Like most East Coast Scots, I have only a passing knowledge of the East side of Glasgow. My view of the political culture of Strathclyde as a whole has been pretty jaundiced. Historically it has had a very nasty political culture, dominated by a single party practising machine politics and indulging in every conceivable form of corruption – known in Glasgow as graft. As individuals, the politicians that system has produced have been the nastiest and least principled of their breed. If I tell you that by local standards John Reid is considered charming, that should give some measure of the scope of the problem. This was borne out last night by the graceless vituperation of the defeated New Labour candidate, the shrew-faced bitch Margaret Curran, who made the least pleasant candidate’s speech since the rotten-toothed Doug Hoyle spat his foul-mouthed venom at Roy Jenkins in Warrington.

For a small inner city seat the declaration came remarkably late, and was delayed still further by a pointless Labour demand for a full recount (which slightly increased the Scot Nat majority). A friend of mine at the count overheard a conversation which led her to believe that New Labour were deliberately holding everything up to try to ensure that the result was too late for the later editions of the London newspapers. I was watching events live on Sky News, and Adam Boulton repeatedly expressed consternation at the delays to the count and the apparently lackadaisical attitude of the returning officers. They of course would be from the New Labour controlled regional council. In Blackburn at the last election I encountered continual bias from the New Labour hack officials running the election. It is an essential reform in the UK for election administration to be taken out of the hands of the highly politically partisan local authority chief executives who are normally the returning officers, and for the role of the Electoral Commission to be extended to the actual running of the elections.

Anyway, very well done to the voters of Glasgow East for ditching the numptie war criminals at last and moving towards a more hopeful future for Scotland.