Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party held a parliamentary seat in his Scottish homeland in a special election prompted by the resignation of House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin.

Willie Bain, 36, won the district of Glasgow North East with 59 percent of the vote. In second place was the Scottish National Party’s David Kerr, with 20 percent. At the 2005 general election, Martin won 53 percent.

“People have had their say and they have backed Gordon Brown and his efforts to secure our economic recovery,” Bain said in a speech after the result was announced, describing it as “a great night for Scottish Labour.”

The result may give Brown some respite as he struggles with low personal ratings and an unpopular war in Afghanistan, though won’t have an impact on his control of the Commons, where Labour has 349 lawmakers in the 646-seat chamber.

In national polls, the party trails behind David Cameron’s Conservatives by at least 10 percentage points. Brown has no more than seven months to hold the next general election.

“The factors that help Labour do relatively well here do not exist in England,” John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, said by telephone. “It’s nothing to do with the standing of the party nationally, but they’ve succeeded in making this a campaign about Glasgow.”

Odds Cut

The odds on a Labour victory in the general election were cut to 12-1 from 14-1 by William Hill Plc after the result, meaning a successful bet of one pound would yield a profit of 12 pounds, the bookmaker said in an e-mailed statement.

“They remain big outsiders,” spokesman Graham Sharpe said. The Conservatives remain at 1-3 to win the election, meaning a bet of three pounds would return a profit of one pound, with a hung parliament at 5-2.

The election was a straight contest between Labour and the SNP, which runs a minority government in Scotland and wants to break away from the U.K. The Conservatives have traditionally done badly in Glasgow, one of the poorest areas in Britain.

The popularity of Glasgow-born Brown sank to a low in Scotland in July 2008 when voters in neighboring Glasgow East abandoned Labour after almost six decades in favor of the SNP as the economy slumped and Brown’s leadership was questioned.

It was one of a string of electoral defeats suffered by Labour since Brown took over from Tony Blair in June 2007.

Other Parties

In Glasgow North East, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the main opposition parties in the U.K. Parliament, won 5.2 percent and 2.3 percent respectively. Neither party contested the seat at the last general election, following a convention that the speaker be allowed to stand unopposed.

The whites-only British National Party increased its share to 4.9 percent from 3.2 percent. Voter turnout was 33 percent, down from 46 percent in 2005.

Martin, 64, stepped down as speaker of the U.K. Parliament over his handling of a scandal about expenses for lawmakers. He now sits in the House of Lords.

To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net; Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 13, 2009 08:14 EST