Tuesday 14 June 2011

By-election round-up

So onto this week’s by-election round-up, slightly belatedly.

There were five seats up this week, two in Kensington and Chelsea, one in Essex and two in Scotland. Without further ado let’s start with Chelmsford Central, in Essex.

This by-election was kicked off by the controversial death of incumbent Margaret Hutchon.

By-Election Candidate


2010

Change from 2009

Dick Madden

1496

43.6%

+4.4%

Graham Pooley

1323

38.6%

-13.3%

Russell Kennedy

610

17.8%

+8.8%

A GAIN for the Tories in Chelmsford Central then. Hutchon was apparently locally popular and so a personal vote may explain some of the Lib Dem fall, though there also seems to have been a decent shift to Labour, but in 2009 a Green Party candidate beat Labour into third so part of it is also probably Green votes flowing to Labour without a candidate.

Next on Kensington and Chelsea, where two seats of Brompton and Queen’s Gate were up. Both were, not unusually for Kensington and Chelsea, heavily Conservative and we thought it unlikely that they would fall. We were right:

Brompton

By-Election Candidate


2011

Change from 2010

Louis Mosley

728

79.6%

+9.8%

Mark Scutter

101

11.0%

-2.3%

Mary Harris

86

9.4%

-10.2%

Queen’s Gate

By-Election Candidate


2011

Change from 2010

Sam Mackover

663

73.7%

+2.8%

John Blamey

100

11.1%

-8.2%

Keith Stirling

82

9.1%

-1.8%

David Coburn

54

6.0%

+6.0%

Two easy Conservative holds then. In fact the Tories gained votes in both wards, despite a UKIP candidate in Queen’s Gate. The vote increase can probably be explained by turnout: 16.5% in Brompton and 14.7% in Queen’s Gate. I suspect that Conservative voters would have been slightly more motivated to turn out as I guess they were probably the only party that bothered to campaign in any meaningful way (even then I doubt they campaigned particularly hard).

Onto Scotland next and for this I’ll turn over to Kristopher Keane.

This week's two Scottish by-elections both saw the SNP continuing to win big swings in their favour. They very comfortably held their seat in Falkirk while in the Highlands they narrowly won on first preferences, losing to one of the independent candidates after transfers.

In Bo'ness and Blackness, the SNP share of the first preferences rose by over 10%, and they reached the quota on first preferences alone with no need for transfers to be counted, safely holding the seat as well as holding Labour's plurality to just a single seat. The Labour share remained more or less steady though, with a significant drop for the Tories and the lack of an SSP candidate this time around making up the net swing.

Bo'ness and Blackness

By-Election Candidate

Votes

Vote %

+/-

Sandy Turner

1621

57.8%

+10.6%

David Aitchison

893

31.8%

-0.1%

Lynn Munro

231

8.2%

-4.5%

Gerry Lawton

59

2.1%

+2.1%

Falkirk Council

Lab

SNP

CON

IND

VAC

14

-

13

-

2

-

3

-

0

-











The far more interesting night (actually following day, grrr) was had at the count in Highland for the Tain and Easter Ross seat. The first preferences gave the SNP a very narrow lead over independent Fiona Robertson of just 26 votes, an absolutely massive increase in their share by 26% - more than tripling their first preference votes compared to 2007.

In something of a turn up for the books based on recent performance, the Lib Dems marginally increased their first preference share as well. Although rather than any increase in base support, I think this had more to do with the lack of Labour and Conservative candidates this time around as well as a huge campaign by the Lib Dems including their new Scottish leader making a personal visit to the ward.

Second time independent candidate Michael Herd was the first candidate to be eliminated, his transfers cutting the SNP majority to 20. The elimination of the Lib Dem candidate next put Robertson into the lead with a mere five votes with the 547 votes of the other independent still to play for. However, these votes transferred strongly in favour of Robertson who ended up winning the final round with a three-figure lead although failing to reach quota.

Tain and Easter Ross

By-Election Candidate

Votes

Vote %

+/-

Derek Louden

837

37.8%

+25.9%

Fiona Robertson

811

36.7%

+36.7%

Ruairidh Mackenzie

467

21.1%

+21.1%

Antony Gardner

307

13.9%

-2.3%

Michael Herd

97

4.4%

-0.9%


1st Round

2nd Round

3rd Round

4th Round

By-Election Candidate

Votes

Transfers

Votes

Transfers

Votes

Transfers

Votes

Antony Gardner

307

11

318

-318




Michael Herd

97

-97






Derek Louden

837

23

860

68

928

109

1037

Ruairidh Mackenzie

467

14

481

66

547

-547


Fiona Robertson

811

29

840

93

933

271

1204

Nontransferable/Spoilt

17

20

37

91

128

167

295

Highland Council

IND (IG)

LD

SNP

Lab

IND (IMG)

IND (IAG)

IND

24

-

20

-

18

-1

7

-

6

-

4

-

1

1

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