Local SNP vote increases three fold

JOHN Thurso increased his vote in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross – but in a 72% turn out, still lost out to SNP’s Paul Monaghan.

The Lib-Dem polled 11,987 compared to 11,907 in 2010. But the SNP share grew from 5516 five years ago to 15,831 today.

Mr Monaghan is a 49-year-old former Inverness Royal Academy pupil who has worked as a policy expert for Northern Constabulary and is now director of Highland Homeless Trust in Inverness.

In a result across the country which even surprised the Nationalists, SNP supporters woke up to a historic landslide victory throughout Scotland.

Locally SNP councillor Graham Phillips (Golspie) was beaming from ear to ear when the results started pouring in.

He said: “I’ve been losing elections for 40 years in one capacity or another. So I think we can be excused for feeling triumphant. It’s a pretty near clean sweep in Scotland. We saw the polls but we ignored them.”

Meanwhile, John Erskine, Labour candidate, said: “It’s been a bad night for Labour across the whole of the country but I’m quite happy with my result. In the final few weeks it was obvious SNP were favourites to win. But there’s plenty more elections to come.”

Elsewhere, coalition cabinet minister Danny Alexander became one of the highest profile casualties, losing his Inverness seat.

The Secretary to the Treasury was ousted by SNP candidate Drew Hendry in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.

And former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy's 32 years in Westminster came to a crushing end in neighbouring Ross, Skye and Lochaber as he also became a victim of the Lib Dem collapse as the SNP swept home winning 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland

For the first time in more than 10 years voters have elected a new MP to represent Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.

Danny Alexander had been MP since 2005 when he won the seat from Labour but he was defeated this morning by Highland Council's SNP leader Drew Hendry when his majority of over 8500 was decimated.

Mr Hendry took 28,838 votes. Mr Alexander secured 18,029 votes – more than he won in 2010 but not enough to hold back the SNP national landslide.

It was a similar success story for the SNP across Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

Charles Kennedy has represented people in the constituency for 32 years but he was defeated this morning by ex-banker Ian Blackford.

The result was 20,119 votes for Mr Blackford and 14,995 votes for Liberal Democrat Mr Kennedy.

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