Iain McKenzie, the Labour party candidate in the Inverclyde by-election, meets locals on the campaign trial on Monday. He is under pressure to deliver in this week's poll. Danny Lawson / PA
Iain McKenzie, the Labour party candidate in the Inverclyde by-election, meets locals on the campaign trial on Monday. He is under pressure to deliver in this week's poll. Danny Lawson / PA
Iain McKenzie, the Labour party candidate in the Inverclyde by-election, meets locals on the campaign trial on Monday. He is under pressure to deliver in this week's poll. Danny Lawson / PA
Iain McKenzie, the Labour party candidate in the Inverclyde by-election, meets locals on the campaign trial on Monday. He is under pressure to deliver in this week's poll. Danny Lawson / PA

Miliband's Labour under pressure to perform in Scottish by-election


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LONDON // At any other time, a by-election in the outer regions of Glasgow would have commanded no more than a footnote in the annals of British politics.

But tomorrow's vote in the unprepossessing, former shipbuilding enclave of Inverclyde has taken on a significance that far outweighs its parliamentary merit.

It has been shaping up as a major clash between the Labour Party, for so long the overwhelmingly dominant force in Scottish politics, and the resurgent Scottish Nationalists (SNP), who want to fundamentally redraw the political map of Great Britain. At last year's general election, and despite sustaining heavy losses throughout the rest of Britain, Labour secured 41 of the 59 parliamentary seats north of the border.

But in last month's elections to the quasi-autonomous Scottish parliament, it was the SNP, with their promise of a referendum on independence from the rest of the UK within four years, who romped to victory. The results humiliated Labour candidates in hitherto unassailable strongholds.

Tomorrow's vote is the result of the death this year of David Cairns, a popular Labour MP and former minister who held the seat at the 2010 general election with a majority of more than 14,000.

It should be a cakewalk for Labour but during last month's Scottish assembly elections, the party's candidate in the area scraped home ahead of the SNP challenger with a majority of slightly more than 500.

"We know we have to win and win well," a Labour Party activist said. "Last month's elections were an unparalleled disaster for us in Scotland and were certainly not good for Ed Miliband's leadership of the party. It is vital for us that we show on Thursday that, when it comes to national parliamentary elections, we can still hold our own in Scotland."

The result will make little difference to the parliamentary arithmetic in Westminster: were the SNP to pull off the unlikeliest of victories, they would still have only seven MPs in the House of Commons.

But a defeat for Labour could have repercussions likely to shake the very foundations of the party.

Mr Miliband, who was elected last autumn as leader, has been the subject of increasing criticism from within his own party as Labour have failed to make advances, even though the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has lost support because of its spending cuts, including the loss of thousands of public sector jobs.

Last week, Mr Miliband hit the campaign trail in Inverclyde, describing the government's cuts as "reckless" and promising policies to help to overcome the area's high unemployment.

But at the weekend, he also acknowledged that his party was in trouble, saying that the Labour leadership had lost touch both with its own members and the public. In a speech to the party's national policy forum, Mr Miliband said that Labour "can only win if we change" and that power would not "come automatically".

He told delegates at the gathering: "A party created by working people, for working people, lost touch with them.

"Old Labour forgot about the public. New Labour forgot about the party. And, by the time we left office, we had lost touch with both."

In Inverclyde, the SNP are making hay with such admissions, representing themselves as the true voice of the Scottish people by promising to create jobs via a new enterprise zone.

Labour knows it will not command a 14,000-vote majority this time. But it also knows that a dramatic reduction in the figure, let alone a by-election defeat, would set party nerves jangling afresh across the country and pose further questions about the party's direction under Mr Miliband.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, appear to have thrown in the towel. Though both are fielding candidates, they know they are so far behind Labour and the SNP that the prime minister, David Cameron, did not even bother to visit the constituency when he was in Scotland at the weekend.

Unfortunately for all the parties, the electorate does not seem that bothered by the whole affair either. The Caledonian Mercury observed: "The political parties are trying hard to engage the public's attention but, after such a momentous Scottish election just a month ago, even they are finding it hard to generate any enthusiasm for the contest."

The political pundits have Labour as odds-on favourite to retain the seat. If, by the early hours of Friday morning, the party has not, it will be very bad news indeed for Mr Miliband and for the future of a not-so-United Kingdom.

What is the definition of an SME?

SMEs in the UAE are defined by the number of employees, annual turnover and sector. For example, a “small company” in the services industry has six to 50 employees with a turnover of more than Dh2 million up to Dh20m, while in the manufacturing industry the requirements are 10 to 100 employees with a turnover of more than Dh3m up to Dh50m, according to Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development.

A “medium-sized company” can either have staff of 51 to 200 employees or 101 to 250 employees, and a turnover less than or equal to Dh200m or Dh250m, again depending on whether the business is in the trading, manufacturing or services sectors. 

HIV on the rise in the region

A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.

New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.

Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.

Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.  

Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.

Motori Profile

Date started: March 2020

Co-founder/CEO: Ahmed Eissa

Based: UAE, Abu Dhabi

Sector: Insurance Sector

Size: 50 full-time employees (Inside and Outside UAE)

Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing 

Investors: Safe City Group

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Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Director: Venkat Prabhu
Rating: 2/5
Hotel Data Cloud profile

Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Emergency phone numbers in the UAE

Estijaba – 8001717 –  number to call to request coronavirus testing

Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111

Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre

Emirates airline – 600555555

Etihad Airways – 600555666

Ambulance – 998

Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
While you're here
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The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000

Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000

Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent

Gothia Cup 2025

4,872 matches 

1,942 teams

116 pitches

76 nations

26 UAE teams

15 Lebanese teams

2 Kuwaiti teams