Britain's ruling Labour Party lost an election for a parliamentary seat in a traditional Labour stronghold, in a serious setback for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, results showed on Friday.
Defeat in Thursday's poll in the Glasgow East constituency, which Labour won with a huge 13,500 majority at the 2005 election, will fuel Labour unhappiness with Brown's leadership and could lead to moves to oust him, some analysts believe.
The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) scored a dramatic victory by a slim 365-vote margin in Britain's third-largest city as voters turned against Labour in droves.
The result, following a series of other recent Labour election defeats, will strengthen expectations that Labour's 11 years in power may be nearing an end and that it could be defeated at the next general election, due by 2010.
"This SNP victory is not just a political earthquake - it is off the Richter scale. It is an epic win and the tremors are being felt all the way to Westminster (the UK parliament)," SNP candidate John Mason said in his victory speech.
The result added to the sense of crisis afflicting Brown, whose popularity has slumped since he took over as prime minister from Tony Blair 13 months ago.
Brown and Labour have been hurt by the credit crisis, which has hit economic growth and sent house prices sliding, and by rising food and energy bills and the government's own political errors.
