Labour chief whip spills the beans on early election!

Apparently it's been revealed that the Labour chief whip has stated that the new speaker will "only be in the position for a few weeks before the election is called"! So does this mean that we are now looking at an early autumn election then? Of course, he could have been referring to the Glasgow North East by-election, but who knows, he may well be talking about a general election!

Talking about the by-election, latest info about the likely candidates. SNP candidate looks likely to be Councillor Grant Thoms, which would make sense seeing as he represents a wide area of the constituency in the council. Labour candidate looks likely not to be Paul Martin (Michael's son) so looks as if it's going to be Willie Bain, Michael Martins election agent.

Whoever the candidates are and no matter how good it looks for the SNP, I'm not taking anything for granted! At the moment, I think the SNP is probably ahead, but we won't know for sure until the campaign is properly underway and the voting actually takes place. The state of Labour, both locally and nationally, being in such a dire state certainly helps us, as does the fact that a lot of the Labour council school closures are in the area!

Labour sources have admitted that they don't believe they will win this one, but they said that before Glenrothes! Saying that, however, the situation has changed dramatically since Glenrothes and things are more favourable towards the SNP this time!