Sorry Pete, but I don’t think there’s anything hugely ambiguous about the result from the Inverclyde by-election. This was a pretty solid victory for Labour and another reminder – if these things are needed – that Westminster and Holyrood elections are played by different rules.
Labour and the SNP ran neck-and-neck in the gibberish spin stakes last night as some Labour hackettes, preposterously, tried to claim that the seat “was the SNP’s to lose”; for their part the nationalists tried to suggest they’d never been very interested in winning Inverclyde at all. More weapons-grade piffle. Then again, without this stuff how would anyone fill the weary hours of television before the result is announced?
Labour’s majority may have been reduced but that’s little reflection on Ed Miliband or his leadership. It’s not particularly fair but Miliband receives no credit for holding Labour’s heartlands but defeat would have been considered another blow to his credibility.
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