How much was down to Gord being local?

(Note: this posting was prepared before I left for my short holiday – if it has been overtaken by events then that’s the reason)

One feature of this election is the extent to which we should have taken into account that there is undoubtedly a lot of Fife pride about a local man being prime minister. This is the same pattern that we see in the constituencies of party leaders during general elections who invariably fare much better than their parties.

I also wonder whether it was a good idea for the SNP to have had a local councillor, least of all the leader of the group, as the candidate. This, inevitably, made it easier for Labour to focus on the council’s performance and made their attack on care charges that much more potent.

It’s for this reason that I don’t think it is a good idea for local councillors to be parliamentary candidates in either by elections or general elections in their areas and this applies to all parties.

So how is the result going to go down in the polls? There might be one or two this weekend but it’s likely that surveying would have started before the result. Fieldwork for the first full post-Glenrothes poll, the November Populus poll for the Times, started this morning and we will have to wait until Monday evening before we see the results. My guess is quite a boost for Labour narrowing the 15% deficit of the Times October poll which took place before the banking bail-out

I am away in France and won’t be monitoring the site until Monday evening – but Morus and Double Carpet will be covering.

UPDATE:

Brown dampens speculation on early election

Mike Smithson