It took only a few hours for Labour's Glasgow citadel to crumble to the ground after years of uninterrupted mismanagement and contempt for Scotland's largest city. At 3am this morning, Patrick Grady became the first SNP MP elected for the party in Glasgow during a General Election, when he ousted Anne McKechin from the Glasgow North constituency by a margin of almost two to one.
After that unprecedented event, all of Glasgow's sitting Labour MPs – most of whom thought they would be in a cushy job for life – tumbled like shaking dominoes. Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran was next to be resolutely voted out by the scunnered voters of Glasgow East, the poorest, most deprived constituency in the UK. Not far behind, both in time and in the scale of endemic deprivation of the constituency, was Willie Bain, who 'nominally' represented Glasgow North East. With electoral swings that broke British records, Ian Davidson, Tom Harris, Anas Sarwar and John Robertson were all swiftly removed from their seats by the long-suffering people of Glasgow.
As the defeated and clearly shocked Labour MPs departed the count at the Emirates Arena – itself a shining symbol of how Labour has abandoned its once-proud working class history in the pursuit of style over substance – only a few party supporters remained to hear the SNP victory speeches.
Natalie McGarry, the newly-elected MP for Glasgow East by an overwhelming 10,387 votes, overturning a Labour lead of 11,840 votes, said:
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"I would like to thank the constituency for placing their trust in me. My pledge to you is to be accessible and vocal on your behalf but also listening and active.
This victory is not for me alone; it is for every mother who has queued for a food bank, every member of the disabled community who has had benefits slashed, and for every lone parent who has suffered at the hands of austerity.
Whatever your opinion on Scotland's future may be, we have a lot of work to do. This election is about sharing the voices of people who live in Glasgow East.
We will fight for an end to austerity and the cuts tearing people's lives apart and some community like those in the east end. "
On a night of unrelenting failure, humiliation and embarrassment for the party, Jim Murphy, the Glasgow-born leader of Scottish Labour, lost his seat in East Renfrewshire after his 10,000 majority was unceremoniously overturned by the SNP's Kirsten Oswald. Following Murphy's defeat, ex-Labour MPs called for the Scottish Labour leader – who won his first Westminster election under Tony Blair – to resign immediately.
Across Scotland, the SNP won 56 of 59 Westminster seats.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon with her 'magnificent seven' Glasgow MPs.
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Labour Routed In Glasgow, Every Labour MP in city loses their seat 
8th May 2015, 07:43am.gif)
