affair. Salmond remained firm favourite to win back the leadership of the SNP. There remained greater doubt as to who would be the deputy leader with it being widely expected to be a much more close run affair than that for the post of leader. There were some surprises during the course of the campaign. Alex Neil and Adam Ingram both came out in support of Alex Salmond, although they supported Grahame for deputy rather than Sturgeon. This was unexpected as both men had previously been critics of Salmond in the past. It was particularly surprising in light of Salmond's earlier comments, before he had entered the race that he would have difficulties working with Neil should he be elected leader, although he later went on the record to say that he should not have publicly said this. There was some degree of criticism of Salmond's position by other candidates, who felt that his decision to lead the SNP from being a member of the British Parliament at Westminster rather than from the Scottish Parliament was contrary to the party's aim of independence. Nonetheless, on 3 September 2004, Salmond and Sturgeon were elected leader and deputy respectively. The result of the Leadership contest, in what was the first "One Member One Vote" election run by the SNP (as opposed to the delegate based elections of the past) was Salmond 4,952 (75.8%); Cunningham 953 (14.6%); and Russell 631 (9.7%). The result of the contest for Deputy Leader was Sturgeon 3,521 (53.9%); Ewing 1,605 (24.6%); and Grahame 1,410 (21.6%). Since Salmond was an MP until 2010, Sturgeon led the party at the Scottish Parliament until Alex Salmond was elected as an MSP in 2007. 2005 United Kingdom general election The SNP had mixed fortunes in the general election held on 5 May 2005. They managed to gain two seats (Angus MacNeil winning in Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Stewart Hosie in Dundee East) from the notional four they held to bring their total to six Members of Parliament. MacNeil's victory received particular praise for the 9.2% swing from Labour that led to the victory, especially as it was the first SNP gain from Labour in a UK general election for 31 years. However, there was also disappointment in that the sitting MP Annabelle Ewing did not manage to win the new Ochil and South Perthshire constituency, finishing 688 votes behind the Labour