Well, there we are. It is official. Tony Blair has resigned as leader of the
Labour party. He will stand down as prime minister on Wednesday, June 27th.
Then his successor, almost certainly Gordon Brown, will take over.
The prime minister informed his cabinet collegues of his intentions before
he flew to his Sedgefield constituency to make the announcement public on
the stage at Trimdon labour club, from where his parliamentary career was
launched in 1983.
His cabinet colleagues said he was funny, self deprecating and coy. He told
them he did not want tributes, they would come later, but the chancellor
spoke warmly of the prime minister’s contribution.
In Sedgefield, where Tony Blair is much loved, there was hardly a dry in the
house....He apologised for what he’d got wrong, gave thanks to the british
people for his successes and asked for trust and understanding. Hand on
heart, he said, he did what he thought was right, not for any other reason.
He defended his premiership, on the domestic and the international front: he
was proud of the UK’s role in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistand and Iraq.
On Iraq he said they must see it through.
And in the end he summed himself up....politics may be the art of the
possible, he said, but in life give the impossible a go.

Mums, dads, kids, grandkids, spouses, and even some MSPs were milling around
the Garden Lobby of Parliament earlier today, posing for pictures, pleased
as punch, as if they had all just graduated. George Reid played
vice-chancellor. All it lacked was a hearty version of Gaudeamus Igitur.

Coalition momentum has stalled today, with no talks taking place between SNP
and Greens, and the Lib Dems playing hard to get... or are they off in a
great big huff? A plausible theory is that they are particularly bruised by
the result in the Gordon constituency. There was Alex Salmond wooing them
throughout the election and still doing so now, when the Salmond
steam-roller was pulverising the Lib Dem machine in Gordon.

The burning question is: would you want to do a deal with Alex Salmond?
Even if he hadn’t just thumped you in an election? He is playing it
ultra-cool these days, all consensual and bridge-building. The phenomenon
has already been dubbed ‘The New Eck’. It could as easily be ‘Eck Two’, but
doesn’t that bring Caesar’s betrayal to mind?


______

Another burning question – Holyrood is one hot place to be these days – is
about Jack McConnell’s future. He says he is not going to resign. Others
think differently. Who would replace him? The four names most often in the
frame are Margaret Curran, Andy Kerr, Wendy Alexander and Iain Gray. An
early indication of the way things are moving was McConnell’s abrupt removal
of Margaret Curran from the parliamentary bureau earlier today, replacing
her with the McConnell loyalist Cathy Jamieson.

It is not a group of MSPs endowed with a rich choice of leadership
potential. If it weren’t for his health (dodgy) and his late conversion to
the Labour cause (seen on Clydeside as doubly dodgy) , I’d say Peter Peacock
would be the smart choice. He’s the best strategist the Labour group has.
Whoever is leader should make good use of this Borderer-turned-Highlander.

_______

SNP councillors are getting very chummy with their Tory counterparts as
coalitions and partnerships are built around the country’s council chambers.
How long before the Nats have to re-visit that Poll Tax-era ban on having
any truck with Conservatism? If they can swear an oath of allegiance to Her
Britannic Majesty, surely they can be nicer to Auntie Annabel.

MSPs have been returning to Holyrood today, some relieved to be here, the
SNP full of bonhomie, back-slapping, hugs, huge smiles, and we-told-you-so
to the media.

A Labour source tried to persuade me not only that the SNP did not win the
election, which I can understand, but also that Labour won it instead, which
I can’t understand at all. The argument seemed to be that the votes were
shifting to Labour in the final days of the campaign, and that if they had
had more days... I lost the logic of the argument around that point.
It seems Labour remains in denial, either not quite believing it won fewer
seats and votes than the SNP, or not believing that Alex Salmond can hold a
minority show on the road for long. Implicit in that latter viewpoint is
that Labour is willing to make life very difficult for the SNP. To do so, it
is not only votes of the full Parliament that could stymie the Nats. It is
also through the parliamentary bureau, through which the parliamentary
timetable can be controlled, and in committee, where a majority of
opposition MSPs can launch multiple ambushes every week.

Who wants to be SNP whip and business manager in these circumstances?
Handling the opposition could be very tricky, but some of the new
Nationalist arrivals have trouble written all over them. One of them has
already protested about swearing the oath of loyalty to the Queen tomorrow,
and was firmly slapped down by the leadership.

