration is very healthy in the Anniesland area, at just over 50%," she said. "If the parties have an old list, I'd imagine about half of it is outdated."
Labour's campaign machine appeared this week to be in more impressive form than was the case in the last two by- elections, where it did badly. Its organisers claimed that it is the only party fighting the election on the doorsteps. Deputy Scotland Secretary Brian Wilson commented: "We've tried to create a campaign, but we're the only people on the ground. The Nationalists have followed the Tories into telephone polling, so they've become a phantom opposition."
Its MP since 1978, Donald Dewar won both Westminster and Edinburgh Parliament seats for Glasgow Anniesland with thumping majorities topping 15,000 and 10,000 votes. The SNP could only manage 17% and last year 20% of the vote. The weighing of Labour votes was easiest in the 55% of homes owned by the council and the 30% of voters who draw pensions.
But there are dangers there for Labour, as two of the issues its opponents are highlighting are the controversial move to transfer council homes into a Glasgow-wide housing asso-ciation, and, no matter how politicised, every pensioner in Drumchapel and Anniesland shopping centres remembers the 75p rise Chancellor Gordon Brown gave them last year.
Brown will be in the constituency on Monday, to hammer home the message about pensions going up ahead of inflation next year, and to remind older people of the £200 winter heating allowance they are receiving this month. Stressing the need for Labour supporters to turn out - one of the biggest concerns the leadership has about the coming general election - Brown said yesterday: "Donald Dewar always made it clear that Anniesland needed Labour representation to deliver social justice and to tackle pensioner and child poverty. There is no room for complacency and my message is that every vote counts on Thursday."
There is an echo there of events in Florida over the past fortnight, extending to concerns in the Labour camp that voters will follow an American practice and take the opportunity of a double by-election to "split their tickets". National polls show evidence that Labour is in a commanding lead for Westminster votes, but the SNP could see breakthroughs with votes for Scottish Parliament seats, and Anniesland will be a test of whether that works for real.
It has been difficult for the parties to get across the identities of their candidates, when each party is standing two, and none of the middle-aged male front-runners have much charisma.
Although the Nationalists are talking up their chances as the party that can do best from picking up protest votes against Labour in Anniesland, there are regrets in the SNP camp that they are not able to fight for Dennis Canavan's Westminster seat in Falkirk West, which they had thought he would vacate and which would have been much happier hunting ground for them.
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