Haven't done one of these for a while...I've been busy. Wurkin', no less, on an evening paper, which does tend to leave one catatonic outside of the hours of frenzied information-collating...
It does provide a wonderful viewpoint however from which to watch the tentative, careful movements of politicians during an election. Some really interesting things have come out of this election, and we've still got three weeks to election day...
First off, this is Labour's election to lose. We knew that from some way off, with the polls hanging so heavily in their favour. However they're trying their level best to balls it up - there was one thing they didn't really plan for, and that was Iain Gray. They don't know what to do with him. The SNP have been glorying in the fact that everyone knows who their leader is - he is rather hard to miss - while only about a quarter of people claim to know who Iain Gray is. This is a problem for Labour. They really need to hide Iain Gray, because he's just not very good. But equally they don't want to look leaderless...hence the current kind of limbo, where they're not sure who to send out on an issue. Who comes out to condemn the latest employment figures? Should we send Iain? Can we trust him with that? "It is better to stay silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and confirm it". Or something like that.
The SNP meanwhile are bloody masters at getting their man out there. They genuinely have a god-damn media strategy. Just about every journalist I've spoken to during the election so far has said the same thing; we don't care about what your policies are, as long as you give us a story. Alec and the SNP seem to have cottoned onto this much better than any of the other parties - I was speaking to a journo the other day who had received a plaintive phone call from the Liberal Democrats asking why Alec Salmond is on the front page while Tavish Scott is nowhere to be seen. The answer was simple; Tavish hasn't given us any reason to put him on the front page. Alec Salmond turned up in Dundee the other day and was greeted by five journalists, and he brought with him five different spiels. Each hack went away with a different story about a different policy promise, and each felt OK about putting it out front because hey, nobody else is running with this! It's a god-damn exclusive! Every one of them accepts fully that not one of these policies will be carried through, in all likelihood - Alec's answer to the various funding questions was "It'll be in the manifesto", which a) means nothing, if his past manifestos are anything to go by, and b) won't be true in any case - but for the moment our job is just to record the promise. Policy-wise it's not a great long-term strategy, but it's a great way to get your leader's face on the front of every paper, and that's absolutely how the SNP are looking to fight this election. Brand name recognition. People will vote for the bloke they feel like they know, even if they do know him to be a bit of a twat - better the devil you know, right? And meanwhile, Labour aren't sure if they should smuggle Iain Gray out the back door or push him out to wet himself in front of a mob of cuts protestors and press photographers.
I guess there are technically other parties involved...but nobody really cares. Annable Goldie is entirely the wrong shape, and pulls that dreadful almost-gap-toothed grimace of a shrieking laugh in every, single, photo, and Tavish Scott is suffering from the brand name recognition of Nick Clegg. Polling data has suggested that the populace are more fond of long division, stubbing their toes and having a bee trapped in their car than Nick Clegg. The only concern for the Lib Dems is where their support goes - if they flood to Labour, the Liberals might get into a coalition dealy, a weird doppelganger of the one in Westminster. But if they go to the SNP, it's just another four years in the wilderness and one less chance to build a Tory-free image...to be honest, if the Liberals want to start working on that not-Tory image here in Scotland, the least Conservative place on earth, they should probably just start campaigning for Labour. Without mentioning Iain Gray.
