Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
We wait years for a by-election in my homeland of West Dunbartonshire, and then we get two in the one year. Fortunately this one is for much nicer reasons than the disgraceful circumstances surrounding the earlier Clydebank Central vote, as Kilpatrick Labour councillor Douglas McAllister became MP for West Dunbartonshire in July’s election. He’d been a councillor since 2003, initially for the Hardgate single member ward, and was West Dunbartonshire’s Provost at the time of his elevation to the Commons.
McAllister’s success ended up a bit of a double edged sword for the local Labour party. With him headed down south, the council needed a new Provost. Yet when that came to a vote in the chamber, two Labour councillors broke party lines to successfully place the SNP candidate in that position. They now sit as Independents, the Labour group lost their majority, and despite still being the largest party, opted to resign their administration immediately as a result.
What was it that made those councillors so unhappy? Something that, as a West Dunbartonshire lad myself, absolutely tickles me and 100% checks out. West Dunbartonshire is to all intents and purposes two roughly equally sized components: the Vale of Leven and Dumbarton on the one hand, and Clydebank on the other. Clydebank was quite literally the last surviving Burgh Council in Scotland, the only non-city to have effectively a council for a single settlement area following the 1973 Local Government Act.
Bankies really, really like being Bankies, and really, really did not like West Dunbartonshire being created. My mum worked for the council when I was wee (very shortly after it came into being) and even as a wean I remember being aware Clydebank was bitter about being bolted onto my home area. So when the Vale of Leven based Council Leader put forward a fellow Vale of Leven councillor for Provost, to replace the prior Clydebank Provost, the Bankies were unhappy, enough for two of them to mutiny (albeit, ironically, to vote for a Dumbarton councillor).
I often take a detached tone in my coverage, for obvious reasons, but I’m sorry, in this case I just have to admit this is very funny. It’s so sublimely West Dunbartonshire. It makes perfect sense to me. Of course the council administration fell over bickering between the component towns. I may have moved away from the area 15 whole years ago but I will never not live for little bits of local drama.
Ward Details
Kilpatrick is one of 6 wards in West Dunbartonshire, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. This basically consists of Duntocher, Faifley and Hardgate, all of which grew into their modern forms as overspill estates for Clydebank. Most of the area of the ward is taken up by uninhabited stretches of the Kilpatrick Hills, which is where the only boundary changes the ward has experienced happened, to next to zero political impact.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Clydebank and Milngavie constituency that the SNP gained from Labour in 2011. At the UK Parliament it’s within McAllister’s West Dunbartonshire seat, which was obviously SNP from 2015 to 2024 and Labour otherwise.
Electoral History
Absolutely no change to the composition of this ward though its existence: two Labour, one SNP. One of the Labour councillors changed over in 2012, and then the original SNP councillor retired in 2022, but that’s all that needs said here.
Voting paints a picture of Labour dominance even at their weakest points. This has consistently been one of their strongest wards in the entire country, with their low point in 2017 still being just 0.5% away from two full quotas. They’ve therefore been completely unchallenged for their two seats. In common with West Dunbartonshire overall, the Conservatives have been very weak to the extent they’ve never yet beaten their pre-revival starting point in this ward. The only other party to stand at all until this by-election has been the Scottish Socialist Party.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
🔴Labour: Douglas McAllister
🟡SNP: Gordon Scanlan
🔴Labour: Lawrence O’Neill
Change vs 2017: No change
Electorate: 8987
Turnout: 45.2%
Valid: 3876 (95.5%)
Spoiled: 183 (4.5%)
Quota: 970
Candidates
🔵Conservative: David Jardine
🔴Labour: Douglas McAllister
🔴Labour: Lawrence O’Neill
🟡SNP: Gordon Scanlan
🟡SNP: Marina Scanlan
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
Whereas the 2022 election here was just the three biggest parties, voters have a very diverse slate this time. In addition to all of the Holyrood 5, they have Reform UK, Family Party and even the Communists. Almost everyone here is a returning candidate in some form. The SNP candidate was their unsuccessful second in this ward in 2022, whilst the Green stood in the Leven ward and also in this year’s General Election for West Dunbartonshire. The Reform UK candidate likewise stood for the Westminster seat.
The Conservative meanwhile is returning from the Clydebank Central by-election earlier this year. I’m pretty sure the Lib Dem is too – though the surname differs, I can’t imagine the Lib Dems have very many members in this part of the country never mind two named Kai. Finally, local perennial candidate Andrew Muir is back, again under the Family banner (he stood for them in Dumbarton in 2022 and in the General Election), though he’s stood as an Independent in the past too (at Clydebank Central and in Dumbarton constituency for Holyrood in 2021). Basically, if there’s an election in West Dunbartonshire, Muir will be on the ballot.
That means only the Communist and Labour candidates are completely new faces. Now I have form for getting familial relations wrong in the past, so I’m not going to even try and guess whether Dylan McAllister is related to Douglas McAllister. I am however 99.9% sure that William Rooney is the (until the collapse) Council Leader Martin Rooney’s son, on the basis that we went to the same primary school. Possibly also the same high school, but we didn’t move in the same circles so I can’t quite remember, but either way, I’m pretty certain on this one!
🟢Green: Paula Baker
🟤Communist: Dylan McAllister
🔵Conservative: Ewan McGinnigle
🟤Family: Andrew Muir
🟠Lib Dem: Kai O’Connor
🔴Labour: William Rooney
🟡SNP: Marina Scanlan
🟣Reform UK: David Smith
Analysis
Do you see the size of that Labour lead in 2022? Almost 21%? Obviously Labour are winning this one. In some recent obvious calls I’ve left my analysis there, but the chaotic situation with the local administration falling makes this one somewhat interesting nonetheless.
I don’t know where Rooney (the younger) lives these days, and it’s not as if I still live where we grew up. Indeed, he definitely spent some time away from the area because although we didn’t really interact, were did nonetheless have a brief moment of recognition when I was on polling station duty where I lived in Glasgow a few years back. It’s entirely possible that he is Clydebank based now. (Note: I have since had a local source say he is indeed Clydebank based, but these musings were only that, musings, so I’ve kept them in)
However, if he is back in the Vale, might the council leader’s son slipping into a Clydebank vacancy just exacerbate the tensions in the group? Or, has that all been smoothed over amongst local members, who presumably selected him? I have absolutely no idea, I’m not suggesting the situation will go one way or the other, it’s just the idle wonderings that occurred to me when I saw who the candidate was.
Prediction
Labour Win.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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