Tommy Sheppard becomes an MP

Comedy club boss elected for SNP

Comedy club owner Tommy Sheppard has become an SNP MP.

The owner of The Stand in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Newcastle has tonight been elected to the seat of Edinburgh East with a majority of 9,106.

It's a gain from Labour, overturning Sheila Gilmore's former majority of 9,181 with a swing of 21 per cent.

The full results are:

Tommy Sheppard (SNP): 23,188
Sheila Gilmore (Lab): 14,082
James McMordie (Con): 4,670
Peter McColl (Green): 2,809
Karen Utting (Lib Dem): 1,325
Oliver Corbishley (Ukip): 898
Ayesha Saleem (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition): 117

After the vote, Sheppard tweeted: 'A huge thanks to everyone who voted and was involved in the campaign. Would not have been possible without your amazing enthusiasm!'

It seemed he was on for a victory relatively early in the evening when he told supporters partway through the count at the EICC: 'We are embarrassingly far ahead'.

Sheppard – who also runs the Glasgow comedy festival and the Assembly Rooms during the Edinburgh Fringe – previously had a long political history with Labour. He is a former Scottish Labour deputy general secretary, former Labour councillor in Hackney in London, and stood for Labour in the safe Tory seat of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in the 1992 election.

When he announced that he wanted to become an MP, Sheppard said: 'I think there's a real mood for change in the country and in order to achieve that we need a big shake-up in Westminster.'

Here is Sheppard earlier in the night explaining how he would be 'delighted' if the SNP got more than 30 seats in Scotland – a gross underestimate of the size of their landslide across the country.

SNP candidate Tommy Sheppard would be 'delighted' if SNP wins more than 30 seats. http://t.co/Nw9zaTIzre #GE2015 http://t.co/tWActy3vRp
— STV News (@STVNews) May 7, 2015

Here he is explaining why he defected from Labour to the SNP earlier in the year: