Independence and Glasgow East

Since the announcement of the SNP victory in the early hours of Friday morning, there has been much speculation on blogs and in the media about why the SNP won and Labour lost. The reasons given have been many and varied, but there seems to be some consensus amongst all commentators that the one thing the by election wasn't was a vote on independence.

However in an interview with the Scottish edition of the Sunday Express, the architect of the victory, SNP First Minister Alex Salmond shatters this consensus by explaining how independence was an important part of the party's election strategy.

Meanwhile, Mr Salmond also revealed that an independence poll in Glasgow East showed 46 per cent were in favour of breaking up the Union, with just 28 per cent against and 26 per cent undecided, although he admitted there was still a lot to do before that vote was repeated across the country.

He said: “Unbeknown to virtually every commentator we polled the whole of Glasgow East on independence and got very, very encouraging results. The fact the independence vote was higher than SNP vote and the SNP vote was pretty high! We’ve got work to do but its very encouraging, that in what was previously regarded as a heartland area there is so much support for independence.”