The region of Glasgow has always been a fairly settled land in terms of who would be returned at Holyrood elections.

In 1999, Labour won all 10 FPTP seats while the SNP took 4 regional, with 1 apiece for Lib Dems, Tories and SSP
In 2003, the only change was an extra SSP and Green at the expense of the SNP
In 2007, the only change from 2003 was the SNP taking Glasgow Govan and retaking 4 regional seats, at the expense of the Socialists

However, the announcement that George Galloway will be standing this year can make what is becoming a crowded field increasingly difficult to predict the winners from.

There are two schools of thought on Gorgeous George – one is that he is a busted flush and the other is that he is a formidable talent that is yet to be fully utilised. I will take a rather wimpy position and say that he is both.

The man’s oratory skills are electrifying, one need only look at the punishment he levelled out in the US to believe that. However, with no party machine behind him, George will always have to scrap and scrape his way to election victory and with the 2011 election very much an SNP vs Labour head-to-head, he will struggle to even get noticed, let alone elected. The man’s days in Parliament may well be behind him. The key factor as to whether George will make it into Holyrood is whether Glasgow voters blindly go with a wasted Labour-Labour vote or instead are savvy enough to opt for Labour-George Galloway on their ballot slips.

Not that it is only George who will be feeling the pressure.

The Lib Dems don’t have to slip by too much to lose their perennial single seat here, the dear green place of Glasgow may soon find itself without a Green MSP if it’s not careful and Tory blue is also at risk of falling by the wayside if its old vote doesn’t hold firm. Their fate will largely be dictated by the strength of the Socialist vote in Scotland’s second city and to what extent Glaswegians back the SNP to stop Iain gray becoming First Minister.

The Socialists should hope for a strong showing in light of a Conservative Government, unpopular cuts and Labour voters finally working out that a second vote for Labour is a wasted one. It is interesting to note that Labour took a massive 42.6% of the regional vote in 2007 with no MSPs to show for it).

However, there are now three options on the ballot for that far-left choice – Solidarity, Scottish Socialist Party and George Galloway. It looks entirely possible that the far-left have still not learned the lessons of the past and are fragmenting their precious vote share, shooting themselves in the collective foot. What an irony it would be if a splintered socialist vote allowed a Conservative to nab the 7th regional spot.

Exacerbating this problem for the far-left is that Tommy Sheridan’s well-publicised (alleged) bed-hopping exploits will probably ensure that he doesn’t come as close to Patrick Harvie as he managed in 2007, assuming Tommy’s is the top name on the Solidarity list. It seems, regrettably, that the firebrand politician now has a great future behind him.

So, prediction time again, and on the assumption of Labour winning 8 FPTP seats and the SNP winning 1, I predict the breakdown of number of votes/regional seats to go like this:

Number of regional votes – Party – 2011 (2007)
Labour 70,000 (78,838)
SNP 46,000 (55,832)
Lib Dems 12,000 (14,767)
Conservatives 14,000 (13,781)
Greens 13,000 (10,759)
SSP 4,000 (2,579)
Solidarity 10,000 (8,574)
George Galloway 4,000 (-)

1 – SNP (Humza Yousaf)
2 – SNP (Bob Doris)
3 – Conservatives (?)
4 – Green (Patrick Harvie)
5 – Lib Dem (Katy Gordon)
6 – SNP (Sandra White)
7 – Solidarity/SSP (Tommy Sheridan?)

8 – SNP

Of course, one more SNP seat at the expense of the Socialists (a vote share that even I believe I may be overegging) would mean the prediction effectively becomes the same result as in 2007 which, to be fair, wouldn’t be all that surprising.