UK local by-elections 2011

[afleitch]

SNP win in Wick. Not got first preferences yet, but working backwards their vote is up by something close to 30%. The SNP didn't return any councillors in Wick last time, and their 2007 candidate stood as an independent.

Might put money on the SNP winning Caithness, Sutherland and Ross then

[afleitch]

Dyce/Bucksburn/Danestone

SNP 51.4
Lab 23.1
Lib Dem 11.0
Con 8.7
Ind 3.7
Green 2.2

(from BBC via Andrea at Vote2007)

That's

SNP +15.2%
LAB -1.8%
LIB -15.2%
CON +0.4%
GRN +0.2%

[afleitch]

August is normally a quiet month for by-elections and there is just one on 4th August.

There's a by-election in the City Centre ward in Edinburgh City Council on August 18th. The sitting SNP councillor David Beckett left to take up a position at Harvard.

This will be a very transfer heavy result

2007 by party

SNP 20.3
Conservative 20.1
Lib Dem 19.7
Labour 17.9
Green 16.8
Other 4.4

Tight!

The SNP are favourites to retain their seat, but 'The Trams' issue hovers over the ward like a foul smell. An anti-tram candidate is running as an independent. The Greens are also running.

[afleitch]

It's more or less the norm on a number of parish/town councils, and I'd guess that on many of the independent-dominated districts in Wales and the North of Scotland, there's an element of this going on

There's a great side-effect to STV; it makes it difficult for Independents to get in as their 'home turf' is now 3-4 times bigger than it was. 18 independents were ousted on Highland Council in 2007 for example and 10 lost out in Dumfries and Galloway.

Long may it continue.

[afleitch]

Detailed map of the Edina ward? I want to see for myself what all is in it.

[now screenshotted as suggested by Al]

Cuts out the Old Town'S southern fringes, then. Goes further west than I would have expected, too.

Basically everything to the south of Princes Street and beyond (basically the 'red road' that cuts down the middle) was won by the SNP in 2007. Labour won in the north east of the ward, at the Calton Hill area while in the north west in the New Town and towards Haymarket you found people who voted Lib Dem 'nationally' but Tory locally. Obviously the SNP pretty much won everything in 2011.

[afleitch]

Good result for us in Edinburgh; bodes well for next May.

[afleitch]

Saltcoats and Stevenston is a good result for Labour even taking into account it deing diluted by 2 or 3 candidates next year. No Ronnie McNicol standing (a sitting independent) and most of his support went to Labour. Despite this the SNP-IND-LAB-LAB result is likely to be repeated next year which is good for Labour who otherwise would be fighting to retain one of it's seats from the SNP.

[afleitch]

SNP hold Hillhead, LDem hold Poulton, Labour gain Ruabon, Tories gain Sighthill, Tories gain Wight West. Most of these - weirdly - were extremely close, it seems.

I'm sure that occasionally happens in afleitch's better dreams...

loltiredness

It was appreciated!

Hillhead was a 13.65% turnout; woeful. About a third of the electorate are students so there is alot of 'churn'. SNP doing well to top the poll here. Transfers are interesting. I've been trying to work out, using the recent by-elections in Scotland as a guide to work out what will happen with the inevitable Lib Dem collapse in an STV system.

In Glasgow in 2007 the Greens won 5 seats (on par with the Lib Dems) and the Tories just 1 as the Tories were transfer repellant. Indeed in Pollockshields, the Tories only won by 4 votes on the last count pipping the Greens.

Tranfers from the Lib Dems in te by election were 115 (38.2% to the Greens, 57 (18.9%) to the Conservatives, 49 (16.3%) to the SNP and 42 (14%) to Labour with 38 exhausted

In 2007 the Tories, right the way through to count 7 when they were eliminated only picked up 62 votes. Picking up 69 votes from transfers until elimination in this low turnout by-election is actually not bad; theres much more movement here from the Lib Dems to the Tories than there was in 2007. However, the Greens are in a very good position here, not only to win seats but also unfortunately, to knock the Tories out in Pollockshields (though they would be in a stronger position to win in Newlands/Auldburn as Labour's second candidate performed so poorly)

Of course the SNP undernominated in Glasgow which led to some curious results due to huge surplusses of SNP votes not having a second SNP candidate to go to. They won't be doing that this time round and a fight to the finish with Labour could end up freezing nearly all the other parties out almost exclusively in the 3 seaters.