HOWZAT

The Nationalists had made the rises in the cost of living their main pitch to voters. Labour had concentrated on local issues, attempting to ignore the travails of Mr Brown and maintaining the focus of its campaign very much on Ms Curran.

The by-election was called after David Marshall, the sitting Labour MP, who first won the constituency in 1979, announced his retirement on the grounds of ill-health.

A running theme of the campaign has been the portrayal of the constituency by the media, which is alleged to have concentrated on statistics about deprivation and poverty.

All parties have agreed that such representation, particularly on the part of English-based journalists, has misrepresented progress in the constituency on housing and schools and has given outsiders a misleading image of the people of Glasgow East as benefit cheats, leading lives dominated by alcohol, drugs and violence.

The decision by Gordon Brown not to visit Glasgow East during the campaign has troubled Labour, although the Prime Minister has argued that he was merely abiding by the convention that Prime Ministers do not get embroiled in by-election campaigns.

By contrast, Mr Salmond has been a regular visitor to Glasgow East over the past three weeks while David Cameron, the Tory leader, made one campaign visit, as did Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader

Full result

SNP 11,277

Lab 10,912

Tory 1,639

Lib Dem 915

Majority 365

Turnout 42.25

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