No election battle more starkly demonstrates the sudden collapse of the Scottish Labour Party than the one unfolding in the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency of former prime minister Gordon Brown, which his party looks set to lose for the first time in 80 years.
In Kirkcaldy, the boarded-up shopfronts and down- and-outs on the high street tell the heart of the story. The city has lost the linoleum factories that once gave its streets a distinctive smell. The coalmines in the surrounding county of Fife are long since shut.
Kirkaldy has one of the highest unemployment rates in Scotland, especially among youths, and what jobs are left are now mostly in the services sector.
Locals say they have seen nothing of the economic recovery touted by prime minister David Cameron, and many no longer trust any London-based party to deliver better.
“Just look at the state of the high street,” said David Cruickshanks, an ex-Royal Navy sailor sitting in Kendo’s coffee shop. “We haven’t had any good jobs here for a while.” Mr Cruickshanks said he is voting SNP.
Brown retiring
In Kirkcaldy, the incumbent is not running again. Mr Brown is retiring from politics after staying on to represent his home town in parliament after losing power in 2010.
A fearsome orator who helped deliver a victory for the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK with impassioned speeches in the final hour last year, Mr Brown appears to relish one final fight for his party.
“I come here not as a candidate, but proud to be a volunteer,” he said in a speech on Tuesday in Glasgow. “We will prove in government again that the Labour Party is the greatest instrument for social justice that this country has ever created.”
Mr Brown, born near Glasgow and raised in Kirkcaldy, where his father was a church minister, has thrown his prestige behind Labour's candidate for his seat, local councillor Kenny Selbie (33). But even for such a powerful figure, with such deep local roots, passing the torch has not been easy.
Mr Brown held on to his seat in the 2010 election with more than 50 percent of the turnout. But a poll by Conservative pollster Michael Ashcroft in February found a 28.5 per cent swing toward the SNP.– (Reuters)