Labour's Glasgow win has lots of silver lining

I'd forgotten how it used to sound waking up to the Today programme announcing a comfortable Labour victory, as occurred last night in Glasgow North East. Congratulations are due to the team involved and to the new Labour MP, William Bain. As well as being a Labour victory, there's plenty more to savour in the result. The pretty poor SNP score - a sobering result for Alec Salmond with barely a fifth of the votes. The Tories barely holding their deposit. And the Lib Dems getting 474 votes, less than either the BNP or Tommy Sheridan in his latest party, Solidarity. This was also a particularly dire result for the Jury Team of no-policy independents, which had fielded the Glasgow Airport hero John Smeaton. Running on what might be called the Esther Rantzen ticket, he got just 258 votes. There's hope for politics yet, even if last night's result proves to be a rare piece of good news for Labour.