Now that Brown has had a bit of a by-election, an overly inflated bounce and Salmond a slow hiss deflation, the speculation has already started about the possibility of a snap general election early next year and the demise of the Nats. It’s an overly used phrase, but, indeed, a week is a long time in politics. Yes, Labour managed to retain a seat with a reduced majority. Yes, the SNP did come second with a hugely increased proportion of the vote and yes, the Lib Dems and the Tories did lose their deposits but the most important thing for Labour was that Alex Salmond was humiliated. The glee at the FM’s pain is evidence of the fact that Labour has still to learn the lessons of the past. Take note of who dominated the headlines in the days after the Glenrothes result; Salmond. Just for holding his hands up and taking the blame. What a magnificent PR coup. And the reason the shamed FM could capture the media agenda was because he has a profile, he has charisma and whether you like it or not, Salmond and his team can still seize the initiative even when facing a negative. Labour was still so busy clapping itself on the back that it forgot to blow its own trumpet loudly enough to drown Salmond out. The FM meanwhile knew one way to turn a bad press round was to do something out of the ordinary and that was to admit he was wrong. Mea culpa. A contrite Salmond was a rare sight to see and Scots love an underdog. Labour should absolutely regard Glenrothes as a major success but it is only the first step back on that ladder. The election-fighting machine of the SNP that was supposed never to sleep may have been caught napping in Fife but it will have already assimilated the lessons from Glenrothes. If Labour wants to fight a Westminster battle on local issues, the SNP will be armed and ready. Labour has already telegraphed how it intends to pack its punches and the SNP will be preparing to box clever next time round. The SNP has just lost a seat that it has never held but Labour lost a whole election. The party has little to feel smug about and if Brown is even considering taking the country into a general election on the back of one result, then politics is more of a game than previously thought. Henry McLeish wouldn’t be the first veteran of the left to warn his party of the dangers of slipping back into a state of complacency. Labour needs to bank that win and build on it, not use it as a signal to go to the ballot box. But time is running out for Brown. This is a PM who, in an effort to hang onto the top job, despite his obvious personal failings as a leader, sees everything through the distorted prism of his own popularity as a predictor of when he should call that all important election. A loss in Glasgow East; bad. A win in Glenrothes; good. Tackling the global economy; good. Rising unemployment; bad. But whatever his arithmetic, it was demeaning to see the tragedy of the death of a systematically abused boy, let down by all those charged with protecting him, used by Brown as a political score card which only exposed what was really on his mind – when to call that election. David Cameron has been rendered impotent by the global financial problems but was able to come back strong and remind us all that politics can still be about raw emotion and gut reaction to abhorrent acts. That point is not party political, it is effective opposition and it is human. Brown embarrassed himself and his party by questioning otherwise and you could almost hear the calculations of how this might affect his electoral chances clicking away in the background. It is generally agreed that Brown is at his best in a financial storm when he can talk the talk with political leaders. It is the economic crisis that has seen Brown emerge once again as a contender but last week’s PMQs also revealed how transient that position can be. How quickly a winner becomes a loser. While the PM attends big meetings like the G20 over the weekend to try and find the answer to the world’s future financial architecture, thousands are already losing their jobs and feeling the human pain of failed expectations over the end of a boom and bust economy. We are facing the worst financial crisis since the First World War and politicians won’t be able to solve it in a timeframe dictated by electoral advantage. The PM would be wise to consider the danger of boosting expectation and then not being able to deliver.

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