Comment: Glasgow kiss for Gordon Brown

It was an extraordinary victory in the third safest seat for Labour in Scotland. Mr Mason overturned a majority of more than 13,500 with a swing from Labour of 22 per cent. It was, in electoral terms, the equivalent of a Glasgow kiss for the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The mental arithmetic that will preoccupy every Labour MP in Scotland is the calculation of how such a swing would translate in a general election - which of them would be safe? Not the Chancellor, Alistair Darling. Possibly not even Mr Brown.

Of course, by-elections are not general elections. In Glasgow East there were significant local factors that would not apply elsewhere - it has areas of chronic social deprivation, high unemployment and low life expectancy unaltered by a decade of Labour government. There was a widespread impression that Labour had become distant from its workingclass roots and dominated by the preoccupations of a liberal elite. This alienated its core supporters, especially Catholic voters. Yet the turnout in this by-election was 43 per cent, not so far off the 48 per cent of the general election. This result cannot be blamed on electoral apathy or the want of effort on the part of the Labour Party: ministers and MPs swamped the constituency. Neither can it be attributed to a turnaround in support for national independence - the issue did not loom large. The SNP is the default opposition to Labour. Its victory is the result of a disaffection with the government which is shared by voters in England.

This is the third by-election that Labour has lost in as many months. The mood among the party activists gathered at Warwick today to hear Mr Brown talk policy strategy for the next election will be very low indeed.The disaffection among Labour MPs faced with electoral annihilation is such that it may become impossible for the Prime Minister to see through the two years in office remaining to him. It is conceivable that, after the party conference, the Cabinet may confront Mr Brown with an ultimatum.

It is hard to see how the Prime Minister can recover now. The economic factors - high food and fuel prices and a stagnant property market - which underpin voters' alienation are not within his power to remedy in the two years before an election. His own profligacy in public spending in the good times has left him with no room to manoeuvre now. David Cameron today says that the Prime Minister should take a holiday and afterwards he should call an election. It is unlikely to happen. But this weekend, Mr Brown does indeed go for a long (for him) holiday to rural Suffolk. He needs it.