Gordon Brown sought to dampen speculation he may hold an early general election in the wake of Labour’s victory in the Glenrothes poll today.

The Prime Minister insisted his “undivided focus” was on the global economic downturn. Speaking to reporters in Downing Street, Mr Brown said: “What I have learnt 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. My undivided focus is on mortgage holders who are having difficulties, homeowners worried about their homes, people worried about their jobs, people worried about gas and electricity prices.

“We’ve got a global recession that I believe we in Britain are dealing with as fairly as we can and will continue to take the measures that will give real help to people in difficult circumstances.”

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, 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.”

“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 Scottish Deputy First Minister admitted she was “deeply disappointed” at the party’s failure to take the seat.

But she insisted: “There are upsides in this, the vote of the SNP went up by 13 per cent from the last general election, we secured a 5 per cent swing and we slashed Labour’s majority.

Labour defied predictions to hold the seat it won with a 10,664 majority in 2005.

Lindsay Roy, 59, secured the win with 19,946 votes — a majority of 6,737. The SNP came second with 13,209. Maurice Golden, the Conservative candidate, was third with 1,381, and Harry Wills, of the Liberal Democrats, was fourth with 947.

Mr Roy, headmaster of Mr Brown’s old school, held off a fierce challenge from the Peter Grant, of the SNP, to increase Labour’s working majority in the Commons to 63.

Labour had mounted a ferocious effort yesterday to get out the party vote and may have been helped, however slightly, by news from London that interest rates had been cut by 1.5 percentage points.

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