Glenrothes by-election: Brown hails Labour success

Published on Friday 7 November 2008 09:28

GORDON Brown hailed Labour's victory in today's Glenrothes by-election as a vote of confidence for the Government's response to the economic downturn.

Speaking to reporters in Downing Street, the Prime Minister said: "What I have learned from this by-election is that people are prepared to support Governments that will help people through the downturn and offer real help to people.

"They are less willing to support people who have no idea about how to solve the problems we have got."

Mr Brown also restated his call for banks to pass on yesterday's interest rate cut to customers and insisted that monetary policy would be supported by fiscal policy.

The Glenrothes result was hailed as a "strong personal endorsement" for Mr Brown, who broke with recent convention and campaigned twice in the seat, which neighbours his own.

Labour candidate Lindsay Roy comfortably held Glenrothes with a majority of 6,737 over Scottish National Party candidate Peter Grant.

Scots Secretary Jim Murphy hailed the by-election as a "remarkable result" for his party.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland he said: "It's the first time since the 1970s that Labour in a seat that it's held has actually increased its share of the vote in a by-election. So it's an historic night in that sense."

And he said: "The main reason would be that we had a Prime Minister who personally campaigned in the constituency, there's a great appreciation for the work that Gordon is doing and will continue to do.

"There's also a demand by the voters to see which of the parties has an answer to the big questions. The Labour Party under Gordon's leadership has answers to these big and difficult economic questions."

The Scottish Secretary continued: "The fact remains the SNP predicted, boasted, they would win this by-election.

"In fact Labour has increased its share of the vote and increased its number of votes from the last general election.

"The fact is it's a remarkable victory for Labour. It's the best victory we've had in Scotland since the 1970s in terms of the statistics and its a very strong personal endorsement of Gordon Brown at a time of unprecedented economic difficulties facing the whole world."

He added: "When we lost the Glasgow East by-election I was honest enough to say it was a dreadful result, but yesterday is a remarkable result and the SNP should have the honesty to acknowledge that this morning."

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader, said: "While we're disappointed not to have won this election we increased out vote by 13% on the last election.

"So it's disappointing but by no stretch of the imagination can it be seen as a reverse for the SNP.

"There are upsides in this, the vote of the SNP went up by 13% from the last general election, we secured a 5% swing and we slashed Labour's majority.

"I won't pretend not to be deeply disappointed, I want to win every election we contest. But we did make progress last night."

MORE GLENROTHES BY-ELECTION COVERAGE:

• Big Glenrothes by-election win for Labour rocks Nationalists

• Analysis: PM slams the brakes on Salmond's momentum

• In pictures: Scenes from the Fife Institute in Glenrothes

• Gerri Peev's by-election blog