St Patrick's day! Wooooooooooo!
Coatbridge is the best town in the fucking world!
Coatbridge might be the best town in the world. It's also a town with a huge population with
Irish Catholic roots, most of whom, historically, have always voted Labour.
In fact, it's fair to say that this town's votes for the Labour party haven't been counted
so much as weighed.
Ten years ago, this was the safest seat in Britain.
The people of my constituency have been wonderful. They've returned me at election after election.
It's been a wonderful privilege, thank you for the wonderful loyalty you've shown me.
Tom Clarke has been the Labour MP here since 1982. He's a big local figure who cut his
political teeth at the height of the Thatcher years.
At the town's Saint Patrick's Hall he's doing a bit of electioneering in his own style.
Well, you're lovely and warm.
That's good.
I hope you vote Labour up in Hamilton because all these folks are voting Labour for me.
Well, you know my slogan's going to be: "There's hardly a family in this constituency that
Tom Clarke hasn't helped." Now is that the case?
Definitely.
Are you all going to support me at the election?
Oh, of course we are.
But when Tom Clarke has moved on, "of course" becomes probably.
Probably Labour?
Probably.
So is there someone else slightly in your mind?
Well, after the referendum, we're kinda...
How did you vote in the referendum?
A yes vote.
You're a yes voter.
What do you think of the SNP?
Dunno.
Stop telling lies, you've voting SNP!
I'm not. At the referendum yes, but we're kinda swithering.
You're swithering a bit? Right.
Now the people here today have more in common with working people in Newcastle, in Manchester,
in Bristol, in London than they have with the lairds and dukes of Scottish estates.
And they're the people who are supporting the SNP..
Your opponent's just turned up.
I haven't met him before.
Have you not?
Phillo, good to see you.
How are you Tom, good to see you sir.
It's a pleasure man, good to see you.
I've just been telling these guys that our families are very close and that'll never change.
Never! Absolutely, 100%. We've supported you forever Tom. It's just the way it's got to be.
Well, the SNP stand has only been up for about five or ten minutes and, bang! They're off.
Makes a change from Tom Clarke, doesn't it.
Well, that's the whole idea isn't it. It's like a wee change. Well, it's time for change in't it?
Well, I'll be honest with you. I'm an ex-coal miner. I think it's going to be a disaster.
So you're not that taken with the SNP? You don't like them?
No.
Why not?
Because they haven't got anything. They're kidding the people on there.
It's incredible at the minute, people will just come up to you, saying they're voting for you.
What do you think it's a bit Bob Monkhouse? It's a bit too shiny faced? I'm a bit em...
I'm a bit embarrassed.
Ha ha ha ha!
Phil Boswell, Clarke's challenger, works in the oil and gas industry. He says he and the
SNP are answering a political awakening in Scotland but like everyone else around here...
You're from a Labour family.
Of course, everybody is. Everybody here is. It's how we always voted. Your grandfather
turned in his grave if you voted for anything other than Labour.
But now... now our mantra is: "you may have voted Labour for your forefathers but you're
now voting SNP for your children.
Tom Clarke is a good man. Let's not pretend otherwise, he's fought hard for these people.
Coatbridge is about ten miles east of Glasgow. It's part of the old Labour heartlands that
voted yes in the independence referendum, probably because of a deep yearning for change.
It's a town founded on iron works and coal mining but it's struggling to emerge from
its lost industrial past.
From the outside it's probably easy to assume that the SNP is sweeping through Scotland
and wiping Labour out but a lot of people in towns and villages like this have a strong
sense of history and a deep bond with Labour. It's probably what Labour's depending on in
Scotland and it might be enough to save some seats here for Labour MPs with strong local
connections.
We faced a closure in 1981, 1982, '83 and eventually they shut us in '83. Tom was there,
first hand, first person to come and offer his support.
We fought the good fight and I don't know anybody who didn't get a settlement and compensation.
Now, would you confirm that Willy?
Yep, one hundred percent true, Tom. Hundred percent true.
So why would those people suddenly turn and say they wanted somebody else? Another party?
I hope you'll all be out for Labour on the 7th of May now.
I hope you'll be voting Labour on the 7th of May.
Definitely, he's already in red.
How you doing folks? You're voting for Labour on the 7th of May? That's wonderful! Thank
you very much. Thank you.
Thank you.
That's great.
You'll be Labour on the 7th of May now?
Oh, Ukip!
