People here face the same issues as 2017 but things are worse
Voters in Glasgow East caused a political earthquake 11 years ago when, for the first time in more than half a century, they failed to return a Labour MP to Westminster.
Since then, the seat has changed hands twice. The SNP won in 2017 with the 10th smallest majority in the UK.
Labour’s Kate Watson, a charity work adviser, managed to slash the SNP’s majority of more than 10,000 to just 75.
She said: “Since then we’ve had another two years of a Tory government and austerity.
“People in this constituency were already struggling on insecure work, zero-hours contracts and low incomes.
“We still have the same issues we had in 2017 but things have got worse.”
Ms Watson said the single biggest issue on the doorstep was not Brexit or Scottish independence but people’s standard of living.
She said: “It’s about being able to pay the bills. I know exactly what it’s like not to be able to afford to put the gas fire on at night.”
Ms Watson, who was director of operations for pro-union campaign Better Together, said she had found no appetite on the doorstep for another independence referendum.
She said: “People are more concerned about what affects them dayto-day, like whether they are getting their Personal Independence Payment, whether they have to go to a food bank and whether they have enough to heat their homes.
“The NHS and what their kids’ schools are like matter to people more than talking about another independence referendum.”
She said it had been a mistake by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to focus on Scottish independence.
“When the SNP did this in 2017, they lost a third of their seats.”
Labour supporter and ambulance driver Derek Stark, 59, said he feared privatisation of the NHS in a post-Brexit trade deal with America.
He said: “I love the NHS and I don’t want to see healthcare privatised like it is in America.”
The SNP’s David Linden was elected as MP for Glasgow East two years ago, replacing Natalie McGarry, who was later convicted of embezzlement.
David said Labour were losing voters over their position on Scottish independence.
“We ask people at every door we go to what they think about independence. The difference between us and Labour is that people know what our position is on a future referendum.
“Over the course of Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to Scotland this week, he had umpteen different positions on whether Scotland should have an independence referendum.
“People are incredibly unclear on where Labour stand on the two biggest issues of the day – a future independence referendum, which we know is coming, and Brexit.
“There is an inescapable fact here that Labour will tell people in Shettleston one thing about Brexit and people in Sunderland an entirely different thing.”