Perth and Kinross

The Lib Dems land a big win in a by-election that demonstrates the clear value of having a fair voting system.

The SNP manage an easy victory in a by-election they couldn’t afford to lose, and where the three biggest parties bleed varying degrees of support to the smaller ones.

A freshly elected Labour MP leaves a vacancy in one of the SNP’s strongest wards, which means it looks likely that despite their woes the SNP will be able to pick up the seat. That’ll give them every seat in the ward which defeats the point of STV!

A Conservative resignation in one of their strongest wards should be an easy win for them, but voters aren’t perfect, and a slightly more diverse ballot than in 2022 compounds a bad time for the Conservatives to make this more of a lean than a likely.

This week’s rummage in the 2017 archives brings us to another ward that has had two by-elections in this term, when a Conservative councillor resigned early on, for grim reasons.

In another by-election arising from tragic circumstances, the Conservatives are runaway favourites to win a third seat here, giving them every councillor in the ward.

We finished off 2020’s by-elections with two in Perth – an SNP blowout in the North, and the Lib Dems emerging triumphant from the three-way scrap in South.

A two-fer of Perth City By-Elections to (possibly) wrap up 2020’s by-elections. Expect the SNP to romp home in North, but South is a much more complex three-way split, with SNP and Lib Dems probably in a better position than the Conservatives.