The Tories will have got their core vote out in parts of the constituency like Mount Vernon – very nice, thank you very much. I agree with those who have concluded that you can only squeeze their vote so far. There was no sign of an active presence on the streets.

On the other hand, there were SNP activists everywhere. Their tails are up and they rightly believe that, in the central belt, Labour are there for the taking. Alex Salmond is running rings around the old Labour dinosaurs and the Nu Labour technocrats.

Labour should be hearing alarm bells. They have paid so little attention to their campaign machine that, when the lever marked ‘go’ is pulled, it breaks off. Rumours of catastrophic falls in membership numbers imply that they simply don’t have the activist numbers of years gone by. To be blunt, a lack of inspiration generates a lack of perspiration.

I know that the campaign team in Glasgow East are genuinely disappointed. They did what they could, didn’t hype up expectations and showed a lot of spirit. The lessons learnt will be put to good use, I suspect.

So, what will happen? Labour will probably gain the seat back, as I don’t believe that the SNP can resist the temptation to take on Labour everywhere. On the other hand, if Alex Salmond can keep the show on the road in Holyrood, there will be Labour losses.

Otherwise, the result says little that we didn’t already know. Labour are unpopular and the public want to give them a kicking. My only question is, are we going to get our studs on and join in?

Thanks for confirming that.

However, as I’ve said to Anonymous, it would, as several others have suggested, be more polite, helpful and credible if he were to adopt a slightly more distinctive pseudonym than the one he’s currently using.

Seeing as this is a thread about the by-election maybe we could get back to the topic and ask how relevant is it in the overall scale of events?; will the SNP retain the seat at the general election?; was it the sun(shine) wot swung it?

With pretty much every post of yours I’ve seen, you have made some criticism of the Party. So I think “negative” is a fair characterisation of your posts overall. That was _one_ of the reasons I thought you were lying about being a member.

Pretty much every other poster on this site has different views to me, and I by no means support everything that the Party does.

Big of you!

But having just apologised for suggesting I was a Tory, apparently now you’re going to characterise my posts as “negative”.

Can’t you just accept that some people in the party have opinions that are different from yours?

Undoubtably though, one remains happier if one makes constructive comments.

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Apart from the new right-wing line coming from the leadership at Westminster, the party I’m involved with locally is much the same as it always has been, and to a large extent is run by the same people who were running it 10 or 20 years ago.

For that reason, I am doubtful that the silent majority is particularly enthusiastic about the new policies. Though, to be fair, a lot of ordinary party members and helpers are not highly “political”, in my experience.

But I really do think some of the younger members confuse the febrile arguments that go on in cyberspace with the flesh-and-blood realities.

Paul Walter has regular discussions with his commenters on exactly this point, perhaps you could take some advice there.

He usually follows the line that if you’ve got nothing positive to say then its not worth saying, so anon should at least try to play the game of being constructive.

It seems maybe I’m about to be proved wrong about your membership of the party, and for that I do apologise. P’raps I got you wrong: you must have a pretty joyless time in the Party, and I’m sorry for that too as no one wants to be a member of something that just frustrates them.

OK, I’ve sent my membership details to Lib Dem Voice, so you should be getting the confirmation you seem so desperate for.

For the reference of others – it’s not necessary to provide an email address when posting here. And I very much doubt whether the staff of Lib Dem Voice spend their time checking the IP address of every post – let alone deleting all the posts where there is a discrepancy!

How many damn times do I have to say this: It’s nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with you. I just object to people posting and pretending to be members of a party because they believe this adds weight to their comments, or is more “damaging”. If you’re not doing that, I apologies profusely, but I think many would agree it’s not surprising I think this. And no, I don’t challange every anonymous, and wouldn’t want to (and I don’t really care who you are) but you’re a repeat poster who makes a point of specifically saying you’re a Lib Dem.

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On the techical side; nothing to stop anyone posting as someone else’s name – or pseudonym – apart from the email address you use and the IP address of the computer(s) you use, both of which I’m sure are visible to the moderators. So they know who the real Grammar Police is because he always uses the same email address and 2 IP addresses.