James Maxton and John Wheatley, David Kirkwood and John Muir, Tom Johnston and Emanuel Shinwell. Names lost to history now, but once they formed the vanguard of a proud movement. For they were the Red Clydesiders, the firebrands of Glasgow politics, the pioneers of Scottish socialism.

In 1922, when Maxton and Wheatley led a phalanx of Clydesiders to London to take their seats in Parliament for the first time, a large crowd gathered at the railway station to cheer them on their way. This week in Glasgow East, where once Wheatley himself reigned, the cheering has turned into an ironic laugh. A by-election is to be held and Labour has not simply struggled to drum up support, it has also found it hard to drum up a candidate.

Westminster has currently two vacancies, seats that will be filled before the month is out. Both are the result of avoidable resignations. Only one has thus far garnered much attention - and it is the wrong one.

In Haltemprice & Howden, a gaggle of celebrities, Tory and Labour MPs and the inevitable Tony Benn have all turned up to congratulate David Davis on his principled campaign for civil liberties. This congratulation is probably as unnecessary as the by-election itself, since Mr Davis has always proved perfectly capable of congratulating himself. The best that can be hoped from this futile exercise is that a low turnout does not weaken the campaign against the Government's egregious proposal to extend the period of detention without charge to 42 days.

There is far more at stake in Scotland. Mr Davis has cast his by-election as a referendum on Labour's approach to civil liberties. One might see the contest in Glasgow East as a referendum on Labour's approach to everything else.

It has been almost a century since the Independent Labour Party began putting down roots in Clydeside, and it is hard to look at the lives of the constituents of Glasgow East without concluding that whatever Labour's successes, its failures have been legion. In parts, the jobless rate is up to 50 per cent. Male life expectancy is 63, 14 years below the British average. Half have no qualifications; only 7.6 per cent are graduates. Shettleston has the highest percentage of residents on incapacity benefit in the UK.

There has been compassion, but compassion with heavy boots. And state intervention combined with political monopoly has not been a recipe for either economic dynamism or political engagement. The voters of Glasgow East need to be given hope and offered change. So far Labour's response to this requirement has been hestitant and confused, to say the least.

In the past fortnight both the leader of Labour's group in the Scottish Parliament and the MP for Glasgow East resigned for baffling reasons. Then repeated attempts to identify a replacement for the Westminster seat failed. A once mighty political machine is visibly rusting.

Perhaps that would matter only to those running that machine if it were not for the other issue at stake - the future of the Union. If Labour is not able to offer inspiration, then many Scots voters will turn to the Scottish National Party. If the SNP makes off with the third-safest Labour seat in Scotland, it will embolden its campaign for independence and further demoralise those who want to keep Great Britain together.

There was once a young man who revered the Clydesiders, who became their chronicler. He must see now that Labour's flame in Glasgow East is no longer a torch, it is a flickering candle burned down to a stub. If reverence for the past does not impel James Gordon Brown to ensure that the flame does not go out entirely, then concern for the future should.