Tories’ lesbian candidate just beats BNP in race for third place in Glasgow North East by-election

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Ruth Davidson, the Conservatives’ lesbian candidate in the Glasgow North-East by-election, has just beaten British National Party (BNP)’s Charlie Baillie in the race for third place. The Labour candidate Willie Bain comfortably won the seat that was previously held by former Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin.

The seat became vacant five months ago when the then Speaker, now Lord Martin, Baron Martin of Springbur, resigned over his handling of MPs’ expenses.

The results were as follows:-
1)Willie Bain, (Labour) 12,231 votes
2)David Kerr (SNP) 4,120
3)Ruth Davidson (Conservative Party) 1,075
4)Charlie Baillie (BNP)
5)Tommy Sheridan (Solidarity) 794
6)Eileen Baxendale (LD) 474
7)David Doherty (Green) 332
8)John Smeaton (Jury Team) 258
There were five other candidates.

The BNP have never fought a by-election in Scotland before and some commentators credit their relative success at this election to the appearance on the BBC’s Question Time by leader Nick Griffin. During the count, the BBC were reporting that the BNP had secured third place.

Willie Bain hailed the result, saying: “It’s a great endorsement for Gordon Brown in his efforts to set the economy back on track and it shows the General Election is very much game on.”

He later said: “I want to thank my neighbours, now my constituents. You have placed your trust in me, I promise you that I will never let you down.”

Conservative candidate Ms Davidson just held her deposit for the election securing just 5.22 per cent of the vote. She livers with her partner in Partick and had promised that if elected she would not claim for food, furniture or household goods.

Ms Davidson said she does not often speak about her sexuality because “it’s not the most interesting part of my life”.

According to the Sun, she said: “I don’t believe sexuality is an issue now. In terms of the Conservative Party, we saw in July of this year David Cameron standing up in front of Stonewall and saying, ‘Look, we apologise for Section 28. We got it wrong’.

“It was an unequivocal apology on the subject.

“In terms of coming out I had my first female partner about four or five years ago. I was open about it at the time and I’m open about it now.

“But I don’t tend to talk about it because it’s not the most interesting part of my life, you know? Some people are gay and that’s it.”

Local police are investigation two alleged cases of voting fraud after the same voters turned up to vote on multiple occasions.

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