Friday, May 3, 2019

SNP gatecrash the English local elections by seizing control of Dundee City Council

So here's a paradox within a paradox within a paradox.  On Scottish local elections night two years ago, the SNP failed to win an overall majority in any council, and yet they've somehow pulled that feat off tonight on English local elections night.  Winning a single by-election was enough for them regain outright control of Dundee City Council after two years of running a minority administration.  The SNP gained the crucial seat from Labour, and yet it was a poor result for the SNP.  Confused?  Well, it's our old friend, the STV voting system, making everything a bit complicated again.  The vacancy was caused by the death of a Labour councillor, but the popular vote in the ward was dominated by the SNP last time around.  They haven't done as well tonight, and Labour have made a significant comeback.

Dundee North-East by-election result (2nd May 2019):

SNP 46.9% (-6.9)
Labour 38.1% (+11.1)
Conservatives 8.4% (-0.7)
Anti-Cuts 2.8% (+1.5)
Greens 2.4% (+0.8)
Citizens First 1.4% (n/a)


It's difficult to make much sense of the direction of travel there - it's completely out of line with other recent Scottish local by-elections, with recent Scottish opinion polls, and even with the English local elections, in which so far Labour seem to be taking a pounding. Probably those on the ground in Dundee would know the explanation - perhaps the Labour candidate is particularly well known, or perhaps there was some local factor that was suppressing the SNP vote.

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It seems to me that the obvious point a lot of commentators are missing about the English results is that, at least to a large extent, the Brexit vote had nowhere to go.  Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party didn't stand, and UKIP only stood in a small minority of wards.  So if the Tories do end up with a surprise lead in the projected national vote, as now looks possible, there'll be no great mystery about the divergence from opinion polls showing a Labour lead - it'll have happened because some disgruntled pro-Brexit voters reluctantly stuck with the Tories yesterday in the absence of a clear alternative.  They won't have the same problem later this month in the Euro elections.

59 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Isn't Boston in Lincolnshire and voted heavily to leave.

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    2. But congratulations to Bill for completely missing the point of the post and his geographical knowledge, the IQ levels of posters on here are frightening.

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    3. Not from there. Lots of place names have multiple places..yes I missed the point, that's why I asked. Sorry none of you are equipped to actually clarify.

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    4. Sarcasm is obviously lost on you too Bill, if you were from Lincolnshire you wouldn't bother saying it would you. Jeez Louise

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    5. Is anybody equipped to actually clarify to Bill whether Dundee is in Scotland.

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    6. I am. I saw a road map and I can confirm without fear of contradiction that Dundee is indeed located in Scotland

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  2. Tories and Labour should be romping home. The SNP have been in government for 12 years, yet they're still winning seats all over Scotland?

    Local factors / %'s aside, on average, local election results are a disaster recently for the unionists. At this stage in the electoral cycle they should be miles in front, wining locals left right and centre, to have any hopes for 2021.

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    1. Climb on board the Zubaluba Express, Pongo. Hahahaha.

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  3. Pro-Remain parties well ahead so far in England.

    Where's the 'overwhelming majority' gone?

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    1. Which English parties are you referring to as "pro-remain"?

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    2. Libs +321 and Greens +46 so far.

      'Leave' parties (Con -471, Lab -73, UKIP -54) getting thrashed.

      Surely 'the people are speaking' ;-)

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    3. I think you're using different definitions of "ahead"

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    4. Looks like share of the vote will be 56/44 in favour of pro leave parties. Factor in the fact the two high remain areas (Scotland and London) have not voted and the split is probably still around 52/48 leave

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    5. @Keaton

      Remember, according to unionists, the winning party doesn't reflect the public mood; losing parties do. If you are miles behind, but pick up a few seats, you are the winner. Think 2017 and Ruth Davidson.

      @Adam

      Aye, Con and Lab coalition taking Scotland out of the EU draws ever closer.

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  4. A bit of complacency from some of our voters in the ward. Poor turnout. I was speaking to a friend who lives in the ward last night and I asked him if he had voted. He said the SNP would win and didn't need his vote. Labour did a big push in the ward along with the Ruth Davidson party. A local factor in the ward was the conduct of one of the 2 existing councilors who has had a lot of adverse publicity of his online social media outbursts. Just my tuppence worth.

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    1. Never forget the lessons of 2017. A wee bit of complacency turned a six seat loss into twenty-one and slammed the brakes on IndyRef2.

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    2. Aye Charlie Malone is a fairly well respected local face so there was a good wedge of votes for him.

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  5. Technically a win for Labour and a signpost for the way ahead at the EU elections and next GE. Jeremy Corbyn has turned things around.

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    1. Your joking right?

      Always worth looking at what happened at the previous election :

      Con +541 counsellors
      Lab: -203
      LD: -403
      UKIP : +176
      Green: +10

      Results so far:

      Con -450
      Lab -74
      LD - +307
      Green: +41
      UKIP: -54

      The 2015 election was at the same time as the GE were the LD were 'punished' for the coalition so they are now making those seats back.

