Clearly, the most emphatic aspect of last night was the SNP’s decisive victory in Scotland. The Fabian Society has often recently emphasised Southern Discomfort as a source of votes. In other words, Labour latterly has been able to reach out to the Southern vote, such that you could travel from London to Grimsby without encountering a single Labour seat.
Ed Miliband needs to address carefully why the Scottish performance is so bad. Various aspects have come to light. Firstly, Ed had decided to use the elections as an offer to the Scots to deliver a message to the Coalition – the message that has been delivered is that the Scots want people to represent them positively north of the border, and they’re not sufficiently impressed with Labour to support them. Secondly, Ed badly judged the likely nature of victory of Scotland. Not only have the SNP been making good ground, but with promises that they may not be able to make, the overwhelming perception is that Iain Gray, despite being an undeniably nice person, is a flat uninspiring potential leader, and his campaign possibly peaked in a Subway shop.
The demographics are noteworthy. Labour’s Welsh performance was good, the Liberal Democrats undeniably had a terrible night, and Labour did make some gains in England. The scale of these English gains is hard to assess given the ridiculous extent of expectation management from the Tory media concerning their ‘insignificance’.
However, it appears that Labour is relying more-and-more on a vote in Northern cities. It is not actually in Labour’s interest possibly for Scotland to ask for full independence (nor is it likely that the SNP would wish that), as that could lead to a redrawing of the England-Scotland border. The positive news is that if Labour regains its political compass in Scotland, it could make a recovery. The Liberal Democrats, making a recovery from Nick Clegg and their selective harpooning by the General Public in the whole of the UK, have their own problems. Reluctantly, it has to be said that the biggest victors of last night are Alex Salmond and David Cameron, even forgetting the result of the AV referendum for a second which looks like a resounding ‘No’.
