Beware: Scottish Labour is a zombie party and the undead still walk

David Mundell, MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, is not often granted much respect. He is not a natural television performer, which does not help. He is a Scottish Conservative, which does not help either. But give him this: he predicted that the Scottish National Party would enjoy a surge of new members if Scotland voted No to independence.

But what a surge it has been. The SNP has doubled its membership in a week. More than doubled it, in fact. The party now claims more than 60,000 paid-up members. To put this into some perspective, that’s akin to a UK-wide party having 600,000 members. The combined membership of the Conservative and Labour parties is less than 400,000. Much less.

Now some of these members may be lapsed enthusiasts returning to the fold and some others may be joining more in a general spirit of support than in street-pounding, campaigning, flesh but this is still an impressive rallying of support.