Alan Cochrane

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Alan Cochrane

One overriding aspect of this campaign has been that Scottish Labour won in spite of, and not because of, its relationship with UK Labour and Sir Keir Starmer's Government. Too many of the Government's policies have proved hugely unpopular with the voters, as Sir Keir seems to have recognised. He was only 10 miles from Hamilton five days ago, launching his new defence policy in Glasgow. However, he wisely stayed away from the by-election campaign and nobody seems to have noticed.

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Alan Cochrane |Tom Harris |Brian Monteith

The major problem for Unionist parties in Scottish by-elections is that the SNP invariably hoovers up something like 30 per cent of the popular vote. Infuriatingly for their opponents this tends to be the case no matter how poor its record in government has been. And remember the SNP has been the Scottish Government since 2007 since when it has become better known for its foul-ups - especially on issues like the NHS and education - than for successes.

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Alan Cochrane

The cash Barnett produces for Scotland has become a running sore in relations between many in England and Scotland in recent years as the gap in funding between the two has grown and grown. Official figures now show that Scots now get an average £2400 more per person than those in England - a record amount. But to successive Labour, Tory and coalition UK governments, the Barnett largesse is regarded as the 'Union dividend' which helps Scotland remain a key part of the United Kingdom.

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Alan Cochrane

Or as Marie Gougeon, the party's rural affairs minister, put it, "We don't support the use of public finance for the manufacture of munitions and neither do we support that for nuclear weapons."This policy - total abrogation of responsibility would be a better description of the above load of nonsense - was uttered, one must presume in all seriousness, on the eve of the Government publishing and presenting its new defence policy for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

4 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Alan Cochrane

That battle back then between Labour and the SNP was dogged by angry sectarian overtones in a constituency which was split between Catholic and Protestant voters, with the latter accusing Catholic councillors of favouring their co-religionists in council spending. Relations between the candidates got so bad that Labour and the SNP traded sectarian insults in a campaign that culminated in Labour's victory with a 1,640 majority - compared to John Smith's winning lead of 15,712.