Saturday 20 August 2011

SNP win ‘the most interesting council by-election EVER’!

Thursday's battle royale in Scotland's most marginal ward resulted in a nail-biting wait through five rounds of counting, culminating in an SNP hold after an early Tory lead.

As expected, the first preference votes created a tight race for the top with the Tories leading on first preference but no candidate achieving even half of the quota. The Tory, SNP, Labour and Green vote shares each varied slightly on the 2007 first preferences, but it was the Lib Dem vote that collapsed completely from 20% four years ago to 7% on Thursday. At a raw glance, this vote seems to have gone mostly to the anti-tram independent, but I expect the actual pattern to have been similar to recent by-elections across Scotland with Lib Dem voters switching to the SNP and Conservatives while Carson, based on his transfers, seems to have mostly pulled support from the Tories.

City Centre

By-Election Candidate

Votes

Vote %

+/-

Iain McGill

837

24.2%

+4%

Alasdair Rankin (E)

797

23.1%

+2.6%

Karen Doran

682

19.7%

+1.7%

Melanie Main

494

14.3%

-2.7%

John Carson

394

11.4%

+11.4%

Alistair Hodgson

251

7.3%

-12.6%

Carson polled well for an independent candidate in Edinburgh, possibly a showing of the strength of feeling against the problems caused by mismanagement of the tram project, and overall a majority of first preferences was won between him and the anti-tram parties of the Conservatives and the SNP. However, with no change in administration forthcoming the tram project seems certain to carry on.

Predictably, the Lib Dem votes transferred strongly in favour of the Greens, but there were simply too few Lib Dem votes in the first place to push them ahead of Labour. Carson's votes transferred mostly to the Conservatives' benefit, building them a considerable lead over the SNP. However, the elimination of the Greens narrowed that gap considerably and the final elimination of the Labour candidate pushed the SNP into the lead to retain the seat.



Stage

Candidate

1stP%

1

2

3

4

5

Iain McGill (Con)

24.2%

837

67

27%

904

139

35%

1043

67

11%

1110

154

16%

1264

Alasdair Rankin (SNP)

23.1%

797

28

11%

825

68

17%

893

188

30%

1081

287

30%

1368

Karen Doran (Lab)

19.7%

682

34

14%

716

29

7%

745

223

35%

968

-968



Melanie Main (Grn)

14.3%

494

82

33%

576

59

15%

635

-635






John Carson (Ind)

11.4%

394

8

3%

402

-402









Alistair Hodgson (LD)

7.3%

251

-251












No-Transfer


32

13%

32

107

27%

139

157

25%

296

527

54%

823

The biggest winner in this contest seems to have been apathy, with a 23% turnout which is very poor by Edinburgh standards for by-elections. As I noted earlier in the week though, the election was held at a very poor time with both students away on summer break and much of the ward occupied by the ongoing Fringe festival, both of which will have reduced turnout.

The Tories had a strong showing for most of the counts, but the most spectacular result has to be that of the Lib Dems, who lost nearly two thirds of their first preference share from 2007. Extrapolating this to next year's city wide council elections large losses seem very likely, possibly even reducing their council group to a rump from the party's strongholds in the western suburbs. Who exactly will gain those seats though looks uncertain. KK

City of Edinburgh Council

LD

Lab

SNP

Con

Grn

16

-

15

-

13

-

11

-

3

-

So, from that epic AV by-election we head south to Knowsley where a slightly less exciting contest took place. A seat in the Page Moss ward was vacated by Labour Councillor Tommy Russell, who had resigned for reasons unknown. As Labour had won here in May with the support of more than nine in ten voters the result was something of a foregone conclusion. True to form Dave Tulley held the seat for Labour, although he only managed a miserly 82.5% of the vote. That represented a swing of 6.2% to the Liberal Democrats since the election three months ago. Not bad until you consider they received only 57 votes, down from 100 in May.

The most interesting figure this by-election threw up is surely the turnout of just 12.9%; something small 'd' democrats will surely be horrified at. The Knowsley Council is dominated by Labour, who should enjoy similar margins of victory across the Metropolitan Borough in next year's partial elections. TH

Page Moss (Knowlsey)

By-Election Candidate

Votes

Vote %

+/-

Dave Tulley (E)

541

82.5%

-10.6%

Matt Hughes

57

8.7%

+1.8%

Sean Watson

22

3.4%

+3.4%

Marie Rea

21

3.2%

+3.2%

Robert Avery

15

2.3%

+2.3%

1 comment:

  1. Scottish Conservatives have always been pro tram, the only party to vote consistently against the project have been the SNP. That made the transfer of Carson's votes to the Tories a little bizarre. Good article though.
    Regards,
    Murray Mitchell.

    ReplyDelete