Labour officials are in high spirits after last night. I am told that Labour’s 59 per cent share of the vote in the Glasgow North East by-election was the second-highest result for an incumbent government since 1982 (the highest was Wigan in 1999).
Guess who the loser was in that particular by-election, at the height of the Falklands War?
It was of course Tony Blair, who lost his deposit. The Tory candidate romped home with 62 per cent of the votes, almost certainly unaware that he had just trashed a future prime minister.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey