In the past three weeks the eyes of the UK's political establishment and those who report and commentate on it have been trained on Glasgow's east end, its by-election following the resignation of Labour MP David Marshall seen as a referendum on Gordon Brown's premiership.

In the past three weeks the eyes of the UK's political establishment and those who report and commentate on it have been trained on Glasgow's east end, its by-election following the resignation of Labour MP David Marshall seen as a referendum on Gordon Brown's premiership.

Chronic worklessness, generational welfarism, mortality rates and health statistics have not just figured largely but have been used to paint an all-encompassing picture of an underclass reservation, a Caledonain Mogadishu or Grozhny propped up by only the benevolent Home Counties taxpayer whose cash is routinely squandered on pointless and doomed initiatives.

Not even the most optimistic is deluded enough to fail to acknowledge some of the worst deprivation statistics in western Europe and the litany of false starts over the past 25 years. What galls those who live and work in the Glasgow East constituency is the one-dimensional caricature of the area.

To many, the area is a great place to do business.

Pietro's spicy sausage has been a staple on the menus of Italian restaurants across Scotland for the best part of two decades.

This week several kilos of the stuff were exported to the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland while the delicatessen's reputation has reached the ears and tastebuds of Robert Carlyle, a sometime customer.

The competition less than a mile away, Eusebi Deli, is fine-tuning its city-wide expansion plans, proposing to take authentic Italian produce to those areas long deprived of the gastronomic joys of the Mediterranean.

Sue Tomasczczuk, whose parents Pietro and Vivienne Ionta have been running businesses in the Tollcross area in the heart of Glasgow's east end for 40 years, said: "Our reputation has spread by word of mouth, but people know and care more about food these days and the bulk of the custom is local.

"I wouldn't kid on and say this place is perfect but we're seeing big changes as time goes on. Decent people are forever being tarnished with someone else's brush."

For every image of the boarded-up tenement and overweight benefits claimant, within 20 yards there is either a new housing development under construction or a well-maintained garden.

Renaissance is perhaps too grandiose a term. Even in its heyday as one of the engine rooms of the Empire, the east end was characterised by hardship, its most famous resident, Celtic FC, established 120 years ago to help alleviate the poverty among the Irish immigrant residents.

But the seeds of change planted across the area are sprouting many firmly bedded green shoots, both social and economic.

At the forefront has been housing, whose knock-on benefits cannot be underestimated.

While the success of Dennistoun, just outside the parliamentary boundary, in becoming Glasgow's Hackney is well documented and Mount Vernon, firmly within the constituency, has been the obvious pocket of affluence, new developments have sprouted up across the east end.

With pressure on land prices elsewhere, private developments with units selling for £250,000-plus have piggy-backed on to dramatically improved social housing schemes in places such as London Road, Broomhouse and Easterhouse, itself a cliched byword for post-war squalor.

A new-build in the constituency has recently been acquired by Health and Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. More affluent and educated residents who would one time have abandoned the east end are now choosing to stay within their communities.

One less obvious knock-on has been on education attainment levels. St Andrew's High in Carntyne is often held aloft as a beacon of success by achieving some of the highest inspection reports in the country. Much of that has been put down to its head teacher, Bruce Malone. However, its feeder primary, St Timothy's, is now achieving similar success in its HMIE reports and elsewhere across the east improvements are evident.

Getting them young is Margaret Layden's approach. Her Playbuster's scheme has been providing recreational facilities and childcare for several years, while other projects she has been involved with have led to around 20 teenagers taking up BA courses at Glasgow University.

Recently she started providing Spanish lessons to nursery-age children, which has been expanded across the east end and includes courses for parents and grandparents. In just in excess of a year it has won a European-wide languages award, received the Spanish Embassy's UK prize for best use of Spanish and last month came second only to the Red Cross in the charity awards.

Margaret said: "When we first started the Spanish classes we were on the receiving end of comments such as why teach Spanish to people who can't even speak English' but the success in improving the literacy, numeracy and languages skills of the pre-5s has been amazing. The whole ethos has been about community empowerment and people have pulled themselves up despite the constant downgrading of them."