In a fluid political scene, the most confusing bit is what the Lib Dems
are up to. An uncharitable interpretation by one of their opponents suggests
the 16 MSPs are split four ways; a coalition deal at any price, no coalition
deal at any price, a coalition deal so long as there is no independence
referendum, or borrowing the Green argument that they could get ‘confidence
and supply’ - meaning they would avoid a minority adminstration from
falling, but would force it to win all non-life-threatening votes.
It seems increasingly as if the ‘no coalition deal’ side is winning, which
makes you wonder about the Lib Dems. Aren’t people in politics there to make
a difference if they can? Why turn down that option? Was this not the party
that told voters over the past month that ‘there’s no point in voting Tory,
they’re irrelevant, because they don’t want to get into power’.
It seems the Lib Dems - some of them, at least - were equally keen on not
being in power, but misled the electorate by pretending otherwise.

Is it Monday already? How did that happen? The demands of fast-moving
post-election news seem to have taken up every waking hour, and leaving none
for sleeping. Days have merged into each other. The blog was neglected. Or
maybe I just couldn’t face up to the humiliation of getting predictions so
wrong. At least I said the outcome would be close, so that bit was right.

Back at Holyrood on a Bank Holiday, the building is eerily quiet and seems
to have an air of expectancy that change is about to break over it, as MSPs
return for swearing in on Wednesday. This afternoon, Alex Salmond swept down
from Calton Hill and St Andrew’s House where he met Greens and civil
servants, breezing into a TV interview. Perhaps he is sobered by the
challenge he now faces, perhaps he is as tired as everyone in the Scottish
political village, but he seems slightly less ebullient and more measured
than usual.

In the process of building a coalition, there is a classic negotiating
stand-off. Lib Dems won’t enter talks if an independence referendum is still
on the table, preferring to go into opposition. Having suffered the taunts
of selling out their principles before, this is one issue on which they
cannot afford to give ground. The SNP won’t take the referendum off the
table and say they simply want the Lib Dems to start talking, so their
differences can be explored and solutions found. The SNP mood music is
measured and conciliatory. We’re hearing lots about a progressive alliance
and being positive. The Lib Dem tone is obstinate – when we can get them to
talk at all.

So we have to wait until one side blinks. And which side will that be? Well,
having got predictions so badly wrong last week, let’s try this. The Lib
Dems won’t give ground. They can’t. The SNP may not either, in which case
they will go into minority government, at least for a few months, happy to
have the ministerial posts to themselves. After summer, the two sides might
try talking again. Either now or later, the SNP will look at the arithmetic,
realise there are far too many MSPs implacably opposed to an independence
referendum, and admit that, whatever else happens, it is not going to happen
before the 2011 election. The only real question is how and when they get to
that realisation.

How will the SNP hardliners take that? Perversely, they might be quite
content, as they never rated the referendum policy in the first place. And
as Salmond can take personal credit for putting them in power for the first
time, he has some authority – for now at least – to keep them in line.

There is a case for everyone taking a couple of weeks to catch up on sleep
and enjoy the spring sunshine. That should make this post-election stuff
much easier.

Month after month of covering the build-up to today’s election, and you
might have thought that I would have taken the opportunity to do some
advance planning on how I was going to vote. Instead, I made up my mind only
after reading the ballot paper in the polling booth. This indecision is
partly explained by only receiving the parties’ posted election
communications as I left for the polling station, none of it including
council election candidates. The electorate should be better informed than
this, and I should be more decisive.

This morning’s red top papers have given the SNP their biggest monstering
yet, even more outrageous than in 1999. The Sun has out-Recorded the Daily
Record with a hangman’s noose, apparently illustrating what an SNP
adminstration would do to Scotland. “Only Labour can save us from a living
nightmare” the editorial runs, after a spread on “reasons to be fearful”.

Vicki, aged 19, from Essex, is so upset about the prospect of Alex Salmond
as First Minister that she has taken off most of her clothes to appear on
the Sun’s page three, saying: “It will be a disaster of the Nats win. It
would lead to the break-up of the Union which would have dire effects for
Scotland and England”. It’s great to see young people taking such a close
interest in politics, and discussing it so intelligently too.

The Record is relatively subtle, headlining “Think About It”. Inside you get
a whole page of potential defence job losses under the SNP. The editorial
warns against being seduced by “half-truths and false promises” and
concludes: “Vote for Scotland’s future. Not Alex Salmond’s future”.

