 | 'The number of Ministers was already more than four times the number that ran the Scottish Office under the last Conservative Government, but as a result of Henry's handout, the Scottish taxpayer has to stump up for one more Cabinet Minister.' Scottish Tory leader, David McLetchie, 29 th October 2000. |  |
Yes indeed, for Tory Westminster candidate Dorothy Luckhurst the question is whether her toddler's teeth will survive until it's all over on Thursday night after three weeks of bribing her with lollipops to get her through the hustings.
Actually, Georgia is a wee star, endlessly tolerant of the strange world on the stump into which her mother has plunged her. She has just been deposited with party workers at the Tory rooms next to Anniesland Cross while her mother teams up with the Holyrood candidate Kate Pickering, some MSPs and today's star turn, former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, to visit an old folks' home.
When they get back Georgia is lying on her back between the phones and computers and printers and bundles of leaflets, sucking on a lollipop and gazing at the ceiling, completely unfazed but happy to see her mother return. She follows us, clambering up the rickety stairs to sit in while her mother talks to the strange man with the beard.
Dorothy Luckhurst is a 39-year-old journalist who sub-edits a golf magazine and is married to a journalist who once worked for Donald Dewar. She is frankly amazed by how low-key Labour and the media are playing the by-elections given the calibre of the man voters are being asked to replace. She fought Paisley South at the 1987 General Election, and Clydebank and Milngavie at the Scottish Election last year.
Mention that she is one of several candidates juggling child-care arrangements brings the comment that this is a "typical male response - women don't think of it as juggling. They just get on with it."
What on earth drives a mother of three, with a fourth on the way, to put herself through the gruelling whirl of a by-election when, with the best will in the world, she is fighting for third place? Given the tendency of such polls to turn into two-horse races, the likelihood is that the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Scottish Socialists between them will do well to poll as many votes as the SNP, who in turn are struggling to narrow the majority bequeathed to Labour by Donald Dewar.
"You have to remember that in the 1950s we controlled this city," she said. "Winning it back is a long, slow process but there is optimism in the Scottish Conservative Party. We haven't given up hope and we are enjoying the fight."
She saw the fuel tax campaign as a catalyst for a range of issues on which the public have now wearied of New Labour: the 75p pension increase which the latest package has not erased from the memory; patchy public transport; small shops closing and small businesses struggling; drugs, law and order and too few police officers per head of population; Jordanhill school doing well while Drumchapel High struggles; Labour in control of the City Chambers, Scottish Parliament and Westminster, while still trying
to blame the Tories for all ills.
Kate Pickering, a 35-year-old local GP who also has three children and has to get back to her surgery, pops her head round the door. "We have to think from the heart. When we go out there, the poorer the area, the better it is for us. Drumchapel is all about pure social exclusion and it has been engineered by Labour."
Luckhurst has just said something similar, about the Conservatives getting a warmer reception in the poorest areas. Something odd is happening in Scottish politics, but there is a corollary to this which is not good news for the Tories. The well-to-do parts of the West End have deserted the Conservatives in favour of New Labour, while much of the skilled working class vote has gone over from Labour to the the SNP.
Glasgow list MSP Bill Aitken, who fought the Holyrood seat last year, insists there is a change of mood on the streets. "If you go past the Labour rooms round the corner there you will see them stuffed with party workers and volunteers, but they are not out on the streets. I think they are running scared of the electorate."
It has to be said that minutes before, I had bumped into Education Minister Jack McConnell handing out red balloons with the two candidates and some volunteers. They did not look noticeably scared. Their main concern now is that having played a safety-first, low key campaign they must ensure that the turn-out does not fall too low.
-Nov 20th
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