With a 13,500 Labour majority, Glasgow East is as unwinnable for the SNP as Crewe was for the Tories. Expectation here in Edinburgh is that the election will take place next month, and will be a test as to whether Salmond can take a big a chunk out of Brown in the north as Cameron can in the south. Glasgow East is one of these places where life expectancy is closer to Bagdad than Kent. It is perhaps the most deprived and socialised constituency in Britain and probably Western Europe. For Labour to lose this would be truly totemic.
And there’s more. You may remember reading in Ben Brogan’s blog a while ago that the SNP was preparing for a by-election because a Scottish Labour MP was ill. Well, that was another MP who is still expected to stand down. And his seat is now rife nationalist territory. David Marshall’s resignation (and, for that matter, Wee Wendy’s) took Westminster by surprise.
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