SNP celebrate historic win in East Kilbride

May 11 2011 by Shona Mitchell, East Kilbride News

LINDA Fabiani’s success in East Kilbride gave the first signal of the SNP landslide victory which was to come.

The Strathaven-based MSP took the seat from Labour’s Andy Kerr, who has represented the town since the inception of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

The former shadow minister’s defeat was the first big shock of the night for Labour.

Linda Fabiani won the redrawn constituency, which no longer includes Strathaven, by 1949 votes – a 6.6 per cent swing from Labour to SNP.

Within an hour of Fabiani’s victory, her party had also claimed seats previously held by Labour in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Constituency as well as in Clydesdale ... and Scotland’s’ new political landscape began to emerge.

Despite the nationwide rivalry between the two parties, both Linda Fabiani and Andy Kerr paid tribute to each other in their speeches following the result.

An ecstatic Linda spoke to the News just minutes after her historic victory. She said: “I am just delighted and look forward to continuing to work with the people of East Kilbride in the years ahead.

“I am shocked at the majority but it is testament to the hard work which has been put in by my team over the past few weeks. I want to thank them all very much.

“East Kilbride has a very active community and I am extremely proud to be serving it. East Kilbride is also home to many leading businesses and in the next term of parliament I want more recognition for them.”

Graceful in defeat, Andy Kerr added: “It has been a great pleasure to work with the people of East Kilbride over the past 12 years and I would like to thank them all for their support.

“I wish Linda all the best and it is time for me to look to the future.”

Third placed candidate, was local Tory councillor Graham Simpson.

He said: “I am pleased to have held on to third place and thank everyone for their votes.

“The SNP majority was an absolute shock.

“I feel bad for Andy as he is a very decent bloke but I also like Linda and I’m sure she’ll work hard.

“There are some big changes in store for East Kilbride.”

Full results:

Linda Fabiani – Scottish National Party – 14,359 votes for a 47.8% share of the vote

Andy Kerr – Scottish Labour Party – 12,410 votes for a 41.3% share of the vote

Graham Simpson – Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – 2260 votes for a 7.5% share of the vote

Douglas Herbison – Scottish Liberal Democrats – 468 votes for a 1.6% share of the vote

John Houston – Independent – 414 votes for a 1.4 % share of the vote