Glasgow Cathcart by-election 2005

'The real significance of the results tonight is that we are the only party challenging Labour in Scotland and the only party to make progress across the two by-elections.' SNP leader Alex Salmond MP, 30 th September 2005.

SNP licking their wounds as Labour scrape past the posts

By Ian Swanson, Scottish Political Editor in the Evening News 30 th September 2005

SCOTTISH Nationalists were today facing up to their failure to win either of the crucial by- elections which provided Scotland's biggest electoral test since the General Election in May.

And Labour breathed a sigh of relief that they had seen off the Nationalist challenge in both Livingston and Cathcart, holding on to both seats, though with massively-reduced majorities.

Senior health union official Jim Devine was elected MP for Livingston, succeeding Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary who died of a heart attack while hillwalking in August.

Labour's majority was slashed from 13,000 to just 2680 but the SNP, which mounted a strong campaign on local issues such as the future of St John's Hospital and planned cuts in night-time fire cover, failed to make good on predictions they could take the seat despite a ten per cent swing.

In Cathcart, former Glasgow council leader Charlie Gordon was elected as Labour MSP to replace Mike Watson, the Labour peer now serving 16 months for fire-raising at an Edinburgh hotel.

Labour's majority was halved to 2405, but the SNP achieved just a 3.7 per cent swing despite the adverse publicity for Labour from Lord Watson's case.

Mr Devine said: "This is a very important win. When the Tories were in government, they were losing by-elections on a regular basis to the opposition parties."

He said the SNP had predicted victory in Livingston and Cathcart, but had failed to win either. "This is a major crisis for the leadership of the SNP," he said.

And Livingston MSP Bristow Muldoon pointed out that the Nationalists' share of the vote was slightly below what they achieved in the seat at the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections.

He said: "Rather than going forward, the SNP are celebrating yet another second place after a long line of second places over the last 40 years."

And he played down Labour's reduced majority, arguing by-elections were quite different from general elections. "If this had been a general election and Jim was the candidate, there would be a five-figure majority," he said.

But SNP leader Alex Salmond claimed if the Livingston swing were repeated across the country in the 2007 Holyrood elections, it would deliver his party 28 seats.

"The real significance of the results tonight is that we are the only party challenging Labour in Scotland and the only party to make progress across the two by-elections," he said.

SNP Livingston candidate Angela Constance said she was disappointed not to have won, but was encouraged by the result and would live to fight another day.

She said: "Obviously we would have preferred to have come first, but we have had a great result.

"In the last few days, I detected a wind of change in Livingston and I'm going to make sure it continues to blow in our direction. This sets us up very nicely for 2007.

"I run marathons and every race I run I get a bit faster. I owe West Lothian a lot and I hope to repay West Lothian in kind.

"We have had an absolute blast of a campaign and the local issues and concerns are still with us. I will continue to serve the community."

In both seats, the turn-out was down dramatically. Less than one in three voters in Cathcart took the trouble to vote, the lowest turnout for a Scottish Parliament election since devolution in 1999. In Livingston, turn-out fell from 58.5 per cent to 38.6 per cent.