Pizzas galore!

“We need to build on what we have been doing - and we planned to do that in any event - but we also need to hold our nerve and hold the course on the longer-term issues.”

Mrs Curran admitted that the Labour Party must learn the lessons of her defeat. “I do believe the Labour Party has to listen and has to hear the message from the people of Glasgow East," she said.

The timing of the election at the start of the long summer recess prevents an immediate coup but it also provides Labour MPs with weeks to reflect on a string of defeats.

Most worrying of all for Labour is the high turn-outs in both the Glasgow East and Crewe & Nantwich polls, indicating voters are increasingly motivated to bloody the party’s nose.

Expert View

No-one can possibly overestimate the scale of the disaster which hit Gordon Brown and Labour in Glasgow East

Angus Macleod, Scottish Political Editor

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Related Links

• Analysis: how Labour lost, and what it means

• Chilly Southwold: a match for Gordon's mood?

• Harriet Harman: running Britain

Multimedia

• Daniel Finkelstein - it really does matter

• Brown's reaction

Mr Brown now has less than two months before Labour’s party conference to turn around his fortunes. But with opinion polls indicating that he is more unpopular than his party, his authority is significantly weakened. The success or otherwise of a Cabinet reshuffle, expected at the start of September, could decide his fate.

Full result

SNP 11,277

Lab 10,912

Tory 1,639

Lib Dem 915

Majority 365

Turnout 42.25

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