"Once again Labour, and Gordon Brown in particular, are taking the voters for granted in Glasgow East and think they can pull the wool over their eyes. The fact is that there is no convention for Prime Ministers to avoid by-elections. Tony Blair visited three – Uxbridge, Eddisbury and Hamilton South.”

The SNP’s candidate, Councillor John Mason, today campaigned on the party’s small business record with Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth John Swinney. “In 2007 the SNP promised we would reduce the business rates burden for small businesses when we were Government. We’re in Government and we’ve delivered on that promise,” he said.

The Scottish Conservatives focussed crime. Candidate Davena Rankin said: “In Labour’s Glasgow, there is now a serious assault every four hours, a rape or attempted rape or indecent assault every 20 hours, and a drug crime every single hour. To have presided over such a breakdown is a disgrace. Labour has let down the most vulnerable and this has been going on for far too long.”

Gordon Brown received some rare good news from an opinion poll yesterday that showed Labour on course to win. The ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Mirror - the first to be conducted within the constituency - put Labour on 47 per cent, 14 points clear of the second place Scottish National Party on 33 per cent. The Liberal Democrats were on 9 per cent, with the Conservatives on 7 per cent.
But according to the Guardian’s Michael White this support may evaporate before polling day: “It is not that Labour, nationally or locally, simply took the East End of Glasgow’s votes and then ignored it. Evidence of renewal is everywhere: schools, housing, health, community and sports centres, private-sector developments - homes and shops - as well as public ones.

“What seems to be missing are jobs and hope. Cabbies from outside who ply a useful trade from teenage mothers and their special-needs kids speak scornfully of the lack of experience and leadership. ‘I grew up in the East End but got out at 17. My contemporaries are dead or in jail,’ says one.”