The Mirror, which has until now been more muted in its pro-Labour messages,
splashes “Stop the Wrecker”, pitting Alex Salmond against Gordon Brown – who
is, of course, not a candidate. “Today could be the day Scots vote to break
up the United Kingdom,” it says.

All this propaganda must be pretty galling for Alex Salmond - but worse
still for troubled songstress Britney Spears, whose comeback was kept off
the front pages.

A final l day of campa igning. Jack McConnell is on a soap box, Alex Salmond in
a helicopter. Both want to associate themselves with the late Donald Dewar
with different messages of hope and optimism.

Was that the sound of birling from his grave? Dewar would surely have been
infuriated by the SNP leader’s audacity, and he didn’t think a whole lot of
his Labour successor either. Nor, for that matter, was he a man for hope or
optimism, much preferring to worry and be pessimistic.

Two polls this morning show the race between Labour and SNP is tightening,
and the Lib Dems could be the beneficiary from the two leading parties
knocking seven bells out of each other. Projecting the seat share on the
basis of these polls is highly suspect. Far more important in determining
which party does best will be constituency and regional considerations.

Tactical voting, for instance, could swing both ways at once. In some
constituencies, dislike of the SNP, Alex Salmond or independence could
attract unionist voters to the banner of the party most likely to keep out
the SNP. That is the key to deciding the Gordon seat where Salmond is
standing. But assuming there is also an anti-Labour tide running, and with
the SNP holding so many second places, it is best placed to pick up on a
tactical vote that heads in that anti-Labour direction.

My predictions? A risky business, but here goes. I’ve guessed for weeks the
SNP will win more votes than Labour, but Labour will win one or two more
seats. Now the polls seem to be pointing in roughly the same direction. Lib
Dems will be up, but not much, Tories will gain Dumfries and the Greens
could lose a couple of seats... or, then again, maybe gain a couple...

Labour privately expects to lose; Glasgow Govan, Kilmarnock and Loudoun,
Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, Dundee West, Aberdeen Central, Linlithgow and
Dunfermline West (SNP gains in all but the last). It’s in real trouble in
Fife Central and Stirling and nervous about Livingston and Glasgow Kelvin,
all at risk of falling to the SNP. Edinburgh, where Labour and Lib Dems are
fighting it out, is hard to call. Likewise, the strange politics of the
Western Isles, where Labour’s Alasdair Morrison has more of a chance than a
national swing would suggest. It’s not all one-way traffic for Labour - it
could gain Strathkelvin and Bearsden from Jean Turner. It could also take
Ochil from the SNP, though that is less likely. The spin has it that Labour
could take Edinburgh South from Lib Dem Mike Pringle, but as spin goes, that
doesn’t ring true.

While the Tories can expect to gain Dumfries from Labour, their next best
hope is beating Roseanna Cunningham in Perth. But tactical voting helps
those in second place, and Conservatives don’t have many other second
places. The Tory-SNP contest in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale? A toss-up, in
that I haven’t a clue, but Alex Fergusson could keep it for the
Conservatives if there is a unionist tactical vote in his favour.

Lib Dems are confident in Dumfermline West, and unsure across three
Edinburgh seats they are contesting with Labour. They could well benefit
from an anti-SNP tactical vote in Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale. The big
one for Lib Dems is holding on to Gordon, which has a dynamic all its own.
If Nora Radcliffe can pick up Tory tactical votes, it is possible Scotland
ends up with an SNP-led administration, but without Alex Salmond having a
seat.

Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister?

On the lists, I’d reckon on Tommy Sheridan and Margo MacDonald returning.
There could be another Senior Citizen – don’t forget Pat Lally has a
reputation as Lazarus, and he is well placed in Glasgow. A Socialist such as
Carolyn Leckie could get in by the quirks of list voting. Greens may not get
many seats, but their result will decisively shape the balance of larger
parties.

Labour will start to pick up list seats, with candidates it barely knew it
had. Too late to reverse its daft rule that candidates cannot stand for both
constituency and list. The Labour Government (in Westminster) has made that
illegal for all parties in Wales, so it is hard to see a way that Labour
could reverse its party regulation in Scotland.

Roll on Friday morning, when you’ll have an opportunity remind me how wrong
I’ve been.