Cameron calls for general election after Brown’s Glasgow disaster

The Conservative leader David Cameron today demanded that Labour calls a general election following the party's humiliating defeat in the Glasgow East by-election yesterday. With a swing of more than 22 per cent, the Scottish National Party candidate John Mason stole the former Labour stronghold by a margin of 365 votes. At the 2005 general election, Labour had enjoyed an overwhelming majority of 13,507 votes.

The defeat - Labour's third by-election humiliation in nine weeks - is seen as a devastating blow to the authority of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is expected to face calls from within his own party to step down or risk leading Labour to disaster at the next general election. The pressure will begin today with union leaders and party activists gathering at Labour's national policy forum in Warwick.

David Cameron said this morning: "What I wonder is whether we can put up with this for another 18 months? Whenever people have had a chance to speak about this Government, whether at the local elections, whether in Crewe, whether in Henley, whether in the London mayor elections and now in Glasgow, they have said 'Look, we think you're failing and we want change'."

Gordon Brown's allies sought to play down any talk of Labour MPs seeking to unseat their party leader. Des Browne, Defence and Scotland Secretary, urging backbenchers to unite behind the PM, said Brown was "a man of known strengths - the country knows his strengths."