The results are in and the Inverclyde by-election will go down in the history books as a rather pedestrian victory for Labour. No political earthquakes and similarly no shooting of the Nationalist fox.  The SNP may have reduced the late David Cairns’ majority from 14,416 to 5,538 but the reality is that they weren’t really that close to winning here.

And, in politics, a win is a win regardless of the margin of victory. I’m sure Bill Kidd and his single digit majority would agree there, so the back and forth between Labour and the SNP over how good or bad this victory may or may not have been, while inevitable, is pretty redundant.

That said, it did seem more than a little bit cheeky of Labour MPs to use the ~500 Holyrood majority as a way to suggest that this was a great night for them. For me, that only served to highlight the difference in Labour’s prospects between Holyrood and Westminster and undermined any message they were trying to send to the Westminster Parliament. Are they glad they won because there is a burning desire to change reserved policy on behalf of Scotland or are they just chuffed to have a rare chance to poke Salmond in the eye? It’s really not all that clear.

There is little to read into the results for the Conservatives, Lib Dems and UKIP. The latter two parties lost their deposits which is never ideal, but in a two-horse race by-election that risk will have been factored in early.

So it is back to business as usual with this by-election now out of the way but, with the current debate at Westminster being issues that are largely devolved, what Iain Mackenzie MP and his 58 Scottish colleagues will be working on is as clear as the mud on the banks of Inverclyde.