New Statesman Scotland
It strikes this diary that there was one substantial crumb of comfort for the Labour Party in the Ayr by-election - the turnout. There had been some misgivings in political circles that so few people would bother to vote that it would be an ominous sign that the Scottish Parliament was either being discredited or was failing to grip the imagination, or both. But no; on the day, more than 57 per cent of the over-18 Ayr population trundled out to make their marks, which was a respectable turnout for a mid-term by-election at a time when voting seems to be going out of fashion.
Donald Dewar can take heart that the institution he did so much to put in place seems to be taking firm root in Scotland's political soil. It's just a pity that Labour got knocked back into third place. Ah, well. Let virtue be its own reward.
The Tories, of course, are very excited by their win. William Hague seems to regard it as proof that Tony Blair is now on the run and that Westminster is his for the taking. But then, he would say that. The fact that the Tory vote increased by a paltry 1 per cent while the SNP vote rose by 9 per cent (in what used to be a Tory area) seems to have escaped Hague. But it is good to see a flicker of life in the Conservative Party corpse. The round and ruddy face of farmer John Scott has been beaming from our newspapers and television screens as he pledges to make his stand on the Mound for all that the Tories hold dear. This diary has a question for our newest and bluest MSP: how much subsidy does he get every year from the European and British taxpayers?
But the Liberal Democrats must be in some pain after being driven down into fifth place with a paltry 800 votes (half the number of votes won by Tommy Sheridan's Scottish Socialist Party). That dismal result underscores the differences between Scotland and England. If Ayr were a couple of hundred miles south, it would be just the kind of semi-rural, small-town constituency with a high proportion of elderly voters in which the Lib Dems could expect to do well. But north of the Tweed-Solway line, the result is a Lib Dem "meltdown" (to use the fashionable jargon), which throws into relief the odd position of the Lib Dems in Scottish political life. The least popular party in Scotland produces the Lib Dem leader, is now part of the Scottish government and has more than its share of Westminster MPs, thanks to the first-past-the-post electoral system it deplores.
Scottish Episcopalians are in a twitter over the retiral of their bishop in Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. He will certainly be missed, if only because he is Piskiedom's most media-friendly figure. Whenever the English media are looking for a Scottish twist on matters spiritual and/or moral, it is usually Holloway they reach for. They are probably under the impression that he carries the same kind of clout as the Anglican bishops who stalk the cathedral closes of England.
In fact, the Episcopalian Church in Scotland is tiny, with around 40,000 adherents, most of them middle-class (or English). Nor do the Piskies have any constitutional status. And the much-vaunted "courage" of their leaders in speaking out on the issues of the day seems to depend on the issues. Where were the Piskies, for instance, when the Scottish churches were fighting Margaret Thatcher's poll tax? But it will be interesting to see who replaces Holloway as Anglicanism's voice in Scotland. Some of the Piskie clergy are believed to be extremely "high", much given to the kind of "bells and smells" that drives Presbyterian Scotland into deep suspicion.
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