Dunfermline & West Fife by-election 2006

'This result is seriously bad news for Gordon Brown, who lives in the constituency. He campaigned heavily and his lieutenant, Alistair Darling, was running the campaign.' A senior Labour backbench MP, 10 th February 2006.

Has Brown's march to No.10 stalled on home turf?

From the Evening News 10 th February 2006

AS the post-mortem continued at Labour HQ today, Westminster tea rooms buzzed with talk of a "catastrophic" result for Gordon Brown.

One senior Labour left-wing Commons backbencher said: "This result is seriously bad news for Gordon Brown, who lives in the constituency.

"He campaigned heavily and his lieutenant, Alistair Darling, was running the campaign."

Another senior Blairite backbencher said: "He may well have missed his chance to become leader. However, the loss of 700 jobs at Lexmark and the proposal to quadruple Forth Road Bridge tolls had a big effect.

"It was obviously bad news for Labour but it was catastrophic for the Chancellor. It was also bad news for David Cameron. He's supposed to be rebuilding the Conservative Party, but they only just hung on to their deposit."

It was Labour's first by-election defeat in Scotland since 1988 - and the Liberal Democrats' first by-election victory in Scotland since 1991.

But while accepting "full responsibility" for the result, Alistair Darling publicly defended Brown. He said: "Yesterday, people were sending off a very clear message about a range of matters - they weren't electing a Government," he said.

"When they elected a Government eight months ago, we had a good majority in Dunfermline and West Fife and Gordon had a good majority in his seat."