GORDON BROWN scored a significant personal triumph yesterday as Labour fought off the nationalist challenge to win the Glenrothes byelection with a surprisingly comfortable majority of 6,737, reports Frank MillarLondon Editor
Just weeks ago the byelection date and a widely predicted Labour defeat had been tipped as the likely launch pad for a damaging internal Labour rebellion against Mr Brown's troubled leadership. Even Brown loyalists had been reduced to hoping that seemingly inevitable disaster in the prime minister's neighbouring constituency in Fife would be overshadowed by the excitement generated by Barack Obama's victory in the US presidential election.
Yet, on the day, Mr Brown's decision to ignore convention and campaign in the byelection was rewarded with a victory for Labour candidate Lindsay Roy that marked the end of a long "honeymoon" for a Scottish National Party forced to run on its own record as the "incumbent" Scottish government at Holyrood.
Relieved and delighted at this confirmation of the "Brown bounce" registered in a succession of opinion polls, the prime minister hailed the Glenrothes outcome as a vote of confidence in his government's handling of the economic crisis.
Meanwhile, SNP leader and Scottish first minister Alex Salmond felt obliged to take personal responsibility for his party's failure to repeat its spectacular success in taking Glasgow East from Labour last July.
Mr Salmond accused Labour of conducting a "scaremongering" campaign over rising home-care charges introduced by the local SNP-led council, while admitting his normally sure political touch had failed him and that he had not had his "finger on the political temperature" in this constituency.
While Glenrothes saw a five- point swing to the SNP, Labour also managed to increase its share of the vote for the first time in a byelection since the 1970s.
In that sense it was "a historic night" for Labour, according to Scottish secretary Jim Murphy, who described the outcome as "a very strong personal endorsement of Gordon Brown at a time of unprecedented economic difficulties facing the whole world".
Although his party's third-placed candidate lost his deposit, Conservative leader David Cameron effectively welcomed Labour's victory. "The real loser is the Scottish National Party, and as they want to break up our country, to destroy the union that I'm passionate about, then maybe it's no bad thing that the 'Salmond bounce' has disappeared."
While impressed at Labour's recovery in the face of the international crisis, most commentators are agreed that the Glenrothes result tells little about the likely outcome of a general election that need not be held until June 2010.
Mr Cameron is confident Mr Brown's apparent recovery will not survive a recession which was again this week predicted to be deeper and longer in Britain than elsewhere in Europe.
Electoral confirmation of a real "Brown bounce" will, on the other hand, prompt some Tory strategists to contemplate a possible election victory by a considerably smaller margin than suggested by opinion poll leads of 20 points and more earlier this year. That in turn will increase interest in the Conservative Party's strained relationship with the DUP's nine MPs at Westminster - and Mr Cameron's proposed electoral pact with Sir Reg Empey's Ulster Unionists. The Irish Times understands both have agreed the creation of a joint Conservative-Unionist committee to oversee the forthcoming European and Westminster elections, with Mr Cameron and Sir Reg jointly nominating candidates.
Speaking ahead of a visit to Brussels, Mr Brown said: "What I have learned from this byelection is that people are prepared to support governments that will help people through the downturn and offer real help to people. They are less willing to support people who have no idea about how to solve the problems we have got."