As I pointed out yesterday, both of the by-elections taking place looked almost certain to be Labour holds, because both wards were particularly favourable for Labour in 2022, at a time when the SNP were still miles ahead of Labour nationally. Well, Labour have indeed held on in Kilpatrick, but the details of the result do not bode well for them at all.
Kilpatrick by-election result on first preference votes (28th November 2024)
Labour 42.7% (-13.4)
SNP 30.3% (-7.7)
Reform UK 10.4% (n/a)
SNP 30.3% (-7.7)
Reform UK 10.4% (n/a)
Conservatives 5.7% (-0.2)
Greens 4.3% (n/a)
Liberal Democrats 3.7% (n/a)
Greens 4.3% (n/a)
Liberal Democrats 3.7% (n/a)
Scottish Family Party 1.5% (n/a)
Communists 1.4% (n/a)
That's a swing from Labour to the SNP of about 2.9% - and remember the swing is supposed to be the other way around at the moment, because the baseline in local by-elections is the 2022 result, not July 2024. Assuming a uniform swing, that would put the SNP ahead nationally by a stonking 18 percentage points.
Someone said on the previous thread that Scotland is not immune to Reform UK's charms - well, that's clearly true, and Reform are certainly doing better in Scotland in recent weeks than at one time seemed remotely possible (remember what a busted flush they looked like after Michelle Ballantyne came nowhere near to retaining her Holyrood seat). But it's worth stressing that Reform's average vote share in recent Scottish by-elections is only around half the vote they are typically recording in GB-wide polls. So Scotland is still far from being Farage's most fertile territory.
Was Michelle Ballantyne the recently arrived [AKA migrant] nutter who felt entitled to tell the natives how to behave?
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting to see the Reform vote. Suggests Labour & SNP voters are switching to them.
ReplyDeleteThe hotel in my town where my parents met is closed down and now full of migrants. I'm all for helping people but they aren't Ukrainians, they're folk from the other side of the Sahara. How did they end up all the way here. You wonder why people are voting reform, they're seeing things with their own eyes. Has there been a policy to send migrants from England up here? Genuine question. You can have a different chapter about whether it's good or bad but it's a fact people are noticing this and a proportion will vote accordingly.
DeleteReform voters = dupes.
DeleteAnd don't kid on that you all foi helping people. Only those with light skins.
DeleteAnon at 7.43. Why would SNP voters turn to a unionist party who would scrap the NHS ?
DeleteOf course we can be in favour of helping people and also not be completely naive.
DeleteI've actually literally given humanitarian aid first hand to "brown people". It's your condescending tone which drives people to parties like reform.
Helping those from neighbouring counties is expected and right. Helping those from half way across the world with no connection is an incentive.
DeleteMiddle east, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and further afield where there is conflict, people will move for a "better life".
DeleteI suspect that as we have left the EU funnily enough we struggle for workers.
DeleteMaybe if we position 'working visas' as opposed to just calling them immigrants people might have a different perception.
Chalks
Don't local by-elections often reflect specific regional issues and may not accurately represent national trends?
ReplyDeleteTurnout is also a factor. The Kilpatrick by-election reported a voter turnout of just 45.2%, which is substantially lower than the 63.5% turnout in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. Lower turnouts in by-elections can often mean the results are shaped by a smaller and potentially less representative portion of the electorate, making it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about national trends.
The Kilpatrick turnout was 19.2%. None of the last four by-elections have broken 20% turnout. One last week was 12%. So hard to say how Reform will perform on a turnout of 65%. At the moment about 2% of the potential electorate are voting for them. Whether that will ramp up as turnout increases remains to be seen.
DeleteWhat the turnout does say is that voters are scunnered and unmotivated. Politicians of all stripes are becoming Billy No Mates.
I know. The British Nationalist propaganda is so extreme. Its like watching the BBC "news" shows.
