Bad news for Blair and Hague

Prof Curtice pointed to the fall in Labour's vote

Professor John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, assesses the Falkirk West by-election result.

A warning to Tony Blair, a relief for John Swinney and another blow for William Hague; these are the key messages from the Falkirk West by-election.

After doing relatively well in three by-elections last month and seeing his party's fortunes rise once again in the opinion polls, Tony Blair was hoping for confirmation that he can safely call a general election next spring.

Instead, Labour's share of the vote fell by 16.5%, its third worst by-election performance since 1997.

Labour might point to local difficulties as an excuse.

Labour's disappointing result in Falkirk cannot simply be dismissed as just a little local difficulty

Prof John Curtice

The by-election was occasioned by the resignation of Dennis Canavan, the previous MP who had been expelled from the Labour Party following his decision to fight last year's Scottish Parliament election as an independent.

But this issue had appeared to lose its force after Dennis Canavan accepted an invitation in the autumn to apply to rejoin the Labour Party, only then to change his mind again.

So Labour's disappointing result in Falkirk cannot simply be dismissed as just a little local difficulty.

Tory Craig Stevenson had little to cheer

Rather it raises once again the possibility that New Labour may be struggling to retain the support of some of its traditional "Old Labour" heartland voters.

If so, the party will evidently need to continue to woo these voters back into the fold between now and the general election.

As in previous by-elections some of Labour's traditional voters probably stayed at home.

At 36% the turnout broke the record for low attendance in a modern Scottish by-election set only four weeks ago at Glasgow Anniesland.

Worst performance

But more worryingly for Labour some seem to have found a new home.

The Scottish Socialist Party succeeded in saving its deposit for the third Scottish by-election in a row.

In last month's Anniesland by-election the SNP recorded its worst by-election performance in a Labour seat for 18 years.

So John Swinney, who succeeded Alex Salmond as SNP leader in September, badly needed to demonstrate in Falkirk that his party could still pose a threat to Labour's dominance in Scotland.

A promising result for the SSP's Iain Hunter

With a 16.5% rise in their support, the nationalists accomplished this quite easily.

Their performance was almost as good as it was in the Hamilton South by-election last year.

But this result provides no relief at all for the Conservative Leader, William Hague, who has been the subject of a whispering campaign in recent weeks.

Despite starting with only 12% of the vote the Conservatives' share fell by four points.

An opposition with any realistic chance of winning a forthcoming general election should be recording significant gains in by-elections.

Instead it looks as though William Hague will have to fight the next general election against the backdrop of the worst opposition by-election record since Labour's between 1983-1987.