Glaasgow NE - the result

There is jubilation in the Labour camp, that they have (comfortably) held on to one of their safest seats, (with about 20% of the electorate voting for them!). There is disappointment for the SNP, that they ended well short of beating Labour.

The Tories saved their deposit and gathered 5.2% of votes cast, which means that just under 2% of the electorate voted for them. As they had not stood there previously, it is difficult to see whether or not they had made any progress. The BNP came fourth, Solidarity fifth, so both will be disappointed, and both lost their deposits.

The most disappointed party must be the LimpDems, who received only 474 votes, which made them as marginal as the Greens. Their share of the vote was 2.3%, and they lost their deposit. This vote share means that only 0.8% of the electorate voted for them, or less than one in a hundred.

The general conclusions must be that Labour are relieved, but given that they were supported by less than 20% of the electorate, who could be relied upon to put a cross against even a monkey with the word "Labour" indicated, this is not a ringing endorsement. (Labour had pulled out all the stops, including more than doubling the number of postal votes.)

The other point to be made is that voters were massively uninterested, despite the postal votes, and the turn out at 33% was a record low for a Scottish by- election.