By-Election Preview (19th May)

So after the bumper night at the start of the month we're back with our by-election coverage. There are two this week; one in Surrey and one in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats will be the focus as they have a difficult defence in Aberdeen and in recent years they have run the Conservatives close in the vacant Surrey ward.

We'll start in Scotland with the first by-election in Scotland since the SNP's landslide win in the Scottish parliamentary elections two weeks ago. A vacancy arose in the four-member Dyce, Buckburn and Danestone ward due to the death of Lib Dem Cllr Ron Clark.

The SNP only fielded one candidate in most wards in the first council elections run under the new Single Transferable Vote system, creating a false-winner effect when many of their candidates won nearly two quotas on first preferences alone. The result from Dyce last time was:

	COUNT
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
SNP	2,620
Labour	1,801	1,801
Lib Dem	1,534	1,534	1,534
Conservative	603	701	730	738	752	781	833
Lib Dem #2	360	593	667	713	727	769	885
Green	147	298	330	335	348	409
Independent #1	116	190	211	214	260
Independent #2	57	117	131	133

The quota was 1,448 with the first three seats being won by the SNP, Labour and Liberal Democrats on first preferences alone. The Conservatives were ahead to win the fourth seat until the final round where the Green votes transferred strongly in favour of the second Liberal Democrat candidate.

On 2007 first preference totals alone, the SNP should be expected to win this seat easily. Their council coalition partners, the Lib Dems, had the second largest total of first preferences between their two candidates, with Labour not far behind them.

Dyce/Bucksburn/Danestone
By-Election Candidate	2007
Neil MacGregor (SNP)	36.2%
Kristian Chapman (LD)	26.1%
Graeme Lawrence (LAB)	24.9%
Ross Thomson (CON)	8.3%
Rhonda Reekie (GRN)	2.0%
N/C (IND)	1.6%
N/C (IND)	0.8%
Angela Joss (IND)	0.0%

There could be a local backlash against the SNP and the Lib Dems over council spending cuts, but we are more likely to see a great squeeze in the Lib Dem vote with the SNP benefiting, as was the national picture in the parliamentary elections two weeks ago. The Lib Dems are also facing other problems in the city with another sitting councillor Gordon Leslie admitting in court to loitering in the city's red light district.

In the Parliamentary elections, the SNP held the Aberdeen North constituency containing this ward with a vastly increased majority. Across the North East Scotland region as a whole they managed to win every single constituency and still gain a top-up seat on the regional list, something Labour has never been able to do even in its strongholds of Glasgow or Central Scotland. The scale of the SNP win tonight will help to determine whether that result was something the SNP can sustain through to next year's local elections or whether it was more of a flash in the pan event.

Aberdeen City Council has a total of 43 councillors elected across 13 wards by the Single Transferable Vote method of proportional representation. The council is currently run by a Liberal Democrat-SNP coalition, who have increasingly come under attack for making heavy spending cuts made to fill a large deficit in the council budget. The current composition of the council is:

Aberdeen City Council
SNP	LD	LAB	CON	A-CON*	IND	VAC*
13	13	10	2	2	1	2

If the SNP do win, it would turn them from being junior coalition partners to the larger coalition party, which could have a knock on effect in terms of the council leadership and committee posts. However, there is unlikely to be any change in the administration as a whole, and the result is likely to end up reflecting what should have happened back in 2007 if the SNP had stood two candidates for this ward. KK

 

The other by-election taking place today is in the South East, more specifically the St Johns & Brookwood ward for the Surrey County Council. The vacancy has arisen following the resignation of the Conservative Councillor Elizabeth Compton, apparently to prevent the 6 month rule getting invoked against her. In 2009 Compton just managed to hang on to her seat by a margin of 63 votes from her Liberal Democrat challenger. This is the sort of by-election that the Lib Dems would expect to perform well in but given their performance in this month's local elections a gain won't be easy.

Only one of the two wards that make up this County seat was up for election this year and both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives saw their vote share reduced in St John's and Hook Heath following the addition of a Labour candidate. This ward is very safe for the Tories and the marginal Brookwood would have been a better gauge of the Liberal Democrat's prospects, but if Labour take votes off both coalition partners then it could still be tight. The Tories have a big majority on the County Council so if they do fail to hold this seat it won't affect the political balance. TH

St Johns & Brookwood (Surrey)
By-Election Candidate	2009
Linda Kemeny (CON)	43.0%
Tina Liddington (LD)	41.4%
Duncan Clarke (UKIP)	11.8%
Janice Worgan (LAB)	3.8%

 

* The Conservative Group in Aberdeen split in half (2 'Scottish' Conservatives and 2 'Aberdeen' Conservatives) after a dispute over committee posts, but both groups remain recognised as official Conservative councillors by their own party. There is also another vacancy in Airyhall, Broomhill and Garthdee ward due to be filled in a by-election on 23 June.