Pete Wishart after 2017’s narrow result

seeing that here in Perth and North Perthshire but across Scotland.”

This was in stark contrast to his nail biting affair last time out.

Having scraped back into office last time, his once five figure majority had been chipped back to just 21 votes.

But the musician was “a lot more comfortable” this time around.

And although the final 10pm exit poll suggested he only had a 54% chance of retaining his seat this time, the prediction filled him with confidence.

With voter t urnout up and a seemingly soaring youth vote, Mr Wishart joked that he had become a fan of winter general elections. But until the Faither of the Hoose was home and hosed, and while he maintained a composed facade, even Scotland’s longest serving member of parliament still had some nerves about the result.

Pollsters had predicted only Tory candidate Angus Forbes would stand any chance of claiming the seat held by the SNP since its creation.

The Carse of Gowrie councillor did come second, racking up more than 19,000 votes.

“Politics is a cruel sport – you’re either a winner or a loser and tonight, Pete is the winner,” he said.

Speaking before the result was announced, t h e C o n s e r va t i v e candidate admitted that the abuse he had been subjected to during his campaign had affected him.

He said: “I’m actually quite relieved to be at this point because I’ m absolutely knackered. It’s been a really hard four or five weeks and I’m quite glad to get to the end.

“What I wasn’t expecting was the levels of abuse I got. That was the biggest eye opener. I’m genuinely shocked at the level of abuse I’ve had every single morning. I’ve woken up to pretty abusive messages, 30 or 40 at a time.”