Another holiday headache - and the last chance for Gordon

The sad death of the respected John MacDougall, MP for Glenrothes, is a blow to all sides of the house. A member of Parliament since 2001, he won admirers from all parties for his principled stances and the passionate support given to his constituents.

In a baldly political sense though, his demise is yet another cause for alarm at Number 10. The by-election machine has barely found time to refuel in the last five months (just as well given the petrol prices), and although the Fife seat is relatively safe Labour at present, there's no reason to suggest another Glasgow East isn't on the cards.

The Lib Dems managed a surprise scalp just next door in Dunfermline and West Fife in 2006, overturning a 11,500 majority at a time when Labour's poll rating looked positively buoyant compared to the present slump. And with Gordon Brown's constituency bordering Glenrothes, many voters will not have to look hard to see where the blame lies.

This could be Gordon's last chance. Another embarrassing by-election loss in his back yard would surely herald at best a souped-up Millibandwagon and, maybe, the descending axe on a short, painful premiership.

Read this blog, get free money!

Well, we never like to say I told you so.

But it was us (last Wednesday) who predicted an amazing SNP by-election victory in Glasgow East at 11/8!

Ten pounds on that would have seen you net a health £23.75 this morning. What's the odds of a 100 seat Tory majority at the next election? Or Gordon to go before the end of 2008?

Slimmer than they were yesterday morning, that's for sure...

2p or nor 2p

Once you've been governing for a while, it gets trickier and trickier to please the electorate. In 1997, Labour MPs could earn plaudits and praise just for not being Tory MPs. Eleven years on, and an apparently positive move to postpone increases on fuel duty - a significant expense for consumers and business - has been greeted as cynical electioneering.

There are good grounds for this cynicism of course - with Glasgow East in the balance, the Government is desperate not to let what should be a staunch Labour seat fall to the reinvigorated Nationalists. But with everything in Scotland going against Labour; from the fiasco of finding a candidate in the first place to the fact that the Scottish Socialist Party candidate also has the surname Curran (and may therefore confuse the voters), the premonitions look bleak.

It remains to be seen whether this budgetary move shores up the worrying polls, or just adds fuel to the opposition's fire. If you're a gambler, odds on a SNP victory are 11/8...

Tories win Henley by four lengths

No surprises in Henley, as the leafy Oxfordshire constituency handed the Conservatives a romping by-election victory considered such a foregone conclusion by most of the national press that they didn't bother to report on it until today.

It was not even surprising that the Labour vote languished in fifth place - there were never likely to be many sympathy votes in the white gravel drives and twin-sets by the Thames. What was most alarming was not that Labour was beaten hollow by its two main competitors and the Greens, but that it was beaten by the BNP.

When the governing party is outperformed by a group of racist thugs, alarm bells should be ringing all over the country...