
Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
We’re back in Stirling rather quickly following last month’s Stirling East by-election, though thankfully not for another Dunblane and Bridge of Allan vote. Much less happily however, Bannockburn will be heading to the polls after the death of Labour councillor Margaret Brisley. Brisley had only a few weeks prior taken up the role of Council Leader following Chris Kane’s election as MP and subsequent resignation locally.
Brisley was an absolute stalwart of Stirling politics, having been elected a jaw-dropping 11 times, representing a tremendous 44 years of service. I make it that she was therefore first elected in 1980, for the Ladywell ward (presumably named for the park in the north of Bannockburn) of what was then the Stirling District within the Central Region. Under the last set of FPTP boundaries she was elected for Bannockburn East, and then easily made the transition to this ward under STV.
Ward Details
Bannockburn is one of 7 wards in Stirling, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the historic importance of the Bannock Burn to anyone following Ballot Box Scotland, but just in case, the famous 1314 Battle of Bannockburn which many consider to have secured Scotland’s status as an independent nation was fought in the vicinity. Although in the modern era some may associate fond sentiment about that particular engagement with the Pro-Independence side, that was not always so. Victorian romanticising of Wars of Independence figures like Bruce and Wallace would see them as having ensured that when Scotland did finally unite with England, it was as an equal partner rather than subject nation.
Much of the western boundary of the ward follows the burn itself, and the modern village of Bannockburn. In addition it takes in a number of the former mining villages which lie on the flat Carse of Stirling: Cowie, Fallin, Plean and Throsk. To all intents and purposes these are the same boundaries as set in 2007, with 2017 merely adding a single street and a golf course to the ward.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Stirling constituency that the SNP have held since gaining it from Labour in 2007. Slightly confusingly though that version of the constituency didn’t contain most of this ward, which was instead within Ochil, which the SNP had won in 1999 and remained in their hands it was abolished in the 2011 changes. At the UK Parliament it’s within the Stirling and Strathallan constituency that Labour won last July, the previous Stirling seat having changed hands from Labour to SNP to Conservative back to SNP across 2010, 15, 17 and 19.
Electoral History
In spite of the SNP’s relative strength in the area and the associations of the name, Bannockburn was historically a Labour bastion – as indicated by Brisley’s unbroken service record. 2007 saw the ward return two Labour and one SNP councillor, though Labour’s Gerard O’Brien would resign after being found to have breached the Councillor’s Code of Conduct. Labour won the resulting by-election in 2009, and in 2012 all three incumbent councillors were re-elected.
Although all three again stood in 2017, only Brisley and the SNP’s Alasdair MacPherson were re-elected, as the SNP defeated Violet Weir to take the final seat. Notably this was the only ward in Stirling not to elect a Conservative that year. Things were not happy in the local SNP that term it seems however, as the new councillor Maureen Bennison left the party alleging bullying. Just weeks before the 2022 elections MacPherson followed suit, though the party simultaneously claimed it had de-selected him. Popular as he was, he was extremely easily re-elected as an Independent alongside Brisley and SNP newcomer Brian Hambly.
Looking at votes, Labour started with an absolute majority, hence their easy election of two councillors in 2007. Were it not for the dip at the 2009 by-election, the only one without Brisley on the ballot, they would however have experienced a steady decline over the period. In 2012 the SNP weren’t far behind, and they’d go on to comfortably overtake in 2017, with the Conservative surge really eating into the Labour vote.
Come 2022 and both parties hit their lowest shares yet, in part due to the success of MacPherson’s Independent run. Despite that the Conservatives managed their best share yet in the ward, against a substantial decline across Stirling as a whole, yet it still wasn’t enough for a seat. Throughout the period this has been a consistently weak ward for the Greens and Lib Dems, easily each party’s worst part of Stirling.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
⚪Independent: Alasdair MacPherson
🟡SNP: Brian Hambly
🔴Labour: Margaret Brisley
Change vs 2017: +1 Independent, -1 SNP (Alasdair MacPherson elected as SNP in 2017)
Turnout: 42.6%
Electorate: 8777
Valid: 3679 (98.3%)
Spoiled: 64 (1.7%)
Quota: 920
Candidates
🔴Labour: Margaret Brisley
🟡SNP: Brian Hambly
🟣Family: Sophie Hendry
⚪Independent: Alasdair MacPherson
🟠Lib Dem: Hilary MacPherson
🔵Conservative: Stuart McLuckie
🟢Green: Marie Stadtler
🟡SNP: Diane Tortolano
First Preferences
Votes Excluding Independent (Double-Distributed)
Note: Given MacPherson’s significant popularity, it seemed useful to give a clearer indication of how the votes look if he is eliminated and his second preferences re-distributed. In this case I’ve done what I’ve dubbed a “double-distribution”, where I assume that most of the first preference only voters would actually have backed someone else if he hadn’t been on the ballot at all.
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Party Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
Candidates this time around are what I would describe as the current normal: the Holyrood 5 plus Reform UK, still on track to make that phrase the Holyrood 6. Most of these candidates are fresh faces for this cycle, with only the Green returning directly from 2022, whilst Reform’s stood in December’s Stirling East by-election.
🔵Conservative: Moira Benny
🟡SNP: Bob Buchanan
🔴Labour: Yvonne Dickson
🟣Reform UK: William Docherty
🟠Lib Dem: William Galloway
🟢Green: Marie Stadtler
Analysis
No surprises that if you run the 2022 election for a single seat, it’s Alasdair MacPherson who comes out on top as an Independent. That’s completely useless to us in this by-election however, so running it by excluding him at the outset has Labour with a wafer-thin lead of 0.9% over the SNP. With the SNP really struggling lately I might until very recently have viewed that as the case for a “Likely” or at least “Lean” Labour prediction, not least because Labour do better amongst the people who actually turn out for by-elections.
At the moment though, I’m not so sure. The SNP’s win in neighbouring Stirling East might have put a bit of a spring in their step, even if that still saw a slight swing to Labour that would notionally boost their chances here. Labour have been doing very, very poorly in some recent polling, and that might seriously impact their chances. I’m therefore viewing this as a complete tossup between Labour and the SNP.
If Labour do fail to win this one, it will further complicate what was already one of the most absurd local administrations in Scotland. It was already eyebrow raising enough when Labour formed a solo minority administration from third place with their 6 seats, against the Conservatives’ 7 and SNP’s 8.
Having lost their Stirling East seat last month, if they lose this one they will be down to just 4 councillors. It would be a democratic absurdity to suggest that 4 councillors (17% of the council) equates to serious administration. If that happens, score another one for Scottish Labour Central HQ’s appallingly undemocratic edicts telling their local councillors they can’t form coalitions.
Prediction
Labour-SNP Tossup.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
Two-Candidate Preferred
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