That Was The Week That Was

This has not been a good week for the mainstream political parties.

On the one hand, the SNP finally have a candidate for Glasgow North East - and a fairly sharp one at that. Sadly, it's been a tougher road than we might have expected: the presumptive candidate didn't apply, the initial candidate withdrew, and so David Kerr, having already made an attempt to secure the selection, will now be on the ballot paper. Now, having a candidate is a good thing, and having a smart candidate like David Kerr is even better, but we're now at the stage of the press raking through everything that David Kerr has ever said or done. Frankly, I'm expecting headlines such as "Kerr put worm in Sarah Wallace's hair in Primary 1" next week. Interestingly, Willie Bain - Kerr's Labour countrerpart - appears to have received very little scrutiny and precious few column inches. On the one hand, he may not have to put up with tabloid muck-raking for the next few weeks. On the other hand, he's not getting any mention in the press at all. At least people will be able to match the phrases "David Kerr" and "SNP By-Election Candidate". Still, with the way the press seem to be operating this week, you can see why Grant felt it wasn't a good idea to put himself forward for nomination, and why James Dornan felt it necessary to stand down.

So the SNP can move forward from the frustrating events of the last couple of weeks. David Kerr will have to handle more journalistic egg-throwing, but 1) his name is in the papers while Willie Bain's isn't, and 2) I get the feeling that he'll withstand it, and dish it back out if need be...

For Labour, Gordon Brown has had to cope with the ghosts of Cabinets past. He's had former ministers complaining about the laddishness of his approach (here's something to think about: if a hypothetical male former minister said that an equally hypothetical female PM was 'girly', all hell would break loose, but hey, gender-based stereotyping and labels are perfectly acceptable if you're discussing men, it seems). Jacqui Smith told Iain Dale that she wanted to resign just before the G20 but was told not to (she also lamented not getting training). James Purnell's been telling the papers that he lost faith in Gordon Brown last December (that late?). Lastly, John Hutton has complained that the likely election campaign message is too crude, that while he - of course! - recognises Brown's many talents, the country as a whole doesn't, and has now jumped on the Afghanistan bandwagon (while eliding the obvious point that having been Defence Secretary until last month, it was his job to get the troops the equipment they need).

Now, this may seem like a bunch of has-beens mouthing off. Jacqui Smith complains about training - why couldn't she learn on the job like everyone else? James Purnell moans that he lost faith in the PM about a year after everyone else did but six months earlier than when he actually quit. If it was that bad, why didn't he have the cojones to go at Christmas? And John Hutton's "I'm not being funny, right, buuuut..." approach to criticising Brown is pretty shabby as well, particularly when, on the Afghan situation, he had a chance to make a difference and do the things he's now talking about, but didn't. In short, under normal circumstances, you'd expect Brown to brush this off. Blair would have. But Brown isn't Blair. This is how the Summer is going to go: more people coming out of the woodwork slagging the PM off, and just like last year, it'll be down to Sarah Brown to bail him out at Conference...

For the Tories, their European project has started badly: Edward McMillan-Scott MEP broke ranks with the rest of the party to stand for a Vice-President's post in the European Parliament, defeating official candidate Michal Kaminski of the Polish Law and Justice Party (part of the Tories' new ECR Group) in the process. By way of compensation, Kaminski has been appointed Leader of the Group, and now the press are going through his previous pronouncements as well - use of homophobic language, and today, accusations of anti-Semitism. When the Tories are trying to look human, they don't need this.

On the other hand, it is, after all the European Parliament and few people care about the niceties of European group formations, or, for that matter, the European dimension. Who refused to vote Tory because they were quitting the (then) EPP-ED Group? Did anyone in the UK vote (or not vote) Green because of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, for example? Have many people in the UK heard of Martin Schulz? I doubt it. So the story will pass, and the fact that today's allegations were deep in the middle of the paper suggest that they'll have limited impact. Kaminski will occasionally be used (by Labour) for egg-throwing purposes. Besides, out of 45 million eligible voters, barely a third bothered to show up for the Euro Elections. And if Kaminski is a vote loser, then the Tories only have 4,198,394 votes to lose in European terms. And most of them probably agree with Kaminski anyway...

Finally, the LibDems. They made a good point on the lack of support being offered to frontline troops in Afghanistan. The problem is, the point was too good, and Third Party Syndrome kicked in. Now everyone wants more helicopters for the troops but no one remembers who suggested it, just as on the Gurkhas, the LibDems were the ones whose motion won a parliamentary vote, but Joanna Lumley took the credit for the eventual success. This is a problem: when the have a bad idea, they get the piss ripped out of them in ways that doesn't happen to the others. When the have a good one, everyone else nicks it and no one remembers who thought of it in the first place. At least, for the others, the problems are (relatively) transient. For the LibDems, they're pretty much existential. It'll take PR for the LibDems to be considered seriously, but it's only the LibDems who are proposing PR, and not Labour or the Tories...