Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
The double bill bonanza continues with the second half of North Lanarkshire’s turn. This takes us to the Mossend and Holytown ward, where Labour Councillor Frank McNally has been elevated to Labour MP for Coatbridge and Bellshill. He’d first been elected to the ward in 2012.
Ward Details
Mossend and Holytown is one of 21 wards in North Lanarkshire, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. As you might expect, it largely covers the Mossend and Holytown areas, though it also has a smidge of Bellshill and New Stevenston within it. The ward contracted very slightly in 2007, losing a portion of Mossend north of Main Street as well as a couple of streets around Bellshill station which was therefore not actually in the neighbouring Bellshill ward.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Uddingston and Bellshill which the SNP gained from Labour in 2016, having been in Hamilton North and Bellshill on the original Holyrood boundaries. At the UK Parliament the north-south railway line splits the ward at its neck, with Mossend in Coatbridge and Bellshill, whilst Holytown is in Airdrie and Shotts. Both were obviously Labour gains from the SNP this year. It had previously had a slightly more awkward split along the Thankerton and Legbranock Burns, which was between the Motherwell and Wishaw and the Airdrie and Shotts seats.
Electoral History
In partisan terms, this was has never done anything different at any election since STV was brought in, splitting two Labour, one SNP. Personnel changes in that time include McNally taking over in 2012 from Kevin McKeown who was standing as an Independent, whilst the SNP alphabet-effected their incumbent councillor out of office (incoming Baird beating sitting Delaney).
Another new Labour candidate replaced the remaining original in 2017, and in 2022 it was the same two Labour councillors plus a new SNP face, Beth Baudo. North Lanarkshire SNP were rent with turmoil from the start after that election, eventually leading to Baudo and a whole rake of other councillors leaving the SNP in solidarity with two colleagues who were expelled and forming “Progressive Change North Lanarkshire”. She lasted less than a year in that grouping too before joining Labour, giving them every seat in the ward.
In terms of votes, Labour started out completely and utterly dominant here, winning well over half of the votes in 2007 and even managing to improve on that in 2012, in spite of one of their initial councillors running as an Independent. In 2017 though the combination of a belated SNP surge and the Conservative recovery put Labour only about 1% ahead of the SNP. In 2022, the SNP were able to take a lead for the first time, despite a relatively strong Alba share. That’s the only time any party except the big three have stood here at any election until now.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
🔴Labour: Frank McNally
🟡SNP: Beth Baudo
🔴Labour: Jim Reddin
Change vs 2017: No change
Turnout: 38.2%
Electorate: 10343
Valid: 3796 (96.1%)
Spoiled: 152 (3.9%)
Quota: 950
Candidates
🟡SNP: Beth Baudo
🔵Conservative: Sheila Cameron
🟡SNP: Michael Clarkson
⚫Alba: John Marshall
🔴Labour: Frank McNally
🔴Labour: Jim Reddin
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
Like the Fortissat ballot, this one is the Westminster 4 rather than Holyrood 5, as the Greens are absent – though unlike that ward, they’ve never stood here. Reform UK are also having a run at this one, and I assume there was some form of unspoken agreement with the BUP for one to take each ward.
This relatively normal set of candidates are haunted by the ghost of UKIP, which hasn’t quite yet disappeared entirely despite being completely eclipsed by Reform. Their candidate is a regular though, having stood in Motherwell South East and Ravenscraig in both 2022 and the 2023 by-election, as well as the Bellshill by-election earlier that year and at the general election this year for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke. The only other familiar candidate is the Lib Dem, who stood in Cumbernauld North in 2022.
🔵Conservative: Aimee Alexander
🟠Lib Dem: John Cole
🔴Labour: Helena Gray
🟡SNP: Shahnawaz Khan
🟣Reform UK: Duncan McMillan
🟤UKIP: Neil Wilson
Analysis
Although the SNP took a first preference lead in 2022, that doesn’t survive the Conservatives’ transfers. Labour are already starting with the advantage, are in a good place overall at the moment versus a very poor one for the SNP, and North Lanarkshire SNP in particular have been utterly wracked by chaos. I’d therefore be completely agog if this was anything other than a Labour win.
Prediction
Labour Win.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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