 | 'The SNP made much of Mr Brown's troubles and the recent rise in the cost of living and tried to make it a competition between a comparatively popular SNP administration at Holyrood and a deeply unpopular Labour Government at Westminster.' Philip Webster and Angus Macleod in the Australian, 25 th July 2008. |  |
GORDON Brown's worst nightmare was realised yesterday as one of Labour's safest seats fell to the Scottish National Party with a swing of 22 per cent.
The hopes of Labour strategists that their disastrous run of electoral setbacks was about toend were dashed as the SNP's John Mason took the long-timeLabour stronghold of Glasgow East.
Mr Mason, a Glasgow councillor, overturned Labour's 13,507 majority at the 2005 general election to win by 365 votes, unseating Labour's Margaret Curran. Turnout was just over 42per cent compared with 48 per cent in 2005. Labour requested a recount, which delayed the result's announcement by an hour.
It was the worst possible result for Mr Brown as he prepared for a summer holiday and tried to chart a plan for his own and Labour's recovery.
The result will intensify doubts about Mr Brown's ability to win a general election and could spell trouble at Labour's conference in the northern autumn, when a weakened Prime Minister will have trouble getting his way on a range of policy issues.
Many MPs and key ministers leave for their holidays this weekend and with the Commons not sitting for months the chances of a challenge to Mr Brown are slim. But MPs are likely to be spending a lot of time on the telephone to each other as they ponder ways of easing their party's plight.
Cabinet ministers already admit privately that any move to unseat Mr Brown would make the party appear consumed by internal affairs rather than dealing with the nation's problems, and could end up losing the party votes rather than gaining them.
Other ministers say a change of leadership over the next year could at least cut Labour's losses at the 2010 election.
Most believe the crunch will come in the first half of next year if the local elections are again poor for Labour and the party is then only one year out from the general election.
Ms Curran was widely seen as a strong candidate and fought a deliberately local campaign to try to keep the spotlight off the party nationally. While Ms Curran often campaigned on her own, despite the arrival in Glasgow of a shoal of ministers and MPs, Mr Mason was often flanked by SNP leader Alex Salmond and other party figures.
But she could not fight the tide of discontent with Mr Brown and his Government. As a result, Labour's Commons majority falls to 63, its lowest since 1997.
The SNP made much of Mr Brown's troubles and the recent rise in the cost of living and tried to make it a competition between a comparatively popular SNP administration at Holyrood and a deeply unpopular Labour Government at Westminster.
Labour has endured two previous by-election losses in recent months and seen support plummet to record lows in the opinion polls, while Mr Brown himself has been under pressure because of the rising cost of living, his administration's recent economic record and his own leadership style.
Mr Brown, born and raised in nearby Govan and barely a year into the job, would lose his own seat were the 22.54 per cent swing replicated in a general election, Britain's Press Association said.
In that scenario, Labour would be left with just one parliamentarian in all of Scotland, compared with 40 after the 2005 general election, according to PA calculations, with Defence Secretary Des Browne, Finance Minister Alistair Darling and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander all losing their seats.
Mr Salmond claimed that it was the first by-election for 20 years where the cost of living had been a dominant issue. Right from the start, he had said his party was set to pull off a "political earthquake".
Mr Mason said in his victory speech: "This SNP victory is not just a political earthquake ... It is an epic win, and the tremors are being felt all the way to Downing Street."
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