From Glasgow to Warwick, Gordon Brown's life is not about to get easier

Last Modified: 25 Jul 2008
By: Newsroom blogger

Inside the morning meeting...

"Obviously, there's one big story around today," says the programme editor not referring, as it turns out, to the pet rabbit who rescued a couple from a house fire in Australia.

The story the prog ed is thinking of is the Glasgow East by-election, where Labour suffered yet another mid-term defeat. Post-local elections, post-mayoral elections, post-Crewe and Nantwich, it's a bitter and unexpected blow.

Indeed if last night's result was extrapolated across Scotland, Gordon Brown would lose his own seat at the next election. Not that election arithmetic quite works like that.

Labour sources were briefing last night of victory. But this morning the bare facts are these: a 22.5 per cent swing to the SNP in the third safest seat in Scotland and the 25th safest Labour seat anywhere.

Indeed if last night's result was extrapolated across Scotland, Gordon Brown would lose his own seat at the next election. Not that election arithmetic quite works like that.

But life doesn't get easier for the prime minister. Brown is in Warwick today for a summit with the unions. He speaks at around midday and Gary Gibbon, our political editor, is on his way now.

The unions, newly emboldened by their increasing financial clout, will be asking for concessions. They may not want a Tory government but they do have a shopping list of demands. Our coverage will touch on this.

Meanwhile, our north of England correspondent Nick Martin is headed to Glasgow. Lots of threads for him to pick up.

Among them: how did the Labour machine read it so wrong? Did Alex Salmond and the SNP play a blinder or were they just the recipients of a protest vote? And would the pet rabbit have fared any better?