Background
For the last by-election for a good while, we were on yet another visit to the capital. Val Walker, a Labour councillor for Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge and Craiglockhart ward, sadly passed away earlier this year. She’d only been a councillor since 2022. Sad circumstances notwithstanding, this was set to be the most fascinating contest of the year so far, and indeed one of most exciting of the term. Large parts of Edinburgh are highly competitive between many more parties than your average ward, and that was particularly true here.
I noted in my preview that there were reasons to believe all five of the Holyrood parties could be in the running, as well as things counting against them. The Conservatives had the advantage of a first preference lead last time, but the disadvantage of losing in a head-to-head versus any of the others plus dire national polling. Labour were the single-seat winners and win every head-to-head matchup but also in the doldrums at the moment. The SNP could benefit from Green transfers and weak Labour support, but have also been weak lately.
The Greens won the second most matchups in 2022 but tend to do comparatively poorly at by-elections. Lastly, the Lib Dems have a formidable by-election machine in Edinburgh, but I wasn’t sure if they would spin it up for this one. Completely out of contention despite the uncertainty about everyone else were Reform, as this is simply not the kind of area I’d expect them to excel in. As such, I had no prediction for this one beyond complete chaos and that it’d go to one of the Holyrood parties.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
🟠Lib Dem: Kevin McKay
Change vs 2022 (notional): Lib Dem Gain from Labour
Change vs vacating: Lib Dem Gain from Labour
Turnout: 33.1% (-16.8)
Electorate: 18945
Valid: 6225 (99.4%)
Spoiled: 39 (0.6%)
Quota: 3113
2 Continuing Councillors:
🔵Conservative: Christopher Cowdy
🟡SNP: David Key
Candidates
⚪Independent: Bonnie Prince Bob
⚪Independent: Derrick Emms
🟤Libertarian: Lukasz Furminiak
🔵Conservative: Mark Hooley
🟤Family: Richard Lucas
🟢Green: Q Manivannan
🟠Lib Dem: Kevin McKay
🔴Labour: Catriona Munro
🟣Reform UK: Gary Neill
⚪Independent: Mark Rowbotham
🟡SNP: Murray Visentin
⚪Independent: Steve West
⚪Independent: Marc Wilkinson
First Preferences
First Preference History
Chaos reigns indeed! Although the overall pattern was very different to 2022, it ended up with one key similarity: all of the top contenders within about 7% of one another, though that did extend to include the Lib Dems this time. This is also a remarkably unemphatic set of votes, with everyone struggling to even squeak past 20% never mind surpass the 25% that would be necessary for a seat at a full election.
Only two parties succeeded in making it above that lower line, and even then not by much. Labour retained a first preference lead by the skin of their teeth here, with a total vote their second worst result thus far. The Lib Dems were absolutely nipping at their heels, the only returning party to increase their share at all, almost trebling it to win their best share in the ward’s history.
The Greens found themselves in third place not due to an increased vote, in fact joining Labour in the “second worst yet” stakes, but because the SNP and Conservatives fell harder. That fits a pattern, not universal but frequent enough to be concerning for them, of worse results in key wards whilst making small gains in non-target areas. However, this isn’t all bad for them and in fact is oddly positive, as we’ll get onto in later sections.
Sharp declines meant both the SNP and Conservatives were on their worst results thus far, both in terms of vote share and relative position. The SNP had never before been lower than third but placed fourth this time, and with fourth the previous low for the Conservatives, fifth this time is a pretty dire place to end up. Reform meanwhile didn’t make it into double digits, which is unsurprising in this ward, and in fact I would argue their share is pretty strong for this area, which speaks to their ongoing polling strength.
