The Return of the Selection Box: Central Scotland and Glasgow

Despite the hysteria over the 100-day of the Coalition, and the excitement over Charles Kennedy doing nothing, the Scottish political parties are in the midst of selecting their candidates for next year's elections. So, inspired by Malc's post on retiring MSPs, I thought I'd take a look.

In Central Scotland, all eyes are on Motherwell & Wishaw, not because there's a vacancy (yet), but because there's pressure on Jack McConnell to stand down after taking a peerage. It should be noted that McConnell is the fifth MSP Peer: Lords Douglas-Hamilton, Foulkes, Steel and Watson all went before him and Lord Watson (despite his fall from grace) provides something of a precedent in that he too was a Constituency MSP, and successfully sought election and re-election as a Peer of the Realm. However, McConnell is the first to become an MSP while sitting in the Scottish Parliament (normally the reverse is the case), and he is the first one to consider keeping a foot in both camps after 2011. This is significant for the Kelly Review, which proposed the end of dual mandates from the date of the next devolved elections. Now, the review referred only to "Westminster MPs", which suggests that only membership of the Commons was considered, but combining a working peerage with the Scottish Parliament would be dubious in the spirit of Kelly if not the letter. He may, therefore, end up feeling pressured to stand down. We shall see.

In Glasgow, keep your eye on Glasgow Shettleston, where John Mason (of the Glasgow East By-Election) has been selected for the SNP. Now, Mason is not seeking a place on the Regional List, and does require an 11.22% swing to win the seat. Of course, that's a considerable increase on the swing he achieved in Glasgow East in the General Election in May, but it's only about half what he pulled off in the By-Election in 2008, so it's not completely beyond the realms of possibility. But of course, this will have a knock-on effect for the List, and assuming that Nicola Sturgeon takes #1 billing, then none of the sitting Regional MSPs will want to come fifth.

Meanwhile, for Labour, a pressure has been eased with Margaret Curran's transfer to Westminster: they are no longer trying to fit nine MSPs into eight notional seats, and have already selected Stephen Curran as their candidate for Glasgow Southside. Then there are the Tories, who find themselves with a vacancy at the top of their List given the retirement of Bill Aitken. Malcolm Macaskill has been chosen as his replacement for the Glasgow Anniesland candidacy, but the actual list is yet to be determined. It's still possible that Ruth Davidson might enter the fold, but I understand that the Tories' one Councillor in Glasgow, David Meikle, has been selected in Southside, so he is one to watch.

Brown sidesteps a By-Election

Call off the party folks, the Sunday Herald reports that the Motherwell & Wishaw By-Election is off.

It appears that Jack McConnell will no longer be the High Commissioner to Malawi, and will instead be envoy to Africa. So he'll now be handling UK diplomacy for an entire continent while remaining an MSP. I'm sure the people of Motherwell & Wishaw will be just tickled pink about that.

My Sunday Whip is going to have a new regular line as well: "Jack McConnell was absent" is clearly the new "Margo MacDonald abstained"...

Motherwell & Wishaw will be without an MSP for quite a few days

Why? Because it's been pointed out - quite sensibly - that it will be rather a tough ask for Jack McConnell to be High Commissioner to Malawi and the MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw. Even McConnell agrees, saying that he won't be both at the same time, while asserting that Malawi won't go without a High Commissioner. This means that the idea of the By-Election co-inciding with a General Election is pretty much dead.

That implies quitting Holyrood at Christmas. That in turn suggests a By-Election by the end of March 2009. And it will be delayed until then because no one would ever want a By-Election in January or February if they can help it, so Motherwell & Wishaw could go the full three months without an MSP if both of McConnell's statements are true. And Labour will want to avoid that.

But is there an alternative? Yes. There could be attempts to keep Sir Richard Wildash - the current High Commissioner - in place until May 2009 at the latest. That would enable a By-Election to take place just under a year from now, on the 11th of June.

Why then? Simple. It's the date of the European Election in Scotland. It would couple the By-Election to a poll that's already happening - saving money for Labour - and drive up turnout. Labour activists would hope that it boosted the Labour vote in the area as well. Or, indeed, they may hope that the European performance keeps the seat Labour.

No, that's when the By-Election will be - people have forgotten the European Eection as a possibility and it's the most likely: turnout will be abysmal in January, February and early March, and unless Labour are convinced that they can not only hold the seat but hold on to their vote, they won't want an embarrassing result in the run-up to June. So they'll hold the two together. And to avoid the bad publicity of no one representing Motherwell & Wihsaw, and letting the SNP's lead over Labour in terms of Parliamentary seats double for a couple of months, it'll be a short campaign. That suggests that he'll quit in May.

And Malawi? Well, here's what McConnell told the press:

"There will be absolutely no time when I'm still a member of the Scottish Parliament and High Commissioner in Malawi."

That's clear-cut. He's making a statement of how things are going to be. There are no qualifications and he's stated that it will absolutely not happen: he will not, at any time, be both an MSP and a diplomat. But here's the next bit:

"There will also be no time, I'm sure, when Malawi's without a High Commissioner."

No absolutely, and the "I'm sure" actually puts doubts on the situation. The first bit is a statement of intent: this is how it's going to happen - it sounds definite. With the "I'm sure", he sounds like he's giving an opinion, or a prediction. I was sure that Portugal would win Euro 2008. I was sure that Rangers would win the SPL last season. Being sure of something happening doesn't mean it'll happen. In fact, the way it's delivered, the minute you actually utter the words "I'm sure", you add something unspoken to the sentence. When you say the words, "I'm sure Malawi won't go without a High Commissioner," what you're actually saying is "I'm sure Malawi won't go without a High Commissioner... will it?" There's something about those words that makes the statement more about re-assurance for the speaker than for the listener.

Which is why Malawi's going to get shafted. And all because Labour want to win the odd Parliamentary vote criticising the SNP's policy on paper clips.