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| Seats to Watch Central: Falkirk West Falkirk WestDENNIS Canavan's humiliation of Labour, after it had deemed him not good enough to represent Falkirk West, is the stuff of political legend. But the independent MSP has stood down for tragic family reasons, and this returns to being a party fight. Mr Canavan had kept it solidly Labour since first being elected for the area in 1974, but then took much of the party's activist base away to join his revolt against the Blairite purge in 1998. Since then, he has lost a third son to illness, when his oldest, Mark, died last month at the age of 41, after three years battling motor neurone disease. His death came less than three months after the death of Dennis, from a brain tumour at the age of 35. Paul died in 1989 at the age of 16 of skin cancer.The SNP hopes the Labour-voting habit has been broken sufficiently for Michael Matheson, a two-term, 37-year old list MSP, to have a chance of winning this for Labour. He narrowly squeezed into a distant second position last time round. But such was the effect of Mr Canavan's colossal majorities in 1999 and 2003, with 55% of the vote both times, that it is hard to read where his supporters will go. Do not expect the voters of Falkirk West simply to follow national trends. 12:01am Tuesday 10th April 2007  Print  Email this  | 
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