We then get on to the vanity candidates. Bristle though they might, the vote shares speak for themselves. Of the votes cast for the five Independents, Marc Wilkinson won half of the total, but still didn’t even break 2% support. Nobody else even made it into a full percentage point, but alas, I don’t think that’s going to stop “Bonnie Prince Bob” wasting everyone’s time and energy every time there’s an Edinburgh vote. He can at least console himself that unlike Derrick Emms, he would need more than his fingers to count his votes on. The Family and Libertarian parties had negligible support in 2022 anyway, and lost some of what little they had.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
The chaotic vibe carried over to the transfer rounds. I pride myself on the ability to take a look at first preferences and in most cases confidently predict who would win after transfers (not being big headed, it’s a simple fact I have looked at more of this data than anyone else in Scotland by this point), but not in this case. My gut said Lib Dem, but that would depend on the relative spread of Conservative and SNP transfers in particular. It was not impossible the Greens would vault into the top two, and if that pushed the Lib Dems into third, on the available transfers Labour would be the obvious winners.
In the end my gut was right but we had to go through some absolutely classic STV position swaps to get there. A whole 7 transfer rounds had to be used getting rid of the micro candidates before we got to a meaningful elimination which was Reform, their transfers tipping the Conservatives ahead of the SNP. With the SNP out, their transfers then vaulted the Greens into first place. This is the first half of why this result is better for the Greens than it was on the surface: if we saw this at a full election, it means they win the first councillor available.
Even at a full election they’d then only have a miniscule surplus, which wouldn’t go Conservative anyway never mind close the gap. At this point in both scenarios the Conservatives drop out, and in this by-election that pulls the Greens back down into third and pushes the Lib Dems into first. Green transfers then roughly halves the gap between the Lib Dems and Labour, but it’s still a gap, and the Lib Dems therefore win, overturning a huge Labour lead in 2022 terms. If the Greens had placed in the top two, the Lib Dem advantage would have been even greater than over Labour, at about 9%.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Unlike some recent by-elections in more rural areas, Edinburgh turnout remains high and their districts large enough to almost avoid box mergers entirely, giving us a near-perfect breakdown of support across the ward. This splits beautifully neatly as well, in a purely aesthetic sense, with Labour ahead in Slateford, the Lib Dems in Kingsknowe and Craiglockhart, and the Greens in North Merchiston and Fountainbridge.
That’s where the other side of why this is counterintuitively not too bad for the Greens, as relative to 2022 their vote share increased in that green-tinted finger. That’s the portion contained within the new Edinburgh Central constituency, the party’s only real prospect of a Holyrood constituency win. Don’t get me wrong though, something on the order of a 2% increase in that section is a silver lining, not a stunning success.
In terms of best bits, no surprise that for Labour it’s Slateford, which was also the SNP and Reform hotspot. The Lib Dems meanwhile peaked in Easter Craiglockhart and the Greens plus the combined tally of the four weaker Independents in Fountainbridge. Given their vote shares I haven’t bothered breaking them down further, but pulled Wilkinson out since he had half the total. He and the Conservatives were then strongest in the main Craiglockhart district.
Second Preferences
Lastly, we can take a look at direct second preferences to see how each party’s voters were leaning overall. Amongst the Holyrood 5 and Reform, I would rate what we have here as pretty expected for Edinburgh. We’ve got strong mutual flows between Labour and the Lib Dems and again between the Greens and SNP, whilst the Conservatives were most likely to lean Lib Dem, and Reform to go Conservative.
Of the Independents, Wilkinson’s voters were marginally more likely to go for A N Other Independent over the Lib Dems, though that makes the latter the most popular individual choice. Meanwhile, those A N Other Independent backers collectively were most likely to transfer to the Greens. Finally, not that it means too much given the paucity of support, but the few Family voters tilted slightly Labour-wards whilst the Libertarians leaned Lib Dem.
Mercifully, we’re headed into a very quiet summer. There’s only one other current council vacancy in Scotland, for East Renfrewshire’s Barrhead, Liboside and Uplawmoor ward. That’s not until the 21st of August however, so far away that I don’t have a preview for it because nominations haven’t closed yet. I am hoping we might actually see some Holyrood polling, and for the love of the gods can it be from a credible pollster that isn’t Norstat or Survation, but we’ll see.
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