Britain's Conservative Party licked its wounds on Friday after defeat in a parliamentary by-election in Scotland weakened its precarious grip on power.
While nobody had expected victory for the ruling party, the loss in what had long been a Conservative stronghold to Scottish Nationalists was by an overwhelming margin.The Scottish Nationalist Party's Roseanna Cunningham achieved a 7,311 majority in the Perth and Kinross seat and pushed Conservative John Godfrey into third place. She proudly declared: "Tonight, Scots have humiliated the government."
Prime Minister John Major, with his party beset by internal squabbling and at its lowest-ever level in opinion polls, described the central Scottish result as "very disappointing."
"By-elections are always very difficult, but past experience shows that we win these seats back at a general election," Major said in a statement. The next election is due by mid-1997.
The lost seat shaved Major's majority to just 11 in the 651-seat House of Commons. If one Conservative, Sir Richard Body, who opposes Major's line on Europe, should vote against the government, its majority would be just nine.
North of the border, Major's party now holds just 10 of 72 Scottish seats. The SNP, which wants independence for Scotland within Europe, now has four seats in Parliament.