Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
I would love it if what is the second by-election in this ward of the year, and the third of this council term, had some kind of funny story attached to it that could make it a jolly joke. Heck, I’d take it being something benignly boring like resigning due to getting another job or moving away. Unfortunately, there’s nothing funny about the circumstances here.
For the second time this year, a Labour-turned-Independent councillor elected in 2022 and chucked from the party later that year has been up in court on indecent image charges. This resolves the mystery of what happened to now former councillor Ewan Dillon that meant I’d noted he was an Independent even in the preview for the first of these by-elections.
Labour will be cursing themselves for this having happened twice, but also in this case for even standing Dillon in the first place. I think it’s pretty clear given 2017 results in the ward and the political context in early 2022 that he was a paper candidate they hadn’t expected to win. They quite quickly found themselves wishing they hadn’t. Again, Labour as a party haven’t done anything wrong here, and acted commendably quickly when the issue first became clear, but it’s not a situation anyone wants to be in.
Obviously, the worst aspect of this situation is the crime that Dillon committed. However, it absolutely does add insult to injury that Dillon clung on for around 18 months after the charges first came to light. It’s even more insulting to his former constituents that he had two opportunities to resign and allow another by-election to be run as a double. Instead, he deliberately continued taking a salary for a job he was not suitable to do, and has cost the local taxpayer a completely unnecessary by-election as a result.
As I’ve already written about this ward twice, a lot of what follows is drawn from the either the previews (for first and second) or results analysis (again, first and second) for the previous by-elections.
Ward Details
Dunblane and Bridge of Allan is one of 7 wards in Stirling, and elects 4 councillors at a full election. The name really is pretty self-explanatory, as the ward covers the towns of, well, Dunblane and Bridge of Allan. Although Dunblane is a clearly separate settlement, Bridge of Allan is almost a suburb of Stirling these days, aided by the fact it’s right next to the Stirling University campus. The ward also includes the villages of Ashfield and Kinbuck, but they are a pretty tiny component.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is within the Clackmannanshire and Dunblane constituency, which the SNP have held since it was created in 2011. On the original Holyrood boundaries, it had been split between the Stirling (Dunblane) and Ochil (Bridge of Allan) seats which the SNP gained from Labour in 2007 and 2003 respectively. In the UK Parliament the ward is within the new Stirling and Strathallan constituency which Labour narrowly gained from the SNP in last month’s general election. The Conservatives had briefly held the old Stirling seat in the 2017-19 Parliament, and it had been Labour before the SNP’s 2015 landslide.
Electoral History
For the first STV election in 2007, Dunblane and Bridge of Allan had just the right demographic makeup to be a mega-diverse ward, with seats splitting one apiece for each of the Conservatives, SNP, Labour and Lib Dems. When the latter collapsed in 2012 the Greens easily picked up their seat. They relatively narrowly held that gain in 2017, meaning it was Labour who lost out when surging Conservatives won a double. Finally, with the Conservatives on the back foot in 2022, Labour were able to scrape their way into re-establishing the 2012 pattern, much to their current regret.
If we turn to vote shares, we can see the general trend for the Conservatives to be the most successful party here. Only 2012 was an exception, as the Conservatives were at their nadir that year, allowing the SNP to open up a lead and Labour to get within touching distance. The Conservatives then nearly doubled their vote in 2017, against a collapse in both the Labour and Green vote, with the latter placing behind Labour but overtaking on transfers. In May 2022, the Conservatives maintained their lead despite a big dip in vote share, with the Greens showing the biggest growth. Note too the general upward trend of the Lib Dems since their defeat.
The fact the Greens bounced back significantly in 2022 but Labour didn’t suggests to me a degree of personal vote. Mark Ruskell, elected as the Green councillor in 2012, became an MSP (again) in 2016 and so it was a new candidate, Alasdair Tollemache, who contested the ward in 2017, when that massive Green vote loss was very much against national trend. Having bedded in over the five years since, and with another rising national tide, Tollemache was much more comfortably re-elected in 2022. He’s now the only councillor elected in 2022 still in post.
Last year’s by-election, coming as it did at the beginning of the SNP’s slide into chaos and benefitting from the usual by-election dynamics, saw the Conservative vote share surge back over 40%. Although the SNP vote share was up, it was only very marginally, and by much less than the Greens lost, which saw them fall behind not just Labour but also the Lib Dems for the first time since 2007. In the by-election earlier this year the SNP slipped down to a second-worst share yet in the ward, with the Conservatives and Lib Dems also losing share. The Greens experienced a modest recovery whilst Labour’s tally shot up to a second best yet.
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
Conservative: Thomas Heald
Change vs 2023 by-election: Conservative Hold
Change vs vacating: Conservative Hold
Turnout: 36.6% (-1.5)
Electorate: 11778
Valid: 4288 (99.4%)
Spoiled: 27 (0.6%)
Quota: 2145
3 Continuing Councillors:Conservative: Robin Kleinman
Green: Alasdair Tollemache
Independent: Ewan Dillon (elected as Labour)
Candidates
Green: Clare AndrewsConservative: Thomas Heald
SNP: Ahsan Khan
Lib Dem: Dick Moerman
Family: Michael Willis
Labour: David Wilson
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
We’ve got the full Holyrood 5 again for this one, joined by a single Independent as the only other name on the paper. There are a few returners this time around, with both the Lib Dem and Labour candidates having contested the previous by-elections. The SNP and Greens meanwhile have new faces, though the SNP’s candidate stood in the Trossachs and Teith ward in 2022.
Although Alastair Majury, a former Conservative councillor for the ward who was chucked for unpleasant behaviour on social media, is standing as an Independent again as he did in 2022, he was actively fundraising and campaigning for Reform UK during the general election. Indeed, he is still described as the party’s Mid Scotland and Fife organiser on its website. It’s interesting he doesn’t seem to be pinning those colours to the mast as he tries – in vain – to get back onto the council.
🟢Green: Andrew Adam
⚪Independent: Alastair Majury
🔵Conservative: Stuart McLuckie
đźź Lib Dem: Dick Moerman
🟡SNP: John Watson
đź”´Labour: David Wilson
Analysis
Although it could have been politically boring to return to the same ward three times, each of the by-elections has ended up radically different in my predictions. The first one in 2023 I reckoned as a tossup between the Conservatives and SNP, with an outside chance of a Green shock if their councillor’s personal vote could translate to a party vote. When the Conservatives won that one handily, it led to me viewing the second one that came earlier this year as a clear cut Conservative win, which indeed proved to be the case.
Labour may have placed third last time, but I think they’ve got one of the better chances of winning this time. They were only 2.7% behind the SNP when they were eliminated in January. Things have only gotten worse for the SNP and better for Labour in that time, not least winning the overlapping constituency at Westminster. It’s very easy to see them at least overtaking the SNP to place second.
In January’s election, if they had gone head-to-head with the Conservatives Labour would have lost by only 1.3%. That’s much, much closer than the 10.9% the SNP lost by. And just like the SNP, the Conservatives have only sunk ever deeper since then. In other words, there isn’t a lot of ground Labour need to make up to place second, and then little to leverage transfers into an overall win.
Whilst I admit to being mildly surprised by the SNP win in the Kintyre and Islands by-election the other week, I would be utterly astonished if they could win this one. I’m therefore viewing it as a pure tossup between the Conservatives and Labour.
Prediction
Conservative-Labour Tossup.
2024 By-Election Results (Detailed Data)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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