Ha ha! I don't think there will be any Ukip in Moodiesburn but never mind.
They've got a sense of humour over here, you know? Ha ha ha! Ukip indeed.
If the SNP manages to catch this area, I think the whole of Scotland will be SNP.
This lass's father, former miner.
Former miner. How you doing?
Why do you think Moodiesburn's Labour? Let's hear from the people.
The working class has always voted Labour haven't they? Always will.
Jackie's a former miner.
When you hear the SNP - the SNP talks about their idea that it's the new party of the
working class, you know, it's almost more Labour than Labour.
SNP's saying that Labour's a bit to the right now.
Yeah, that's what they say.
Do you vote Labour now more or less enthusiastically than you used to?
Well, I don't think Labour's as good as... You remember Keir Hardie?
Yeah.
That was the right Labour mob.
Well, we've not changed since then but this man's trying to get you to say things that
are anti Labour.
I'm not! I'm not! I'm not! I'm not at all.
I think you are.
No, I am really not.
Because you're on camera, he's asked you several questions...
No, I think that's unfair.
Which are pretty negative.
No, I'm curious to know.
The man told you from the very beginning he's voting Labour.
I'm curious to know.
And you haven't succeeded.
I'm curious to know.
Ha ha ha ha! Good try.
Don't promote the SNP.
Good try. Good try.
I'm not promoting the SNP.
Be impartial, let's be impartial.
Impartial? Obviously there's something up here and the questions must be asked.
Anyway, let the gentleman have the last word.
I know you'll be there for Labour on the 7th of May and thanks very much. Bye now.
Thanks anyway, boy. Right? See you Jackie.
I've never had that experience before going canvassing with someone and asking a few very
straightforward journalistic questions of people on their doorstep and them really taking
exception to it and saying I was "pushing the opposition".
Looks to like under that confidence there's a little bit of insecurity.
Doesn't want people talking about the SNP on his patch.
Elsewhere in the constituency, the SNP are busy with their own unique style of campaigning.
They call it high-vis and it's based around town centre campaign shops, street stalls
and wherever they go, bright yellow jackets.
But like the other parties, they're still not adverse to the tried and tested method
of bringing journalists to meet pre-selected voters.
Labour used to be for the working class.
They're not now.
Now it's not.
It's all for themselves.
It's for high class.
We've got a boy who's been sanctioned four times.
Your son?
My son. He's got three kids and he's been sanctioned four times.
The SNP was the ones that went and paid the bedroom tax for the likes of the disabled
and all the rest of it for a full year.
The Labour party would say to that: "Well, we oppose the bedroom tax and we're committed
to reversing it."
Labour brung it in. The Tories have went and expanded it.
I agree with you.
So, at the end of the day, Labour still went and brung it in.
But that's sort of... that's in there in the way that you're going to vote in this election.
Sounds like it is.
Listen, I'll never, ever, ever in my life vote Labour again.
How long have you been voting Labour?
I was 18 years of age.
And how old are you now?
78.
So you've been voting Labour for 60 years?
Aye. Exactly. And that's that.
But they reckon the Labour party might lose this seat this time.
Might?
Yeah.
The way it's cocking going they've got no chance of it.
Ha ha ha!
Two key things sit at the heart of the SNP's surge. The first is their claim that their
now the party of social justice in Scotland.
The second is almost the exact opposite of Labour's heavy sense of history.
The SNP emphasises youth and newness.
Tell me why you're going to vote for the SNP?
Because it's the best one to go for and their policies look the best ones and that.
What do they stand for, do you think?
I don't know. Ha ha ha ha!
It's been in government here for eight years but it wants people to think of it as insurgent
and opposition. In fact, it comes close to meaning everything to everybody.
A confident Scottish Labour party would be able to point all that out.
Jim Murphy and his arseholes out of Scotland said that man over there.
But confidence and even relevance is exactly what the Labour party has lost here.
Come on in guys. I'll get you a beer.
This is where this is going.
SNP to win, that's all I say.
All the way. Give us another referendum.
See you later.
Cheers.
There's a political rule, that says if an election comes down to a decision between
the past and the future, the future always wins.
It worked for Blair, it worked for Thatcher further back it worked for Howard Wilson,
in America it worked for Clinton and Kennedy.
Feels, in Scotland, like Labour's on the wrong side of that divide.
It's going to have to find something new. I wouldn't want to call it new Labour, maybe
it should be called modern Labour or different Labour but it's got
to change. It's probably got to change fast.