Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
You read that right: it’s a by-election in Stirling, and it isn’t for Dunblane and Bridge of Allan! Three by-elections in the ward so far, two this year, but thankfully this time around we’re off to Stirling East, where Labour’s Chris Kane has vacated his seat after being elected MP for Stirling and Strathallan. Kane had been a councillor since 2017, as well as Council Leader since 2022. That is one of Scotland’s oddest administrations, as Labour have been running it as a minority not from first or even second but third place.
Unfortunately, the excitement of having a non-Dunblane and Bridge of Allan election in Stirling is tempered by the fact that we’re due another in Bannockburn very soon. Not even two months after she had taken over leadership of the council from Kane, his colleague Margaret Brisley very sadly passed away.
Ward Details
Stirling East is one of 7 wards in Stirling, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. As you’d assume from the name, it covers the eastern portion of the city itself, effectively covering all the areas south of the railway station and east of the main road. That includes the Braehead, Broomridge and Whins of Milton areas. Prior to 2017 it had everything south of the Forth that was east of the station, but it lost the quite substantial chunk of the Riverside area to Stirling North in the boundary changes. That was traded for a very sparse tract of fields to the south.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Stirling constituency which has been held by the SNP since gaining from Labour in 2007. At the UK Parliament it’s within Kane’s Stirling and Strathallan seat, which including the prior Stirling form had changed hands at every election starting in 2015: going from Labour to SNP to Conservative back to SNP.
Electoral History
In its original 2007 form, the ward elected on apiece from Labour, the SNP and Lib Dems; this was the era in which the Lib Dems had a presence in most councils thanks to the STV system they had pressed for. When they collapsed in 2012, it was Labour that benefitted here to gain a second seat. The SNP’s original 2007 councillor Steven Paterson would go on to be elected MP for Stirling in 2015, and his party held the resulting by-election.
The slightly redrawn ward in 2017 saw one of the Labour councillors move to the new Stirling North with the Riverside chunk, whilst the other and the SNP’s both lost out to the alphabet effect, as party colleagues with earlier surnames pipped them to the post. They were joined for the first time by a Conservative councillor, and the same pattern held in 2022 though the SNP’s 2015 by-election winner was able to sweep back in following a retirement.
In voting terms, the changes in this ward feel very typical of a big settlement sitting within a historically Conservative area. That means Labour starting out in front when they were still mighty in 2007, albeit with the SNP not too far behind. That year was an effective tie between the second Labour candidate, the Lib Dems and Conservatives on first preferences, leaving it to the SNP’s surplus transfers to swing it for the Lib Dems. Although the Lib Dem vote held up surprisingly well in 2012, it was nowhere near enough to hold on in the face of strong gains for Labour.
After that however it was all downhill. The SNP unsurprisingly pulled ahead in the 2015 by-election, followed by the Conservatives making obviously big gains in their 2017 revival. Despite a national swing in their favour in 2022, Labour continued to wither here, falling into third place behind the Conservatives for the first time. The Lib Dems suffered so badly since 2012 that they didn’t even stand in the 2015 by-election, though I reckon the loss of the Riverside area will have taken a lot of their residual vote out of the ward anyway: ditto the Greens. Riverside was 5% Lib Dem and 20% Green in 2022, well above each party’s share in this version of the ward.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
🟡SNP: Gerry McLaughlan
🔴Labour: Chris Kane
🔵Conservative: Bryan Flannagan
Change vs 2017: No change
Turnout: 45.5%
Electorate: 3834
Valid: 3834 (98.2%)
Spoiled: 71 (1.8%)
Quota: 959
Candidates
🔵Conservative: Bryan Flannagan
🟢Green: Linda Hendry
🔴Labour: Chris Kane
⚪Independent: Gary McGrow
🟡SNP: Gerry McLaughlan
🟠Lib Dem: Gordon Murphy
🟡SNP: Grant Thoms
🟣Family: David Tortolano
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
It’s a relatively ordinary ballot by current standards for this one, with the Holyrood 5, Reform UK and an Independent. Of these candidates, only the Independent (who stood here in 2022) and Green (in August’s DBA by-election and for the Westminster seat in July) are returning from recent local votes. The Labour candidate is, I’m told (and given my track record I wasn’t going to guess at relationship had I not been told!), the new MP and outgoing councillor’s wife though, so not an entirely fresh face in one sense.
🟢Green: Andrew Adam
🟣Reform UK: William Docherty
🟡SNP: Willie Ferguson
🔴Labour: Anne Kane
⚪Independent: Gary McGrow
🟠Lib Dem: Christopher Spreadborough
🔵Conservative: Jennifer Ure
Analysis
When run against the Conservatives, as was the case in 2022, the SNP look pretty comfortable here: a 19.3% lead would be quite difficult to overturn even with their recent woes. However, Labour were only 2 votes behind the Conservatives when they dropped out, and had it been SNP vs Labour, the lead would have been just 8.8%. That’s on the chunkier end of marginal, and it’s the kind of swing Labour have usually managed no problem lately.
Emphasis on “usually” however – in Dundee last month, they lost out in strong SNP wards I had expected them to win at least one of. Given recent polling has been quite poor for Labour, as their new government gets off to a rocky start, this will be a tougher than average one for them to win. Given by-election conditions favour Labour, and the drop-off in SNP-Green transferring (as limited as that pool of Green first preferences may be here) we’ve seen lately, and I still think Labour are favoured, but only just.
Prediction
Lean Labour.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
If you find this or other Ballot Box Scotland output useful and/or interesting, and you can afford to do so, please consider donating to support my work. I love doing this, but it’s a one-man project and takes a lot of time and effort. All donations, no matter how small, are greatly appreciated and extremely helpful.
(About Donations)
