What are the voters of Glasgow East to make of Labour: a Scottish prime minister who thinks he’s some bloke called Heathcliff, big shots in the Edinburgh parliament who can’t choose an honest leader, and a party machine that bungles a by-election campaign?

Presumably, they have more pressing things to worry about than politicians who are increasingly out of touch and politics that are increasingly irrelevant. Glasgow East is by any standards a deprived constituency that doesn’t seem to have benefited from generations of Labour representation.

Its problems are well documented — male life expectancy is 14 years below the national average, 38% of constituents are welfare-dependent, 46% live in social housing, 60% of households have no access to a car, and deaths from heart disease among the under 75s are 83% above the national average.

Now, with a by-election imminent, the political circus has arrived as if the place is suddenly a glittering prize. Everyone seems to agree that a lot is at stake — Gordon Brown’s future even, if Labour loses.

The party is defending a 13,500 majority but there is an expectation that it will get a hammering — and a feeling that it deserves it. A poll on Friday showed that most Scots, even if they don’t want independence, do want the nationalists to win Glasgow East.

The anger that drove Labour from power in last May’s election still festers in Scotland. Disillusion runs deep among traditional supporters and it is possible that July 24 could produce a shock.

Alex Salmond is talking about a political earthquake and prematurely hailing an SNP win as endorsement of his government and another milestone in his party’s drive towards independence. This might seem far-fetched but even Labour activists are bracing themselves for humiliation.

In the circumstances, nobody in their right mind would want to be the party’s candidate, so why does Margaret Curran? Apparently, the Glasgow Ballieston MSP wasn’t pushed but jumped willingly into the vacancy left when local man George Ryan pulled out.

Labour is lucky. She may have been their third (some say fourth) choice but by default they have the best possible contender in the race. Even the bookies shortened Labour’s odds on winning when she announced she was standing.

Against the SNP’s John Mason, Curran shines. He is a local councillor and looks like one. She has more political experience, more personality, more clout. She is a former minister of the Scottish parliament, could have been Labour leader in Scotland, and would not look out of place on the front benches of the Commons.

Her “slip of the tongue” over her address (more middle-class south Glasgow than disadvantaged east) will not damage her. Politicians get away with far bigger gaffes than this. And jibes about two jobs (she says she will not resign her Holyrood seat immediately) are cancelled out as long as Salmond retains his dual Westminster and Edinburgh roles.

As the champion of Labour’s antisocial behaviour legislation, Curran will appeal to those residents of blighted housing schemes who are particularly vulnerable to spiralling crime and uneasy over a nationalist government emptying the prisons. As a straight-talking, high-achieving, hard- working Glaswegian mother, her voice will resonate louder than the SNP candidate’s for female voters in the constituency who have aspirations for their families.

All this is not to say that she will romp home. Labour has alienated its core vote in its heartland because it is seen not to care. Policies such as the scrapping of the 10p tax rate by Brown appeared heartless; going on about wasting food appeared frivolous. “They have moved away from what they once stood for,” one constituent told this paper last week.

Salmond, on the other hand, has courted voters with populist measures such as abolishing prescription charges and freezing council taxes. And he has worked hard to lure the Catholic community away from Labour and neutralise the perception that the SNP was anti-Catholic.

The composer James MacMillan wrote last week that Labour’s social liberalism has cost it the devotion of Catholics in communities like Glasgow East and that the party in London is far removed from the moral values of voters in Scotland.

This is clearly not the case. Working- class voters, Catholic or otherwise, do not seem unduly guided by Christian belief, and those who detach themselves from Labour are seeking refuge with the SNP, hardly a beacon of social conservatism. The evidence suggests they are swayed more by Salmond’s politics than his religion, by his standing up for Scotland.

Curran now has to find ways to combat him. It helps that she is a Catholic, but it helps more that she is canny. In a television interview on Thursday she was asked if she wanted Brown on her campaign trail. She dodged the question, naturally, but was careful to distance herself from both him and Alistair Darling, the chancellor.

Times are tough and people are struggling, she said; they do not need rises in road tax and fuel duty. In other words, she understands the constituency; the unpopular prime minister does not.

She is fighting on local issues, on the impact of regeneration, on jobs, on standards of living. These are the concerns of voters. As she says, nobody has mentioned independence referendums yet (not even Alex Salmond who, let’s not forget, is also pretty canny).

If Curran had stood for the Labour leadership in Scotland, rather than for the seat of Glasgow East, she would have been up against Salmond. Now that he seems to have moved into Shettleston she is up against him anyway. She might not have defeated him at first minister’s questions; I think she will here. For saving Brown, she will be richly rewarded in London, something she must have contemplated, although she insists Labour is a cause not a career. She will be remembered warmly in Scotland, too. For everyone who wants to give Labour a bloody nose, there are as many who would like to see the smug smile wiped off Salmond’s face.

jenny.hjul@sunday-times.co.uk

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