THE race to secure a place on the Holyrood ballot paper for the SNP is heating up.
That’s if one story about the selection race in Glasgow is anything to go by.
Former MP David Linden is down but not out of the race to secure the nomination for the Baillieston and Shettleston constituency after a bruising branch nomination meeting, according to the Sunday Mail.
Having passed vetting and as a former MP, this part of the process should more or less have been a formality.
But after allegedly telling rank and file members that Christina McKelvie, who died aged 57 last week, would have wanted him and the three other candidates to progress to the next stage, members voted against him.
He was also said to have dodged questions about his role in Stephen Flynn’s plot to oust Ian Blackford (above) as the party’s leader in Westminster.
Perhaps it’s all a bit of a storm in a teacup; it ain’t quite over for Linden just yet.
But one former MP told The National the story shows the perils of the former Westminster lot (who some wags have christened the Filth, Failed in London, Try Holyrood) face in seeking to return to frontline politics.
The source said that the belief former MPs would come in “like billy big baws” and breeze past the competition was “pish” and that it should be concerning for Linden to have failed this part of the contest.
It certainly highlights just how hard those candidates who may have been seen as the underdogs in this contest are willing to fight to secure their place on the final ballot paper for coveted constituency seats.
Needless to say, the Sunday Mail story likely did not come from sources supportive of Linden’s bid to be the SNP candidate in Baillieston and Shettleston next year.
Briefing out unflattering stories about your political rivals to the press is, for better or worse, part and parcel of the game.
But it will certainly result in some bruised egos and ferocious mudslinging along the way. That happened during the SNP’s last election, the fractious leadership contest of 2023.
Despite the turmoil that followed, the SNP seemed able to pull themselves back together once John Swinney took the reins. Party people will be hoping his calming influence will help keep internecine battles boiling over into full-blown wars.
And some see it as evidence of a healthy culture of internal democracy within the SNP, with one former Westminster-dweller saying the party has a “decent bill” of candidates and the party’s tradition of open selections kept incumbents on their toes.
It’s certainly in better shape than the Labour Party, where left-wingers have been ruthlessly purged but for a few holdouts, who watched on impotently as selections were rigged to ensure an almost uniformly Starmerite influx of new MPs at the last election.
Whether it’s evidence of a disputatious party flexing its democratic muscles or symptomatic of some deeper strife, it’s certainly going to be an interesting watch.
