A Conservative resignation in one of their strongest wards should be an easy win for them, but voters aren’t perfect, and a slightly more diverse ballot than in 2022 compounds a bad time for the Conservatives to make this more of a lean than a likely.
The less chaotic of two Highland by-elections on the same day, the departure of a popular and long-serving Labour councillor in a strongly SNP ward makes for an unpredictable contest.
A rare double vacancy with a lengthy ballot paper is likely to see the Lib Dems, Independents and SNP scrapping for the two seats available. Reform UK continue to try to get serious about Scotland, but make a bit of a ham of it by standing two candidates, not realising how the voting system works.
Labour pull off an expected win following the death of a very popular local Independent, but the rest of the field goes wild, with a huge result for Reform UK and surprising growth for some Independence hardliners.
The Conservatives fail to score a hat-trick in the third by-election of the term in this ward, as Labour sweep to victory. Meanwhile, Green (re)growth continues to come at the SNP’s expense.
An already likely to be hotly-contested island by-election becomes one of the most fascinating contests of the year, as the complete absence of the SNP blows the field wide open – including, potentially, for the Greens’ second-ever by-election win.
The sad passing of a very popular local Independent primes sets the stage for a likely Labour win, as well as what is only the second time Reform UK have contested a local election in Scotland.
A third by-election in the ward of this term comes from yet more grim circumstances, with the councillor’s failure to resign earlier to allow a double adding insult to injury.
Only the second SNP by-election win of the term will give the party a small amount of comfort following a brutal general election result.
After the most unrepresentative and disproportionate election in the UK’s democratic history, what would it have looked like if we actually ensured people’s votes counted? The answer is more of a Traffic Light than a Red Alert.
