Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has lost his Renfrewshire East seat to SNP candidate Kirsten Oswald.
Murphy’s party has been heavily lagging behind Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP in the polls and despite vigorous campaigning Mr Murphy was unable to hold back the SNP surge in his East Renfrewshire base.
Mr Murphy’s once safe majority was eliminated as Kirsten Oswald swept to victory with 23,564 votes to Labour’s 19,295.
Full Renfrewshire East results
- SNP – 23,564
- Labour – 19,299
- Conservatives – 12,464
- Lib Dem – 1,069
- UKIP – 888
The Scottish Labour leader joined a string of high profile colleagues on the casualty list as the SNP won across Scotland.
Mr Murphy, 47, was first elected to Westminster in 1997, the year Tony Blair and New Labour swept into Downing Street.
A relative unknown at the time, he had been selected as the candidate for the Eastwood constituency on the outskirts of Glasgow – which at the time had the largest Tory majority in all of Scotland.
But the 1997 election saw the Tories routed north of the border, losing all of their Scottish seats, and Mr Murphy was voted into the House of Commons.
He held a number of ministerial roles under Mr Blair, including both minister for employment and welfare reform and Europe minister.
When Gordon Brown became prime minister he appointed the father-of-three as his Secretary of State for Scotland, giving him additional responsibility for retaining Scottish seats at the next general election.
While Labour failed to win in the 2010 ballot, the party returned the same number of Scottish MPs as it had in 2005, securing 41 of 59 seats north of the border.
Mr Murphy was a key figure in Labour’s shadow cabinet after the election, first as shadow defence secretary, then as shadow international development secretary – though he gave up this post to focus on his bid to become Scottish Labour leader.
He also played a prominent part in what was the defining issue of Scottish politics in 2014 – the independence referendum.
The campaign over Scotland’s future in the UK saw him return to traditional soap-box style politics, touring the streets of Scotland and speaking to members of the public from his Irn-Bru crates – though not all those he spoke to agreed with him and he was even egged while on a visit to Kirkcaldy, Fife.
When he was elected Scottish Labour leader, he pledged his focus will be on combating inequalities in Scotland.
But it was not enough to see him hang on to his Westminster seat.