A RECORD low turn-out for a by-election in Scotland was the last thing the Scottish Sun’s Andrew Nicoll was wanting, according to his MyView opinion piece yesterday.
Quite reasonably, the paper’s Scottish political reporter argued a low turn-out would work to the advantage of the BNP candidate, and he wrote: “For the people of Glasgow North East, every vote counts. Every vote makes it harder for the BNP to reach their five per target.”
Except that, elsewhere in the paper, the advice was a tad different: “Don’t vote”, was the call of columnist, Bill Leckie.
In the end, the BNP narrowly failed in securing its target, and therefore its deposit, and was equally narrowly placed fourth, behind the Tories.
The by-election saw the Labour party comfortably defeat the SNP – whose candidate, David Kerr, is a former BBC Scotland journalist – into second place.
Only 33 per cent of the electorate voted.