ReplyDeleteGoodness me, the trolls have really lost the plot this morning - four comments deleted. To the "how this can be a swing to the SNP is beyond me!" brigade, you might want to ponder the fact that 13.4 is a bigger number than 7.7. This is not exactly rocket science. If all else fails try some remedial arithmetic classes, but you'll be going all the way back to primary school level.
ReplyDeleteDo you truly believe the SNP are 18 points ahead of Labour?
DeleteDo you truly believe that the swing in Kilpatrick, if extrapolated nationally, does not point to an 18 point SNP lead? Because if you don't accept that it does, the conclusion is unavoidable: you either a) don't understand the concept of swing, or b) you can't count. There is no third option.
DeleteAnd to the other deleted Anon: this is not about "differences of opinion", this is about you lying through your teeth (or deluding yourself) about facts. As the saying goes, you're entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.
The Kilpatrick by-election shows a 2.9% swing to the SNP. If extrapolated nationally, that points to an 18 point lead for the SNP. These are plain, indisputable facts. Sorry that you guys dislike them so much, but there it is.
I must admit that the Anon reply at 11.34 was so barking mad that it brightened my morning. But deleted all the same.
Deleteanon 10:41
DeleteThe dangerous aspect is that reactionary band wagons don't depend on reason for their support.
ReplyDeleteTrump and Farage are grifters lining their own pockets from the support of those who are the losers of steepening income inequality.
Members of the broken, white working class in the US roar their support when Trump tells them how rich he is !
They support him because money counts to them as success and he feeds their desperate emotionally based prejudices on race.
Farage is an English , lounge bar, version. This is the new fascism.
If we don't find a progressive way forward the future will probably belong to them.
(This should be headed 'Alt Clut' but it keeps wanting to make me anonymous)
Holyrood is due an election before Westminster drags on for its full five years of grudging mid-representation.
DeleteThat simple fact of the political calendar means that Scotland’s “surge” for Reform will come first. We may be their least fertile soil, but we are going to be seen as their breakthrough.
Autocorrection: ”mid-“ should of course read “mis-“
DeleteScotland's surge for Reform. Lol. 88% of the electorate don't want them.
DeleteAnon@11:37,
DeleteSadly 95% of the electorate don’t want the Tories either.
How tragic.
What’s really tragic is the decline of the SNP. Polling down around 30% in all recent polls. How has it come to this?
DeleteFrom an Indy perspective, clearly not good☹️
Not to agree with James’s trolls, but I will observe that the simultaneous by-election in Drumchapel and Anniesland saw the SNP fall back a lot further than Labour did, from a near-even start. The SNP’s also having difficulty getting out the vote right now.
ReplyDeleteTurbulent times!
"Simultaneous"? Drumchapel & Anniesland was last week.
DeleteMy mistake!
DeleteDoes a week really make a lick of difference, though? I know the winter fuel allowance u-turn was yesterday, but that was too late to affect the vote.
Doesn't the significantly lower turnout in these by-elections, compared to a typical Scottish Parliament election, warrant a message of caution—suggesting any national-level predictions should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt?"
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteAbsolutely.
DeleteThe one signal that seems to be strong enough to tell apart from the noise is that Reform has now arrived in Scottish politics, and we should believe their progress in the polls.
Barring something spectacularly self-destructive, Holyrood will seat a dozen or more of the dafties in 2026.
This is crazy! There isn't enough of it.
DeleteConsidering the number of teachers Glasgow Council has been sacking, I'm surprised that the SNP didn't lose more votes.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the salaries of teachers in Glasgow I'm surprised any of them would have the brass neck to vote against the snp!
DeleteMust be the most overpaid section of the workforce and not a self awareness among them!
I'm not sure who in their right mind would want to get elected to West Dunbarton Council.
ReplyDeleteInformed anecdotal comment is that the authority is a basket case operating in what in effect is informal administration
A combination of financial black holes as a consequence of rotten corrupt procurement, gross inefficiency and bad management over many years has brought this authority to it's financial knees.
And as for the election, only 19% voted. Certainly tells you want the electorate think about the election of councilors.