Rocked by the SNP: How beaten Labour MP John Robertson headbanged away his defeat to heavy metal

The veteran Labour MP and activist has spent the last seven months getting over his defeat to the headbanging beat of Deep Purple.

He explained: "I love heavy metal or hard rock as they call it today, I always have.

"Deep Purple is my favourite band. I am just back up from seeing them at the O2 in London. With all the long hours as a politician I didn't have time.

"So now I have time on my hands I have bought myself a real record player and I am buying all the old albums I loved on vinyl."

Mr Robertson, 63, has been surfing the web buying classics like the "This is Soul" compilation he first bought as a youngster in the 1960s.

The veteran Labour activist - he was Donald Dewar's election agent - says music - and is two grandchildren, eight and two - is helping him recover from an exhausting final few years of politics.

The general election for Mr Robertson was painful, literally. He had to campaign on a knee desperately in need of replacement.

He said: "I was in agony. I really was, you. have no idea. With all the people coming to help me, I had to go out on the doorsteps. But I was in agony every night. And that came after the referendum when we were on our feet the whole time too.

"Now my politics days are over. I have a new knee and that has taken up all of my time over the last four or five months getting back to normal.

"I can get about for a change. I shall be helping out during the Holyrood election. Other than that I shall just be being a grandparent and do other things people in their 60s do."

Mr Robertson is one of many defeated or retired unionist MPs interviewed by The Herald to find out how what they are up to in the wake of the SNP surge.

Like most, he is open that he is happy to be out of Scottish politics after gruelling elections and the referendum.

He said: "I actually thought of not standing last time but I stayed because of the way we were party wise.

"We thought back then that people with seats might find a better chance of winning. But things turned out the way they did."

He was ready to retire anyway. He said: "I would never have gone for another term. It was time to let younger people go."

Labour MPs have not taken their defeat personally. The scale of the swing across Scotland was such that any personal following was swept away.

Mr Robertson said: "It was a national bandwagon. It was a case of soldiering on. I can't say defeat came as a surprise to me because it did not. I had an inkling months in advance of what was happening.

"Could we have retrieved it? The closer polling day got, the more we knew it was not going to happen. Nothing was a surprise."

Mr Robertson - who served 15 years in Westminster after 31 years in telecoms firm BT - didn't enjoy his last few years in politics.

He said: "Of all the elections I have ever fought, that was definitely the nastiest I have ever been involved in.

"They are not nice people, the SNP, all of them. I can't say anything nice about them because they certainly did not say anything nice about me.

"There was some real nasty stuff from the SNP, saying I was anti-Catholic. It was unbelievable. You just hope people know you well enough and won't listen.

"I am not bitter. you live by the sword, you die by the sword. I don't hold any animosity towards anybody or any side. I know what it was like and I am very glad I will not have to go through it again.

"I don't like Scottish politics anymore.

"I have families and friends and they get caught up in it as well.

"If they are not voting for your party, that can cause all sorts of problem. Going back to the referendum, I would not say any of my friendships ended but I know people who did not talk to their families after falling out. I am above that but it was not a nice time."

Privately, defeated Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs often cite a new tone to politics, often on Facebook or Twitter.

Mr Robertson - despite his background in the communications industry - has given up on social media.

A Rangers fan, online he was accused of being an anti-Catholic bigot, he says. He found this as perplexing as hurtful.

He said: "The majority of my friends, funnily enough, are Catholic - probably because of the party I am in - so it's not something I take seriously. All I could do was to say 'This is rubbish'.

"But social media isn't a place where you can change minds.

"The best thing to do is to ignore it, so I just ignored it. "But I was annoyed at the time. You get used to these things.

"I have had God knows what threats over the years. Even had special branch looking after me for a while."

So why did Labour lose? Was it a post-referendum hangover? Mr Robertson - in another response widely cited privately by Labour MPs - suggested the media had helped big up the SNP as "the underdog" and present the referendum as one party against all others.

Referring to The Herald, he said: "The way your paper treated it, it was a mistake.

"People who voted yes came from a lot of different parties, but it was portrayed as only the SNP on their own against everyone else. And everybody loves the underdog. That in itself was a big factor."

Mr Robertson also felt media representations of unionists, with Tories and Labour together, hurt his party.

"This is true for tor those of us who are unionists with a small 'u'.

"When you are a Labour party member you are not 'Unionist'.

"But I do believe in the Union. That was used brilliantly in the referendum and had a knock-on effect in to the general election.

"So we got this thing when Labour party was portrayed as the Tories' friend.

"The opposite was the case. What we said - which turned out to be true - was that if you vote SNP, you get Tories. That is how Cameron got the majority down south: the fear of nationalism and independence won the extra votes he needed."

Other MPs contacted by The Herald have been highly critical of party leaders, whether Jim Murphy in Scotland, or, now, Jeremy Corbyn in England.

But Mr Robertson was far more upbeat that some of his former colleagues.

Asked about his party's problems, he said: "Are things quite as bad as everyone would like them to be I don't know?

"I know Jeremy very well and I find him a nice reasonable person. I would never have thought he would become the leader of my party but he is there and he got one helluva vote to get there.

"I certain would not criticise anyone after such a short space of leadership.

"If there is one thing I know from being a politician all these years, the most important quality you need is being somebody people can trust. "And Corbyn can tick the box where a lot of us didn't. That is sad but the way it is."

Mr Robertson urged party unity. He said: "Maybe we can get on with opposing the government without having to look out to see if somebody has got a knife behind you, ready to embed it between your shoulder blades.

"If I have a fault, I was always loyal to whoever the leader was, and I always will be. If I had any problems with leaders, I said to them personally.

"Some of my colleagues like the media way too much and like to nurture relationships when they should be getting on with their job."

But Mr Robertson also sees signs that the shine is coming off the SNP after eight years in power.

He said: "If I knew the secret of the SNP's success I would do something for the Labour party.

"But like every other party that does really well they will have problem at some stage.

"Right now little things keep cropping up because they are under a microscope in a way they have never been before, even when they were in charge in Holyrood.

"But now when they are elected to 'down south' as well, they are under a lot more scrutiny than they ever had been.

"Things like the Forth Road Bridge. I mean how many people would have thought it would have been possible for the bridge to shut?

"In effect, the SNP are not any different from any politicians."

What are defeated or retired MPs doing now?