Sunday November 8, 2009

FEATURE - Poll test for Brown in Labour's Scottish heartland

By Avril Ormsby

GLASGOW (Reuters) - Puffing on a cigarette outside a Glasgow pub in the winter chill, Nick Perry says his family has always voted Labour and he plans to stick to that tradition next week -- despite recession and an expenses scandal.

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street in London, August 28, 2009. Nationwide, the opposition Conservatives are on track to defeat Labour and return to power for the first time since 1997 as they are well ahead in opinion polls across Britain. (REUTERS/Toby Melville/Files)

"We are a working class family: my father voted Labour, my mother voted Labour, my whole family has voted Labour," the 48-year-old says.

Labour loyalists like Perry are expected to deliver a comfortable win for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's centre-left party in a by-election on Thursday.

The vote in the Glasgow North East parliamentary constituency, one of Britain's most deprived areas, is likely to be the last before a general election next year.

Nationwide, the opposition Conservatives are on track to defeat Labour and return to power for the first time since 1997 as they are well ahead in opinion polls across Britain.

But the centre-right party is an also-ran in Scotland and the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) poses the main threat to Labour and Brown in Glasgow North East.

Analysts say that anything other than a routine win for Labour could prompt fresh speculation about Brown's leadership after a rebellion petered out earlier this year.

"If Labour were to lose there would be another set of mutterings and media speculation about Gordon Brown's future," said John Curtice, professor in politics at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde.

"They will say 'my God' -- if you can lose in such a safe seat only months away from a national election it does not look good, and it could finally get the ball rolling to unseat him."

The Glasgow North East election was called after the constituency's Labour member Michael Martin, who was the House of Commons speaker, stood down in the summer.

Lawmakers from all the main parties demanded he resign over his handling of a damaging expenses scandal. This erupted when it emerged that members of parliament across the party divide had claimed for items ranging from cleaning a moat and installing an ornamental duck house to a bill for watching a pornographic movie on pay-TV.

SNP THREAT

Anger still rages in this part of Glasgow, once Europe's centre for steam locomotive building, but which now suffers from high unemployment and crime, and low educational qualifications.

"There were millionaires claiming for duck houses and window cleaning," said Labour voter William Prior, a 65-year-old retired railway engineer. "All we got was a free uniform."

Also having a drink in Bells pub was a 70-year-old former machinist who gave her name only as Betty. She switched to the SNP after years of voting Labour, but is undecided this time. "What they are earning on expenses, I could live on," she said.

Residents tend to live in high-rise apartment blocks and on low-grade local government housing estates in need of repair.

The pub, with metal grilles on its windows, nestles among tattoo parlours, betting shops and take-away food outlets.

The SNP hopes to repeat its stunning by-election victory in neighbouring Glasgow East last year when it overturned a 13,500 Labour majority.

Perhaps chastened by its failure to win another election in the Scottish town of Glenrothes a few months later, SNP leader Alex Salmond played down his party's chances.

"I don't mind being the underdog," he told Reuters. "There are a lot of underdogs in Glasgow North East. People rather like that position, they have an affinity and associate with it. But we have got no illusions about the scale of the task we are undertaking."

Labour voters look likely to stick with Brown, diverting any blame for the recession and expenses scandal away from him.

"The expenses were not a Labour thing, it is the whole of parliament, and the financial crisis is not a Labour thing, it is the whole world -- the bankers," said Labour supporter Prior.

One area where Labour may face increasing criticism is Afghanistan. The rising death toll among British soldiers, with five killed there in

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