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%