Background
It was another double bill on the 10th of October, bringing us to two North Lanarkshire by-elections, both arising from Labour councillors becoming MPs. This one was for Kenneth Stevenson, who is now representing Airdrie and Shotts in the Commons, after first being elected for this ward in 2017.
Fortissat was up for two by-elections last term and nobody other than Labour has ever been the overall winner here, so I was absolutely certain they’d come out on top once again. I’d also said I wouldn’t be surprised to see the British Unionist Party repeat the feat of placing second, as they did in the 2017 by-election, and that I’d be watching the result for “Progressive Change North Lanarkshire” closely.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
Labour: Clare Quigley
Change vs 2022 (notional): Labour Hold
Change vs vacating: Labour Hold
Turnout: 17.9% (-20.8)
Electorate: 12422
Valid: 2205 (99.0%)
Spoiled: 22 (1.0%)
Quota: 1103
3 Continuing Councillors:Labour: Martin McCulloch
SNP: Margaret Hughes
British Unionist: John Leckie
Candidates
British Unionist: Billy Acheson
Lib Dem: Leigh Butler
Conservative: Sheila CameronSNP: Brendan McAleeseProgressive Change North Lanarkshire: Mary McIntoshLabour: Clare Quigley
First Preferences
Note: The Greens won 2.6% of the vote here in 2022.
First Preference History
There really is just something about Fortissat by-elections. For one thing, I was absolutely correct to say Labour were going to win here, albeit without meaningfully growing their vote share. Similarly, the SNP did indeed place third. However, the unique local outfit that achieved that wasn’t the BUP but instead PCNL, their own splinter party.
The vote shares almost match as well, with the SNP a fraction below that result to score their worse vote yet in this ward, whilst PCNL placed a fraction ahead of where the BUP had been back then. “Fraction” is also the word for the BUP, who end up on their worst result so far by the tiniest smidge.
The Conservatives continue to do poorly, their vote share halving and dipping to their worst result this side of their big revival. Lastly, the Lib Dems effectively subbed in for the Greens as “major national party that’s a clear no-hoper here”, even going so far as to win the same share as the latter did in 2022.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
Although Labour were a good bit short of quota here, they started too far ahead for PCNL to have a realistic shot at overtaking them. 12.6% isn’t insurmountable if the rest of the votes will massively favour the second place candidate, for example if the the candidates to be eliminated all lie on the same side of the constitutional divide, but that wasn’t the case here. Indeed, the top two remained pretty evenly matched through transfers, the gap only narrowing by 1.2% in total.
If this result was repeated at a full election, it’d give two Labour councillors and one apiece to PCNL and the SNP, ejecting the BUP. I wouldn’t get carried away with the by-election result given the absolutely abysmal turnout, the clear dissatisfaction with both Labour and the SNP right now and the fact BUP will presumably stand their sitting councillor in 2027. However, this does indicate that PCNL could be in with a very good chance at being elected in their own right in future, and could thus end up being more than simply an ephemeral bloc of unhappy former SNP councillors.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
A lot of box mergers here given that turnout was so appalling, and they haven’t always been the most geographically sensitive. Labour ended up leading in most of the ward, though PCNL came out on top in the Stane/Torbothie portion of Shotts. Shotts was overall the best place for both parties, with Labour commanding most support in the Dykehead inclusive western portion.
For the other parties, the SNP and Conservatives shared a peak performance in the merger of Allanton, Salsburgh and Eastfield. The BUP and Lib Dems meanwhile piled up their votes most in the Bonkle, Morningside and Harthill merger. If I was hazarding a guess, I’d reckon that the BUP would have done very well indeed if we could see Harthill and Eastfield as standalone voting areas.
Second Preferences
A unique ward therefore has some rather unique preference flows. Labour and PCNL voters were most likely to back the other, whilst the SNP (lacking both the Greens and Alba as options here) split almost evenly but Labour won just a shade more of that support than PCNL. The Lib Dems were also most likely to plump for PCNL. Unsurprisingly, the BUP and Conservatives had a strong mutual flow.
Just the one by-election next week, in Falkirk South. Whilst in general I prefer a single vote as it makes my life a bit easier, it’s actually a bit annoying because on other occasions over the autumn I’m going to have had two 4x and even one 5x by-election days. You couldn’t have papped one or two of those on this day instead, e-count machine providers?
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