It was a contest that Labour was always going to win, so it's no surprise that Iain McKenzie won the Inverclyde by-election with a majority of 5,838 last night.
McKenzie hailed the victory as "stunning" for Labour - something of an exaggeration, I feel, but certainly a good hold for them given the SNP's dominance in the May elections.
The real story of the night, however, was the Lib Dems losing their deposit. The party's share of the vote fell by nearly ten points, meaning that their candidate, Sophie Bridger, won only 627 votes, compared with 5,007 at the general election last year. There's really no way they can spin this - it was a terrible defeat. And this won't be the last time this happens, so it'll be interesting to see what the strategy for dealing with this is going to be.
Iain McKenzie (Labour) - 15,118
Anne McLaughlin (SNP) - 9,280
David Wilson (Conservative) - 2,784
Sophie Bridger (Lib Dem) - 627
Mitch Sorbie (UKIP) - 288
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