In Easterhouse John Wheatley College, which has carved a reputation for churning out alumni breaking the stereotypes, has come under the banner of The Bridge, an arts, education and leisure complex whose library has gone from a ranking of 36th in the Glasgow league of book borrowing to fourth after the facilities were overhauled.

More than 10,000 have bought tickets for performances within its theatre, while the actual building has secured national architectural awards.

Use of the sports facilities, such as Tollcross several miles away, has also risen in double figure percentage terms in the past 12 months.

In the past year the Glasgow Works initiative, headed by entrepreneur Jim McColl, has made some headway in breaking the benefits cycle, training provided to those requiring the skills to re-enter the labour market.

The view that this is another example of a public-funded poverty industry is not shared by many in the private sector.

Kevin Ashcroft moved his IT firm, OCD, from a prestigious address in Park Circus in Glasgow's west end he occupied for a decade. East-end born and bred, he left school with no qualifications, taught himself communications while on a YTS and now, aged 36, employees a staff of 10 at his new HQ at Queenslie near Easterhouse.

He said: "There's the transport links, of course, but it's the staff we employ. Half my workforce is from the east end and, unlike other people I've dealt with, you know where you are with them. And they're great workers.

"I've felt more threatened when in London on business than in the east end."

Jim McVicar is managing director of his commercial printing firm nearby. Born on the Gallowgate, almost all his 20-odd staff hail from the immediate vicinity.

He said: "We've been in operation since 1949 and the resilience of this firm and the staff through fires and depressions are the characteristics of this part of Glasgow. To be honest I'm just sick of an increasingly vibrant community being treated like dirt."

At the Glasgow East Regeneration Company, chief executive Ronnie Saez pinpoints another overlooked aspect of the area - its women.

He said: "Much of the statistical focus has been on the men. The women's health stats are still poorer than most areas but the gap is much, much lower.

"Men lost their traditional role when the heavy industries were shut and you had the ensuing mental health, alcohol and addiction problems. Right through that you've had the women acting as the glue holding the community together and today are still very active in community councils and housing associations."

Of course there is anticipated benefits of the infrastructure works on the horizon such as the M74 extension and East End Regeneration Route and the 2014 Commonwealth Games which is promising to do what the Olympics will for the east end of London at a mere fraction of the public expenditure.

Ian Manson is head of the Clyde Gateway project, which is turning the scars of the heavy industrial past into new economic opportunity with the promise of thousands of new homes and jobs.

Mr Manson said: "This is long-term vision going past the current economic downturn and only in the past few days have we had the green light to implement our policies.

"No one scheme will change the east end but if you put the package of Gateway, the Games and the transport schemes together, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

"The groundwork is being done, literally and metaphorically."

'I now have a life that I thought had passed me by'

The benefits Jean Gabriel receives these days are a new car, while her first property purchase is in the pipeline.

Less than a year ago it had been incapacity benefits for more than a decade, resulting from a long-term back injury and depression.

After successfully securing a part-time job at Hobbycraft at the Fort, just off the M8 at Easterhouse, the 46-year-old widow is now a senior sales assistant.

She said: "It's not just a job, it's the confidence, a life I now have that I thought had passed me by. All I needed was the opportunity."

Like Celtic Park, The Fort is the biggest draw for outsiders to travel to the east end, the proximity of the M8 and M74 attracting customers from across Glasgow and Lanarkshire, 13 million at the last annual count.

The home of many mid-market retailers, chains including Zara, Oasis and even Nandos Chicken set up some of their first Scottish out-of-town units at the mall on the periphery of Easterhouse.

When Marks & Spencer comes on board by mid-2010 and the site increases by one-third, predictions have it as the sixth most-visited retail destination in Scotland.

Of more significance to those living in the area is the jobs.

But there is very much the ethos of "clean living in difficult circumstances" for many living in the east end.

Fort manager Phil Goodman said: "Two-thirds of the entire workforce here are from the greater Easterhouse area and then we have the rub-off from that in terms of the economic trickle down.

"We've got to accept that not all our customers are coming from the east end. Many are coming from further afield. But the east end shopper also likes to look, dress and eat well and, if we provide what they want in terms of brands and quality, they're perfectly disposed to spend on those items."