Labour’s ‘fightback’

BUOYANT SNP strategists were confident that the party’s landslide Holyrood election triumph could provide the springboard for a shock victory in the Inverclyde by-election less than two months later.

The Nationalists had come within a whisker of capturing the equivalent Holyrood seat in May, prompting optimism that a 14,400 Labour majority could be overturned in the Westminster constituency.

The Labour majority fell to 5,800, but it held the seat so comfortably that victor Iain McKenzie even declared that the party’s fightback in Scotland had begun.