Labour’s late surge probably not enough to win today’s by-election

The result of today's by-election in Glenrothes is on a knife-edge and, although the outcome is no longer a matter of political life and death for the Prime Minister, Labour will be anxiously examining the result for signs of the extent of the 'Brown bounce'.

In August, when the by-election was triggered by the death of John MacDougall, Labour looked doomed to a crushing defeat in its former Fife stronghold at the hands of a resurgent Scottish National Party. In early October, the SNP appeared to be coasting to a 5,000-plus majority against Labour. One minister admits: "We were facing disaster then – it was hard to see who was going to vote for us."

Since then Gordon Brown has managed to stop the party's rot nationally on the back of his handling of the credit crunch. And Labour's creaky machine in Glenrothes has begun to feel the benefit locally. Buoyed by two visits from Brown, whose own constituency borders Glenrothes, and a dozen from his wife, Sarah, Labour is closing the gap.

Still, Labour claims it goes into polling day as the underdog, trailing the SNP by just over 1,000 votes. Party officials say that if only polling had taken place a week later they might have had time to overtake the Nationalists.

This could just be a convenient bit of spin, designed to lower expectations, but it echoes the analysis of SNP activists who flooded the constituency with an estimated 1,200 leafleters and door-knockers last weekend.

The stakes for both parties are high. The SNP is desperate to maintain momentum by winning its first back-to-back by-election victories in its history, following its stunning victory in Glasgow East - once one of Labour's safest seats - in July.

Labour is anxious to demonstrate its worse election performances are behind it, although the sceptics will argue that scraping home in Glenrothes is hardly a triumph when MacDougall achieved a 10,664 majority for Labour at the last general election.

Victory today would help Brown out of his current dilemma of being stuck at around ten points behind the Tories in the polls. If he can prove he can win actually an election, if he carry on demonstrating he has a coherent campaign for battling recession, and if a little of Barack Obama's stardust could rub off on him – he will do his best to be photographed with the President-elect when he visits Washington next week - maybe he can begin to close the gap on David Cameron.

Yesterday the Commons witnessed the bizarre spectacle of the all three party leaders claiming political affiliation with Obama. Brown insisted Obama's election was a victory for "progressive values", David Cameron said electors on both sides of the Atlantic were yearning for change and Nick Clegg claimed Obama was championing Lib Dem-style tax policies. Unlike any of them, however, Obama has won a national election.

THE MOLE: GLENROTHES BY-ELECTION

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 6, 2008