Landslide victory for SNP in Falkirk West

He notched up a mammoth 56.7 per cent share of the votes to head back to Holyrood.

Labour managed to hold on to second spot although they were run close by the Tories who were just over 1100 votes behind in third.

Thanking his “fantastic team in Falkirk West” he said it was a privilege to again be elected as the constituency’s Member of the Scottish Parliament.

He said: “In some respects we’ve run an old-fashioned campaign - getting out, knocking on doors and speaking to people. But we’ve also used the information that we’ve learned in the last couple of campaigns to target people.

“Throughout the campaign we’ve been very well received and I’m delighted with the result.”

The turn out was 53.84 per cent, up almost six per cent on 2011.

Mr Matheson said he was pleased with the figure “but you would always like to see it higher”.

Michael Matheson (SNP) - 18,260

Mandy Telford (Labour) - 6980

Alison Harris (Conservative) - 5877

Gillian Cole-Hamilton (Lib Dem) - 966