Dunfermline & West Fife by-election 2006

'The ultimate humiliation is that Labour voters turned to the LibDems to express their synthetic distress about road tolls and hospital cuts. It is the Liberal Democrats, in the Scottish Executive, who have been collectively responsible for the very transport and health policies Fifers resent. Dunfermline voters were expressing their protest by voting for the government. The LibDems have managed to become government and opposition at the same time - a neat trick.' Iain Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald, 12 th February 2006.

Election loss that should have been impossible

By Brian Wilson in Scotland on Sunday 12 th February 2006

LOSING by-elections is not necessarily bad for a party's soul so long as messages are received, understood and acted upon. Margaret Thatcher's problem was that she grew so used to losing every one of them that she came to regard the messages as irrelevant. Latterly, she was wrong and paid the price.

At one level there is no big deal for Labour about losing a by-election; indeed, it's overdue and possibly even therapeutic. The real danger for Labour - and I do mean real danger is that defeat in Dunfermline and West Fife will be rationalised away to avoid deeply inconvenient conclusions in two areas - the role of the Chancellor and the priorities of the Scottish Executive.

The previous Labour MP, Rachel Squire, was an exceptionally decent and diligent individual. Her death did not come as a surprise. Indeed, Rachel left behind a well-ordered range of files in order to ensure that her successor would be able to maintain continuity of service. In other words, a by-election has never been better signposted.

What does any sensible political party do in such circumstances? According to my last reading of Politics for Beginners, it makes sure no local hospital is in danger of closure. It ascertains, as far as possible, no local employer is going to produce nasty news out of the blue. It insists that the streets are clean and tidy. In short, it heads off any Negative Local Issue that might otherwise dominate the campaign.

A political party that fails to make these basic arrangements has forgotten how to act politically, which is a very dangerous malaise indeed. Having convinced oneself of the excellent job being done for "the country", it becomes a source of mystery to some ministers why voters need persuasion at all. The idea of ramming home a few messages with practical local actions becomes too vulgar for words.

I suspect this self-delusionary condition is now widespread in both Whitehall and Holyrood. Incidentally, one lesson from Dunfermline is that the electorate (quite rightly) don't give a hoot about distinctions between reserved and devolved issues. Much was made about the way Gordon Brown appeared to blunder in and make a statement about Forth Road Bridge tolls which was not within his gift to deliver.

This is surely over-precious. His offence was to state the obvious. The proposition that tolls might quadruple on the Forth Road Bridge at peak times belongs in the realms of fantasy, in the box marked "politically impossible". How it was ever allowed to escape as a by-election issue is beyond me.

Last year, the Executive forked out £20m to get rid of £4 tolls on the Skye Bridge. The Forth Road Bridge is many times more important to the Scottish economy and such a burden is inconceivable.

So why did Jack McConnell not simply confirm Brown's assertion? I suspect it was not so much pique as reliance on some adviser with three degrees and no common sense. "First Minister, be careful... must not intrude on responsibilities of the Bridge Authority... must stress no decision taken."

Such circumlocutions elevated an issue that should have been killed off before the by-election was even called. I heard Alistair Darling observe wryly that the Lib Dem transport minister, Tavish Scott, was nowhere to be seen in Fife during the campaign. Smart guy! If staying away is smarter politics than showing face, then that's what to do.

The Lib Dems are sneered at for "pavement politics" but they're good at it, are prepared to work hard and it is Labour who need to remember that these things matter.

The Lib Dems had a candidate with local credentials who didn't need to keep repeating the mantra "I live in the constituency".

The Labour candidate has been an MEP for six years and presumably has something interesting to say. Unfortunately, she was equipped instead with a series of clumsy sound-bites which formed her answers, irrespective of the questions, carrying all the conviction of the speaking clock.

The whole fiasco has inevitably led to questions about Gordon Brown's status as Prime Minister-in-waiting. If the magic has worn thin in Fife, many Labour MPs are now wondering, will it really be enough to see them through a general election three years away in parts of Britain that are instinctively a lot less well-disposed to Labour.

Any attempt at a definitive answer is premature. But it is certainly going to be asked within a significantly altered political landscape.