SCOTLAND: The Labour Party has taunted the Scottish National Party over Alex Salmond's leadership after seeing off a double byelection challenge in Scotland.
Scottish secretary Alistair Darling all but invited the SNP to dump Mr Salmond, claiming Thursday night's results showed the party going nowhere.
"The nationalists are on a downward slide under Salmond's leadership," Mr Darling told a Labour victory press conference in Glasgow yesterday.
In two byelections, Labour held on to the Livingston constituency made vacant by the death of Robin Cook, but saw its majority there fall from 13,000 to just 2,680.
It also held on to Glasgow Cathcart, a Scottish parliament seat which was made vacant by the resignation of Labour peer Lord Watson, now serving 16 months for fire-raising at an Edinburgh hotel, but saw its majority fall from 5,112 in May 2003 to just 2,405 last night.
In both constituencies, Labour saw off a determined SNP challenge but on poor turnouts; in the case of Cathcart, the lowest turnout, just under 32 per cent, for a Scottish parliament election since the onset of devolution in 1999.
The SNP increased its percentage share of the vote in the low turnout, but in absolute terms its vote stayed roughly the same.
Mr Salmond said the Livingston swing of 10 per cent would deliver his party 28 seats if it was replicated at the 2007 Holyrood election.
"The real significance of the results is that we are the only party challenging Labour in Scotland and the only party to make progress across the two byelections," he said.
He insisted he was delighted by the results and predicted that the SNP would become the largest party in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, making him first minister if he returned to Holyrood as planned. - (PA)