The SNP has secured an unprecedented victory by taking a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament election.

Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray will stand down in the autumn after a disastrous night for his party in the Holyrood election.

The coalition Government "is as good today as it was a year ago", Prime Minister David Cameron insisted today as the Liberal Democrats suffered heavy defeats in the local elections.

The Liberal Democrats conceded defeat early this morning in the battle to hold on to the council in Nick Clegg's home city of Sheffield as the party's vote slumped across the North of England.

Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg last night made last-ditch pleas to the public to defy David Cameron and the pollsters by supporting a historic change to the voting system in tomorrow's referendum.

Labour's one-seat defeat at the hands of the Scottish National Party in 2007 was a big shock for the party. But at least it could be blamed on dissatisfaction with Tony Blair's government in London, compounded by a reluctance to air disagreements with the UK government in public.

Gordon Brown was hemmed in between the soft fruit and the yoghurt at a supermarket in Livingston. The former prime minister crouched down between two small children while their mother lined them all up in front of her camera phone.

For years they have been feared and loathed in equal measure, rumoured to have the ability to reduce errant MPs to tears and submission with a flick through their "little black book".

A Liberal Democrat candidate has quit his party with a broadside against the "betrayal" of coalition with the Conservatives.

Battered Liberal Democrats were boosted by a shock council by-election triumph in Tunbridge Wells Borough, covering the genteel Kent spa town and home of the legendary "Disgusted".