Background
For the third time since 2022, and the second time this year, we had to travel to Dunblane and Bridge of Allan for a by-election. Voters here must be absolutely knackered, having done the January by-election then the General Election and then this. Unfortunately there was nothing humorous about this one, coming from Labour-turned-Independent councillor Ewan Dillon being done on indecent images charges.
Although the Conservatives had won the past two by-elections here, this time around I’d marked it out as a tossup between them and Labour. That was because at the point Labour were eliminated in January, they were only 2.7% behind the SNP, and if using the transfer data to eliminate the SNP regardless, a mere 1.3% behind the Conservatives. In other words, it’d only take a small swing for Labour to win instead, aided by the fact SNP voters vastly prefer them to the Conservatives.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
Labour: David Wilson
Change vs January 2024 By-Election: Labour Gain from Conservative
Change vs vacating: Labour Gain from Independent (elected Labour)
Turnout: 34.1% (-2.5)
Electorate: 12057
Valid: 4094 (99.5%)
Spoiled: 21 (0.5%)
Quota: 2048
3 Continuing Councillors:
Conservative: Robin Kleinman
Green: Alasdair TollemacheConservative: Thomas Heald
Candidates
Green: Andrew Adam
Independent: Alastair MajuryConservative: Stuart McLuckie
Lib Dem: Dick Moerman
SNP: John WatsonLabour: David Wilson
First Preferences
Note: Note: Changes are versus January 2024 by-election / versus 2022 election. The Scottish Family Party won 1.2% of the vote in January and 0.7% of the vote in 2022, and Alba won 0.9% in 2022.
First Preference History
As we’ll soon see, that assessment was well made. Conservative support plummeted, bringing them into the 20’s for the first time since their revival. Part of that will be down to one of their former councillors standing as an Independent, but he was there in 2022 as well. Labour meanwhile had a modest increase in share compared to January that allowed them to pull into second, but when you compare with 2022 it’s a near doubling of their support.
For the SNP though it was down on all fronts, slumping to their worst ever share in the ward to date. That brings them into the teens for the first time, putting them nearly on a par with the Greens who saw the biggest positive swing of any party since the January vote. Relative to 2022 it actually only puts them the tiniest smidge better, thus becoming their second best result so far, but this was with a new candidate and without the personal vote of their incumbent councillor.
The last two candidates also saw improvements relative to the last time they contested the ward. For the Lib Dems that was January, albeit their share here is lower than in the 2023 by-election and the full vote in 2022. Conservative-turned-Independent Alastair Majury last made a go of it in 2022, and his gain relative to then is so small as to be near enough a rounding error.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
With nobody anywhere near the 50% mark on first preferences, we moved to transfers. Given the Conservative’s massive loss of support the final result was a foregone conclusion, but processes must be followed. As transfer rounds progressed, Labour overtook the Conservatives following the elimination of the Greens, and then skyrocketed again after the SNP dropped out. This makes David Wilson the living embodiment of the “if at first you don’t succeed” and “third time lucky” clichés, which you have to imagine feels pretty good for him.
It is also, frankly, a democratically better outcome. If the Conservatives had won, they’d have ended up with 3 of the 4 councillors in the ward not because they proportionally earned them but because they were able to leverage the difference between multi-member and single-member elections. This keeps a high level of diversity in the ward, which the first preferences here would justify at a full election: the seats would easily have gone one apiece to the top four parties, as they did in 2022.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
But for two votes, the Conservatives would have managed a lead in every district. Labour managed to pip them in eastern Dunblane though. Western Dunblane, Ashfield and Kinbuck was also extremely close between the top four, and I’d bet at a full election one of the left-of-centre options would have beaten the Conservatives. Just 2% of the vote (amounting to 30 votes) separated the Conservatives and the Greens in first and fourth.
In terms of top areas, for the Conservatives it was Bridge of Allan, whilst the Lib Dems joined Labour in excelling in eastern Dunblane. The merged districts of western Dunblane plus Kinbuck and Ashfield saw the best shares for the SNP, Greens and Independent, though for the SNP we’re only talking 0.01% above their result in Bridge of Allan.
Second Preferences
I often find myself saying things like “all the usual patterns here”, and whilst that’s largely the case, there is an interesting shift to talk about. Firstly though, the unremarkable stuff: the Lib Dems were the most popular next preference for both Conservative and Labour voters, though Conservative voters had a very high only-preference rate. The Lib Dems naturally preferred Labour, whilst the Independent’s voters perhaps unsurprisingly were most likely to opt for his former party in the Conservatives.
As is usually the case, the SNP and Greens were the top choice for one another’s voters. However, this was much more lopsided than it was in January. Whereas the SNP to Green flow has dropped by 6.3%, the reverse crashed by a whopping 15%, with almost as many Green voters marking Labour as their second choice. To both seemingly lose a substantial chunk of your voters to the Greens and to also cease being the next preference for many of their voters in turn would seem, to me, to be a cause for concern.
This adds to the evidence for how badly Humza Yousaf misjudged the politics of ending the BHA via a short sharp sacking (rather than, say, a joint press conference with effusive praise for one another but an acknowledgement it had become untenable). Last week, I had a piece in the Herald despairing at the former First Minister’s admission he had assumed the Greens couldn’t possibly act against him because they “rely so heavily on the SNP for the list vote”. Well, here it was the voters acting against the SNP.
The failure to understand the Greens have their own voter base is widespread across Scottish politics, and a by-election where relative to just a few months ago their support goes up and their preferencing towards the SNP goes down significantly couldn’t demonstrate that more clearly. When you consider how few wards the Greens will have a serious chance in come 2027 (a maximum, on a phenomenal day, of no more than 60) versus the fact the SNP are present in circa 330, many with multiple candidates, they should be spooked if this becomes a longer lasting trend.
That’s us for Dunblane and Bridge of Allan, and ye gods do I hope that is definitely the last time I have to say that this term. Next week we’ll be in Armadale and Blackridge for another by-election where Labour are in with a good chance of success. Expect the rate of by-elections to pick up over the coming months too, just because a third of Scotland’s newly-elected MPs were councillors.
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