      Conservatives are loosing their 2015 gains but are probably heading towards the 'least bad' result area, considering that it is a mid term election which they would expect to be doing badly in anyhow.

      UKIP are not the same sort of party they were back in 2015, if the Brexit Party had been standing you would imagine they would of been virtually been wiped out.

      Labours result is terrible, 4 years of 'o Jeremy Corbyn' and they are not even close to making their 2015 losses back.

      Anyone who thinks that Labour are doing well needs their head read, performing less badly against the worst Government / Con party in recent memory do not mean that you are doing well.

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    2. following on from this:

      Barnsley 17% swing from Labour to LD
      Sunderland 13% swing from Labour to LD

      Anyone who thinks that Labour is doing well, with those sort of swings in those sort of areas is mad

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    3. Counsellors, genius, the Tories probably need a bit of counselling on their extremist Brexit nationalism and economic/fiscal policy sending even average earning families into poverty. You could probably do with some yourself along with a revision course in first grade English as you seem to have 'loosed' any semblance of spelling or grammar.

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  6. Using I Murray as the name of the poster gives the game away. :)

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    1. I'm taking my lady wife out tonight for a luxury shit in the refurbished toilets of the Ancrum Arms Hotel. Then we're coming home to watch her Royal Wedding DVD.

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  7. Surely there should be questions about Ruth Davidson's leadership? Her party is being thrashed in south Britain. As next in line for UK leader (according to the BBC), she's got to take some responsibility here.

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  8. Really amazing that the Anti-Cuts only got 2.8% of the vote. The three main capitalist parties got the bulk of the vote. Is austerity really an issue!

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    1. Yes .just like you

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    2. What's really amazing Chief Inbred Idiot is that the Natsi-Cunts got any % of the vote but I wouldn't expect any understanding of that from a thick plank of Amber Rudd natsi boy like you Groundskeeper Willie Clown.

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  9. I see the unionists / Brexiters are all taking hits in N. Ireland.

    Neutral (people must decide) / pro-reunification parties and EU Remain parties making gains.

    The people are speaking.

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    Replies
    1. Hurrah, because I'm a person and I have just spoken. I said "Good evening. My name is Makioka and I work in a fine office."

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  10. Given the collapse in Tory support, where's the mandate for 'Now is not the time?'.

    Tories don't even have the support of English voters, never mind trying to tell Scots what to do.

    Says the Scots electorate.

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  11. Any day now.

    LOL. Imagine if you'd voted Corbyn thinking he was was a leftie and could help stop / temper brexit.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/may-corbyn-brexit-deal

    Theresa May Believes She Can Now Do A Brexit Deal With Jeremy Corbyn

    The government has offered Labour a customs arrangement and "dynamic alignment" on workers' rights, sources familiar with the talks told BuzzFeed News.

    A formal English/British Lab-Con coalition will bring the UK union to its final end.

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  12. is this the same Theresa may that believed that holding a GE would increase her majority, or that hear deal would pass through parliament.

    Her believing something has nothing to do with actual reality....

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    Replies
    1. Labour are clearly happy to sell themselves to the Tories; just depends if the price is right.

      If not, they'd never have even started the formal coalition talks.

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    2. Isa Guthrie and the GuthrettesMay 5, 2019 at 8:17 AM

      I loved The Price Is Right when Leslie Crowther presented it. "Come On Down!"
      In real life Leslie Crowther's sister was Annie Sugden from Emmerdale who had been Liz Dawn from Coronation Street"s bridesmaid!

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  13. IDS calling for May to resign. LOL.

    Also, after the majority voted against them for Westminster and Stormont, it appears unionist will now lose the local elections in N. Ireland too. How can the Brits claim N. Ireland should be in the UK because it's 'unionist' if the unionists keep getting beat in elections?

    The end of the union is nigh.

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    1. Unionists have many more councilors in NI than the feinians what the hell results are you looking at.

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    2. Unionists have only won a minority of Councillors I understand. That would mean unionists are in minority at all levels of government in N. Ireland; for the first time in history in all cases I believe.

      A momentous day which marks the beginning of the end for N. Irish unionism.

      Of course the nationalists don't have a majority either; the balance of power now lies with the pro-EU/Remainer 'neutrals' (on the constitutional question).

      Now that unionism is in minority, it may be time to end the power-sharing agreement and let coalition governments form naturally. These would of course be pro-Remain, just like the population they represent.

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    3. Whit a knob you are skier local councils do not make national policy.

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    4. But unionists got only a minority share of the vote in the last Westminster and Stormont elections too.

      They are a minority voice across N. Ireland now it seems.

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    5. I don't see why a pro-Remain SF + SDLP + Alliance coalition can't run N. Ireland. These have a majority together.

      Maybe it's time to ask the people of N. Ireland whether they want to restore full democracy, allowing coalitions to form freely.

      I understand Alliance (who've made big gains recently) support that. It's not democratic that they and other smaller parties can't form part of a governing coalition.

