No matter about the narrowness of the majority - the fact that the SNP won the seat at all is a result of seismic proportions. This was the third safest Labour seat in Scotland and required a 22.5% swing in order to take the seat.
Now OK it was a by election. OK the mood of the Scottish populace is very pro its own government at the moment. But even taking those into account, this was a body blow for Gordon Brown and the British Labour government which would be hard to under-estimate.
The faces of the Labour people in the election hall said most of it. The faces and comments of the Labour politicians acting as pundits in the BBC studio said the rest. No matter what proclamations of loyalty are made, it is clear that Gordon Brown is a dead man walking. That I have long taken as read. My horror now focuses on the claim that many influential cabinet ministers want to see Brown replaced by Jack Straw, the Justice Minister.
Jack Straw?? Jesus, they have to be joking. When I was working for Gisela Stuart's campaign in 1997, just prior to Blair's first election victory, Jack Straw was the 'celebrity' sent to the Edgbaston Constituency to boost morale. To a man (and woman) once it was announced that Straw had arrived, everyone fled upstairs so we didn't have to meet him. Straw is the ultimate grey man. He makes John Major look dynamic.
If the Labour Party is to have a relaunch then surely it has to be one of the young Turks like Milliband or Douglas Alexander. Not only is Straw tied to the past, not only is he the ultimate grey, boring conciliator on the surface, he is also a disloyal, opportunistic rat beneath. He knifed Tony Blair when the going got tough for the ex PM and now he is sitting on the sidelines comfortably watching his supporters knife the current Prime Minister, but without getting his own hands dirty.
Straw would be the final proof that Labour members of parliament concede that they have already lost the next general election. Straw would not bring back fresh hope to Labour's cause and the only clue to why anyone might support his candidacy has to be a nepotistic hope of a short term promotion before the Labour ship sinks beneath the waves.
It is a terrible tragedy for socialism that the new Labour flagship ever set sail for it is now cruelly revealed as a busted flush, a cadaver with no real soul. It is worse still for the country that when Labour sinks beneath the waves whenever Gordon Gutless - or whoever his successor is - calls a general election, the alternative is the cherubic , bland and utterly irrelevant David Cameron.
Straw or Brown....Brown or Cameron....Straw or Cameron....Tweedledum or Tweedledee...whatever the ultimate choice Britain - oh and that hasn't got long to go either when the opportunistic Alex Salmond finally wins his Scottish referendum - is headed for disaster.
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