Gordon Brown suffered his most severe byelection setback in a summer of electoral routs early this morning as the Scottish National party won a dramatic victory in the Glasgow East contest, taking the once staunch Labour seat with a majority of 365 votes.
In its third byelection humiliation in nine weeks, Labour saw its majority of more than 13,000 evaporate in a swing of more than 22% to the SNP, a reversal even more chastening than the loss of Crewe and Nantwich in May on a 17% swing.
This, despite their desperate negative campaigning that, for some reason, the Guardian called "confident" and Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, as a "Marmite" leader. Either Brown is the real marmite or the Scots have acquired a taste for it.
Cameron's calling for a snap election. Surely Brown is not going to last out the full term of parliament (not even the abbreviated "full" term of 4 years).
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