Labour’s Willie Bain didn’t just win Glasgow North East, he scooped it into his pocket. Never has a man been more entitled to his boyish grin. How could it have gone so wrong for the nationalists so quickly? The SNP trounced Labour in the European elections this June, when its share of the popular vote, at more than 29%, was higher than that achieved by a delighted David Cameron in England.

Bain’s resounding victory is all the more remarkable when you remember the UK is now the only G7 country still in recession. Unemployment last week rose to 2.46 million. In Glasgow East, one in three people is economically inactive. When Bain promised to hold a jobs summit if elected, his opponents laughed: what had his party been doing for the past 74 years in which it held the seat? They are not laughing now.

One SNP tweeter speculated on Friday that Glasgow North East might be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, the psychological condition in which hostages, robbed of their self-esteem, identify with their oppressors. The dark joke went down well with activists. But blaming voters for your failure is never a great strategy, however tempting it may be in the dawn of disappointment.

There was talk of dirty tricks, particularly in the high number of postal votes. These stood at 4,000, but Bain’s majority was double that. Although a high incidence of postal voting has been associated with sharp electoral practice in parts of England, there is no evidence this was the case in Glasgow. Given the shameful turnout of 33%, any method that makes people more likely to exercise their democratic right is a good thing. The SNP should be asking how it can use postal voting to its advantage in future.

Some blamed the media. But if you fail to set out a compelling agenda, the media, and your opponents, will do it for you. Jack McConnell learned that to his cost. The SNP candidate, David Kerr, was accused of trying to mislead voters into thinking he was local. Names of maternity hospitals were bandied about. Bain came under less media scrutiny, despite working in London during the week and claiming to live in the constituency with his parents at the weekend. But do these parochial details matter when we are experiencing the most serious economic crisis since the 1930s? Time to think global, surely.

After the result, Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader, conceded the party had let Labour wound it with a negative campaign. If what I have been hearing from SNP activists is correct, her BlackBerry was probably hot with comments such as: “Time to cut the positive crap.”

Since 2007, Salmond’s party has abandoned Braveheart and got down to business. It must be seen to be fit to govern. And it does have a good story to tell. Cutting rates for small businesses, freezing council tax and accelerating spending may have taken the edge off Scotland’s recession. But there is a feeling that the focus on running the country has been to the detriment of the party machine. Ministers, say internal critics, are too busy showing how competent they are to get their hands dirty taking the fight to the enemy. The party is not in campaign mode, co-ordinating decision-making, rhetoric and official announcements with the forthcoming general election in mind.

A less polite SNP campaign in Glasgow North East would have talked about the threat from organised crime. The Labour council allowed a criminal family to run a community centre in the constituency for many years. Or what about attacking Michael Martin, the former MP and speaker of the House of Commons forced to resign for failing to sort out MPs’ expenses? Have we forgotten the chauffeur-driven cars waiting at Celtic Park with the meter running while he conducted important affairs of state? Why was the British National Party allowed to present itself as the anti-sleaze voice, prepared to denounce bankers and their bonuses?

There was a feeling among strategists that the SNP lost Glenrothes by taking its eye off local issues. But the debate in Glasgow North East never rose above the parochial. Kerr was attempting to win a seat at the Palace of Westminster, not the City Chambers in George Square. London makes the big economic policy decisions that affect Glasgow’s fortunes. It influences unemployment rates, personal debt levels and the welfare state that perpetuates the poverty trap for so many in Glasgow.

Kerr should have attacked Gordon Brown’s record. Instead he was left to defend Alex Salmond’s. The Labour campaign focused on two clear messages. One was the accusation that the SNP was anti-Glasgow. This had some effect, though there was no statistical evidence to support it. Glasgow has the highest spending allocation per capita of any mainland local authority in Scotland. Labour attacks the SNP for “picking fights with London”. But it has no qualms about setting Scotland’s two great cities at each other’s throat. Still, it’s a dog-whistle issue so the SNP had better think how it can address it. A Glasgow taskforce perhaps, led by a prominent nationalist from the city?

Labour also made headway on crime. It wants mandatory jail sentences for carrying knives: a simplistic, unrealistic policy it failed to introduce while in office. Has anyone asked how many new jails we must build to meet this target and how these will be financed?

Knife crime in Scotland is committed by intoxicated men. Attempts to restrict access to alcohol have received only hostility from the opposition. Violence would decline if drunkenness diminished. Maybe the justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, should blame Labour for irresponsibility regarding alcohol for the bleeding bodies in our hospital casualty departments.

The government plans to unveil legislation for an independence referendum on St Andrew’s Day, yet the subject was hardly mentioned in Glasgow North East. Unionists believe the referendum is an expensive diversion. Yet the SNP could seize the initiative and present it as an economic opportunity.

Scotland, a small country with natural resources in oil and renewable energy, could arguably adapt to the post-recession world more easily than England, whose fortunes are distorted by the City of London. That means tackling difficult matters such as how to rebuild those banks. Should a nationalised rump of RBS be transferred to Holyrood control? Should we have state development banks like Germany? What should they fund to replace financial services as an major employer? The SNP leadership has been timid when it comes to testing ideas in these areas.

Labour made headway in Glenrothes by suggesting the collapse of the banks meant Scotland could not survive alone. A take-no-prisoners SNP campaign would argue that these banks ceased to be particularly Scottish when they operated under the City of London’s lax rules. We could have regulated them ourselves had we been independent. We could have saved them ourselves without much pain as, being independent, we’d have built up an oil fund like Norway. It’s hypothetical, but there is an election round the corner.

Even countries without the Norwegian cushion, such as Ireland and Iceland, saved their banks without incurring national debt levels as drastic as Britain’s predicted £2.3 trillion. UK debt is a higher percentage of GDP than other countries’ and it’s accumulating at a rate of more than £6,000 a second. A fighting SNP might respond to such figures with a slogan such as: “Can Scotland afford to stay in the Union?”

It’s negative. It says little about the competence of the devolved administration. But it does have a certain bite.

joan.mcalpine@sunday-times.co.uk

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