General Election 2015: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh completes SNP double in Perthshire

The SNP’s rising star Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh snatched Ochil and South Perthshire from Labour with 26,620 votes and a clear majority of more than 10,000.

Combined with Pete Wishart’s triumph in Perth and North Perthshire, it meant a clean sweep in the region for the Nationalists.

Ms Ahmed-Sheikh said: “I’d like to thank our outstanding campaign team and the tremendous work they have done in the last few weeks.”

Outgoing South Perthshire MP Gordon Banks said: “The campaign was actually quite good and I think our policies were very strong this year.

“But at the end of the day, the voters wanted change and they decided they didn’t want to listen to us.

“Obviously, that’s disappointing. We have to go off now and see what lessons we can learn from this.”

Result:

T Ahmed-Sheikh (SNP) – 26,620

G Banks (Labour) – 16,452

L Graham (Conservative) – 11,987

I Stefanov (Lib Dem) – 1,481

M Gray (UKIP) – 1,331

Turnout 74.8%