By-Election Preview (16th June): Scottish Edition

This week's Scottish by-election takes place in the Abbey ward of Dumfries and Galloway council. This four-member ward covers the southernmost parts of Dumfries itself but is largely rural, stretching south and south west from Dumfries to the Irish Sea.

The ward lies within the constituency of David Mundell MP, the Conservatives' sole Scottish MP, and is a very strongly Tory ward (by Scottish standards). In a previous by-election in this ward in 2008, the Conservatives held a seat after one of their councillors resigned. The Conservative councillor elected at that by-election has resigned now to produce this one!

The 2008 by-election result was somewhat unspectacular with the Labour and Conservative shares rising modestly with fewer independents in the running while the SNP held steady and the Lib Dems dropped slightly. Since then we've seen the huge surge in SNP support, mostly at the expense it seems of the Liberal Democrats. However, there are few Lib Dem first preferences to squeeze this time, even if they aren't even fielding a candidate.

The south of Scotland is also relatively poor for the SNP and even in tumultuous Holyrood elections they failed to gain any of the constituencies along the border. This is most likely going to be a contest between Labour and the Conservatives therefore, but based upon some of their recent swings you can't count the SNP out.

The council is run by a somewhat odd situation of a minority coalition, in this case of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Even though they already govern without a majority, losing the seat to either Labour or the SNP could create further instability as well as pressure for an administration change.

Dumfries and Galloway Council
Con	Lab	SNP	LD		IND
17	14	10	3		2
Abbey
By-Election Candidate				2007
Kath Lord (Con)				33.8%
Tom McAughtrie (Lab)				28.1%
Yowann Byghan (SNP)				17.8%
N/C (Ind)				15.4%
N/C (LD)				4.9%

KK