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My expectation was that Labour would hold Glasgow East with a vastly reduced majority and I guess with a margin of only 354 votes  on just over 26,219 cast (42.25%)to give the SNP victory, I could have been right but wasn’t.

I suppose the interesting question will be whether the SNP will hold the seat in 2010 ? That this seat was lost by Labour on a 22% swing plus a lower turnout to the SNP, is a classic “protest vote” in many ways because the Scots Nats were the second party in the seat with the Tories and Liberals way behind and therefore not suitable protest recipients as it were. But will the SNP retain it ?

What Can Labour Do ?

The real problem is that in Margaret Curran, Labour had a good local candidate so that the result seems to be really based upon a fundamental disillusionment with Gordon Brown and the upper echelons of the Labour Party by its core supporters. It is rather as if Kensington & Chelsea had kicked the Tories out and voted in Ken Livingston because it was the SNP that wiped out the Tories in Scotland.

Although Brown is obviously a stubborn little man who will carry on regardless because he doesn’t listen to anybody and won’t until the morning of 4^th June 2010 when the removal van arrives at Downing Street, the Labour Party needs to plan for its survival starting today.

Removing Brown isn’t an option, it would trigger an immediate General Election and the Labour Party is broke plus, there are no obvious candidates to offer the Party and the Country. As I am sure all but the most obtuse Labour MPs accept, the game is up and opposition for one or two decades a certainty.

Labour MPs can concentrate on planning for their own personal retirements or, they can work to ensure the survival of the Labour Brand and even where they lose seats, still have a substantial core of voters in each constituency.

Why Should I Care ?

As someone with Tory views who despises what this dreadful Prime Minister and former Chancellor has inflicted on this country, surely I would be delighted to see Labour disappear down the plug hole of life ?

Well whilst that is true to a point, what is more important to me is that we should learn the lessons of our recent past and particularly how since 1997 New Labour has ruled these islands like a one party state, on many issues, we may just as well have been living in Zimbabwe or The Soviet Union for all the notice taken of us the electorate by this bullying, hectoring nasty Government.

I want a Tory Government and they will need two terms to sort out the financial mess they will inherit from Brown. I do want them to have a working majority; I do not want that majority to exceed 100 seats. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Blair clearly demonstrated. So despite being a Tory, I want a strong and viable opposition.

Survival for Labour

Removing Brown is not an option until after he has lost the 2010 General Election however, controlling him is a MUST because he is not up to the job. We don’t need the “men in grey suits” to visit and persuade him to resign, we want them to persuade him to slowly and gently fall on his sword, over time and accept the personal blame for the failure of Labour.

Why would he do this ? Point to Glasgow East and ask him whether the survival of Labour and the hope it brings to the socially downtrodden is more important than his ego ? If he refuses to cooperate, threaten him with back bench rebellions and a vote of “No Confidence” which will see his time in Office end in public ignominy following the immediate General Election that would trigger.

A private committee made up of Labour Party activists as well as some serving and some retired Labour politicians be convened quietly to go through all existing and pending Government legislation and make decisions on what Bills will be dropped because they are contentious like 42 Days, Human Embryology etc. What Acts of Parliament need to be revisited and revised ? In this context, a master stroke would be to pull the British Ratification of the Lisbon Constitutional Treaty and run a Referendum as originally promised.

For the remainder of the time left, the House would direct its energies to tackling long term strategic issues such as new nuclear power stations, pension provisions and so on but all on a cross party basis with no whipped votes.

This Strategy

This type of process is designed to blur or soften the edges in the mind of the electorate concerning Labour. It won’t stop Labour getting a thrashing in 2010 but it may save one or two seats. This is not an original thought, a far greater mind and spirit told of it in a parable of a servant who knowing he was about to be dismissed by his master, called the people together who owed his master money and cut their bills in half thus ensuring he would have friends to help him in the future.