There’s one last by-election before the 5th of May, and for this one I (Chris) am doing it, because it’s Tom’s birthday and I was insistent he wasn’t blogging on his birthday.
For those wanting something that might give the slightest inclination of what to expect in a month’s time this week’s by-election is unlikely to do that, but I still think the by-election is very interesting because it’s a window into the crazy world of Highlands politics, because this week’s by-election is in the Wick ward of the Highlands.
That means a couple of things – firstly the by-election is a Scottish one and so it’s happening under AV, and second of all there’s a strong history of independents in the Highlands. In fact, there are currently three ‘independent groups’ on the council, which act almost like parties in all but name with a shared whip. By far the largest is the largest group on the council, led by councillor Sandy Park, which governs the council in coalition with the SNP.
This by-election was caused by the resignation of a councillor from Sandy Park’s group, one Katrina MacNab, who blamed her resignation on a lack of empathy in the local community following in the wake of forced spending cuts. The other two councillors elected in the ward in 2007 are also independents, with Bill Fernie also sitting in Sandy Park’s Independent Group and Graham Smith sitting in the ‘Independent Members Group’ after defecting from the Liberal Democrat group on the council.
There are seven candidates in this ward, four from each of the main Scottish parties and three independents. Fascinatingly, however, two of the independents, Niall Smith and Jim Oag, both stood in 2007: as party candidates! Niall Smith stood for the SNP and Jim Oag for Labour. It is not known which group these independents would join if elected, though I suspect they would join one. The third independent is Laurel Bush, who, from what I can tell, appears to be some sort of drugs decriminalisation campaigner who stood in 2007, getting 17 votes. He has a website where you can find out more. Bush pledges not to join any of the three independent groups on the council, being an independent independent, as it were.
Honestly, predicting this election is incredibly difficult as the combination of independent candidates and AV make it impossible to tell who’ll come out on top. For what it’s worth from a party political point of view the Lib Dems tend to do best in the region, followed by the SNP, but that doesn’t really tell us much. Key for Independent groups: IG= Independent Group (Sandy Park’s group). IMG: Independent Members Group. IAG: Independent Alliance Group. IND: a nonaligned independent!
| Highlands Council Composition | |||||||
| IG | LD | SNP | LAB | IMG | IAG | IND | VAC |
| 24 | 20 | 17 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Giving the current IG/LD/Lab administration a handsome majority, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue to lose the seat.
| By-election candidate | Votes | 2007 Result |
| - | 793 | 30.2% |
| - | 451 | 17.2% |
| Gail Ross | 443 | 16.9% |
| Clare Clark | 407 | 15.5% |
| Neil MacDonald | 366 | 13.9% |
| - | 98 | 3.7% |
| Michael Carr | 46 | 1.8% |
| Laurel Bush | 17 | 0.6% |
| Jim Oag | - | - |
| Niall Smith | - | - |
For what it’s worth, once again, the three candidates elected from this STV ward in 2007 were the top two independents (Katrina MacNab, the resigning councillor, being the second one) and the Lib Dem, who has subsequently defected to the Independent Members Group, and Jim Oag and Niall Smith stood for Labour and the SNP respectively in 2007, so the results for those parties may represent a personal vote they can tap into (or not, who knows!). Combined with AV, this could be almost anybody’s!
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