Thank you

I want to thank my campaign team. I love you all dearly. I’ve really enjoyed it. The Glasgow Central SNP campaign was at all times eventful, colourful and full of laughs.

We had a really young team. There was barely a grey hair between us, which people find surprising given how good and prominent the campaign was. I’ve no sadness, we gave it our all. People on the outside are full of praise for the energy with which we ran it, the doors that were knocked, the leaflets that were delivered, the posters that were festooned everywhere, and the ideas and initiatives with which we ran. I’m proud of you all and will be eternally grateful for your belief, commitment and companionship.

Thank you also to all who voted for me. The support was humbling. Particular gratitude to the many who made nice comments, and who had been silently following my work over the years. It was strange being a bit of a local celebrity on the streets, but it was immensely enjoyable meeting so many new people.

Congratulations to Anas Sarwar on winning.

I knew when the campaign proper started a month ago that it wasn’t going to happen for us. The national media coverage squeezed us out. It was the same for the SNP across Glasgow. The Tory poll lead put the frighteners on people which played to the false Labour mantra about it being about them or the Conservatives.

We increased our share of the vote in Glasgow Central, while nationally it was the SNP's best Westminster result since the 1970s.

I’ll have more to say soon no doubt. I’m now though going to use the politician’s cliché of having a bit of long overdue time with the family. I’ve spent near enough 10% of my life as the SNP’s candidate for Glasgow Central in this incredibly long election campaign. I’ll be dusting myself down and rejoining the ranks of party activists in the next day or two.

Comments

[A friend]

Osama Saeed,

You tried hard and fought well. End of the day, we can only try our best and the final decision is in the hands of Allah. I only have admiration for you.

Inshallah, next time.

A friend

[joe90 kane]

That's a lovely thank you, Osama.

I was saying on BelleGrove Belle's blog that I happened to catch Gordon Brown's thank you speech on tv, on his re-election, and I found it quite touching.

When you have the corporate news media against you, you have to do a lot to even get a little, ask any Palestinian.

Contrawise, despite all the publicity puffs and corporate pr in their favour, the BNP were well and truly stuffed and no mistake.

all the best!

[Doug Daniel]

It was a great shame that the Glasgow electorate had to revert to type and vote so overwhelmingly for Labour, and particularly in the case of Glasgow Central I feel, because you would have been an excellent MP. Glasgow will reap what it has sown though - another 5 years of MPs who will do nothing for the people who elected them except take them for granted.

See you in the real parliament (Holyrood) perhaps...?

[L Taylor]

To be fair, the "two-horse race" line of Anas Sarwar's marketing machine was also echoed by your own, portraying the SNP as being only 136 votes behind and the only serious challengers.

You did get my vote, but I was disappointed by what looked like an attempt to massage the data. I'd be grateful if you could clarify how you arrived at that figure.