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    6. lets hope the assembly talks next week sort out something, another election may well be the solution. Of course any coalition that is formed would have to follow the GFA (ie the coalition you suggest would have to have a DUP/UUP deputy first minister)

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    7. From the council results, it looks like another election could see the unionists lose even more seats, so I imagine the republicans and neutrals would be up for that.

      The problem right now is unionism is tied to the disastrous brexit; something people in N. Ireland rejected by a landslide majority.

      Maybe it's time for a referendum to see if people in N. Ireland would like to end the power sharing part of the GFA and restore full democracy. It's ultimately up to them (brits are always reminding us that what N. Irish folks want goes; hence they get to be in the UK).

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    8. The DUP, UUP and PUP have 200 councilors between them which is 35 more than Sinn Fein, SSDLP and AONTU. You're making up your own facts and peddling nonsense about them.

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    9. I make it 206 for official 'Unionist' parties. This is not half of 462.

      So, thanks for confirming that unionist parties are in minority, just like they are in the N. Irish parliament and like they would be if Westminster elections were proportional.

      Minority at all levels for the first time in history. We have reached the turning point. A new dawn is breaking, one where unionism is not the majority force in N. Ireland.

      Now the 'neutrals' hold the balance, and they're rock solid pro-Remainers. Alliance are a sister party of the Lib Dems :-)

      Anyway, time folks stopped claiming N. Irish folks are 'majority unionist'. That's just not true any more. Unionists used to win 75% of the vote (hit 86% in 1964); now they're in minority.

      It's not nationalist yet, but 3 elections in a row at all levels say it's not unionist either. Thanks in a big part due to brexit, it's now in no mans land.

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  14. Top news headline on 6music just now is flaming Ruth Davidson and what she thinks!
    Straws are being clutched at, methinks.

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    1. The resurrection of the messiah coinciding with the nation-wide (Ruth's nation anyway) ass kicking her party are getting, are proving amusingly difficult for the BBC to spin.

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    2. Walter G GlockenspielMay 6, 2019 at 8:18 AM

      She got a bit of a shock in one of her publicity pieces where the interviewer asked questions she couldn't answer. I trust he has been reprimanded by management.

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  15. Gavin Williamson proving that despite all his bravado he actually has nothing damaging on May. She has many many things that make her unfit to Govern, begin diabetic is not one of them, if that's the worst he come up with just shows what a sad little man he is.

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    1. He should stick a brillo pad up his arse and swivvle off to Gib. The creeping Jesus that he is. He needs to stop attacking Teresa May. She's just doing a hard job. I bet he could get the crowds like she gets. He's a creep. And his teeth make him look like look like a horse that's just what out a load of shit. And Ruth Davidson's back to.

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    2. Is " Brillo pad up your arse" a saying? Or did you invent it?

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    3. It's quite an old saying, I think. My grandad used to say it. From the Bible or Burns or something.

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  16. Prof C is saying the English council elections suggest Con and Lab tied on 28% UK-wide.

    After the thrashing both took, does anyone think a GE is just around the corner? It would see them both hammered, with swaths of seats going to the Libs, Farage, the SNP.... No chance the big two will let that happen.

    A Lab-Con formal brexit coalition - and ideally before the EU election - looks very possible now. The DUP will vote against the deal*, but at least part of the ERG will vote for it just to ensure brexit happens.


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    *English nats are dumping the DUP anyway. They're throwing wannabe English (who sound really, really irish) under a backstop bus to ensure England gets its brexit and saves a £billion.

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    1. Professor C. I know what C stands for and it isn't Catapult. Has he cananized John Smith yet? Another one. C is four Cybernat.

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    2. Thanks for the total gibberish, Grunter.

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    3. And your an other one.

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  17. In the light of today's Integrity Initiative funded attack on Yes voters, our favourite glasgow councillor has just outed herself as an Mi5 plant.

    Nobody who supports independence, not now and not ever, would make a statement this fundamentally insane.

    Quoted from twatter.

    > without the large Roma & Asian population it has. So there are more problematic elements who identify as unionists but mainstream unionists are far better at disowning their ultras than we are. Try it & see - mainstream unionists will condemn union Jack wielding bampots
    > without a second's hesitation. Whereas on the Yes side people feel somehow we owe loyalty to every single person who has ever waved a saltire. This is a genuine problem. To be clear I am not talking about people expressing themselves forcefully or swearing or taking the piss
    > this is twitter, we can't gentrify it, people being angry & sweary is part of life & they may have good reason to be. But real nasty stuff, abuse, racism, homophobia etc, if someone does that you don't owe them a damn thing no matter how much of a yesser they are. Call it out.

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  18. Glasgow has turned into jakeywegia since the Scottish Nat sis came to power. It must be difficult for the partially sighted negotiating the pavements with all the sleeping bags full with humanity and Eastern European cartels begging.

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    1. Why are you complaining, Cordelia? I've seen you trying to climb into any number of these sleeping bags and bribe the owners with bottles of White Diamond to let you in for a bit of whoojymeranga.

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