Tag Archives: conservatives

Lothians Results for #sp11

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A historic result for this election, an incredible night for the SNP, taking an overall majority which was supposed to be impossible.  A disastrous night for Labour and the Liberal Democrats and disappointment for the Greens who stuck on 2 seats (2 regions to be declared).

In the Linlithgow constituency, SNP candidate Fiona Hyslop was returned 49.8% of the vote, a massive increase of 10.8%

Name Party Votes % +/-%
Fiona Hyslop SNP 17,027 49.8 +10.8
Mary Mulligan Labour 12,936 37.8 -2
Christopher Donnelly Conservative 2,646 7.7 -2.9
Jennifer Lang Liberal Democrat 1,015 3 -4.6
Mike Coyle National Front 558 1.6 +1.6
Turnout 34,182 52.5
Majority 4,091 12

In Almond Valley, Angela Constance turned a micro majority into a huge majority of 5542.

Name Party Votes % +/-%
Angela Constance SNP 16,704 54.3 +14.6
Lawrence Fitzpatrick Labour 11,162 36.3 -3.4
Andrew Robert Hardie Conservative 1,886 6.1 -1.9
Emma Sykes Liberal Democrat 656 2.1 -4.2
Neil McIvor National Front 329 1.1 +1.1
Turnout 30,737 51.1
Majority 5,542 18

In the Lothian Region, 3 Labour members were returned (Sarah Boyack, Kezia Dugdale & Neil Findlay) 2 Conservatives (David William McLetchie & Gavin Brown), Green (Alison Johnstone) and Independent, Margo MacDonald

Party Member Seats Votes % +/-%
Labour Sarah Boyack, Kezia Dugdale & Neil Findlay 3%E Labour 11,162 36.3 -3.4
Andrew Robert Hardie Conservative 1,886 6.1 -1.9
Emma Sykes Liberal Democrat 656 2.1 -4.2
Neil McIvor National Front 329 1.1 +1.1
Turnout 30,737 51.1
Majority 5,542 18

In the Lothian Region, 3 Labour members were returned (Sarah Boyack, Kezia Dugdale & Neil Findlay) 2 Conservatives (David William McLetchie & Gavin Brown), Green (Alison Johnstone) and Independent, Margo MacDonald

Party Member Seats Votes % +/-%
Labour Sarah Boyack, Kezia Dugdale & Neil Findlay 3 70,544 24.9 -1.3
Conservative David William McLetchie & Gavin Brown 2 33,019 11.7 -1.5
Green Alison Johnstone 1 21,505 7.6 +0.5
Independent – MacDonald Margo MacDonald 1 18,732 6.6 0
SNP None 0 110,953 39.2 +12.7
Liberal Democrat None 0 15,588 5.5 -7.3

All the West Lothian region results can be found on the West Lothian Council website.

Linlithgow Constituency Preview

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The Linlithgow constituency promises to be a very tight battle between the incumbent Labour MSP Mary Mulligan and the challenger, SNP Lothian Region MSP Fiona Hyslop.  Playing bit parts this time are Conservative and LibDem candidates, Chris Donnelly and Jenni Lang.  There is also the frankly repugnant option of the National Front.

In the Linlithgow constituency at the last election, Mary Mulligan had a majority of 1160, but boundary changes have reduced that to just 294.  The seat is the number 2 SNP target and requires a swing from Labour to 0.4372%

The current poll results say the swing to the SNP is much greater than that and if you believe the polls, Fiona Hyslop will be coasting home.  We’ll see if the polls are much closer to reality this time.

Judging by the activity in my <street>, you’d think this was the safest seat in the country. But Labour have sent in multiple leaflets, trying to imply that daughters of East Renfrewshire Labour councillors live in my street and will be voting Labour.  Not likely.

Tomorrow, I’ll give a summary of the Lothian regions where the 2nd vote will go, give a short view on the AV referendum that is also on the same day.  I sent the candidates some questions that would help me decide who to vote for and will let you know the candidate’s responses (if they reply) and then on Election Day, I’ll actually say who I will vote for as at this stage I’m still not sure.

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, Series 2 No.2: Annabel Goldie

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The second lamb up for the Leaders interviews on #newnicht was Annabel Goldie. I’m right on top of this as the interview was published on Tuesday.

The main revelation from the interview was that Goldie is not the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party. She is merely the Leader of the MSP group in the Scottish Parliament. Basically the same standing as Iain Gray for Labour. Goldie said that the party organisation was disparate and matters are dealt with by the party organisation. In fact, I tracked down a Telegraph article from January of this year that stated :-

Effective control of the Scottish Conservatives has been passed to London party chiefs

Whilst there is a party chairman, the Scottish Conservatives are run from London. Annabel did not handle the question well at all, and it is not surprising if she is trying to avoid looking like she is not in control, and doesn’t know what is going on.

Suitably Despairing’s Green Guide to Manifestos in #sp11

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I did plan to go through each of the Manifestos with a fine tooth comb looking for Green commitments, but the excellent Suitably Despairing has already done the job for me.  I’ll just give links to each below and summarize the key points from each.

Scottish Conservatives

Transport projects based on economic benefit with the Forth Crossing the top priority, wanting to stretch rail to breaking point, and breakup the ferry services. Anti-localisation and with no commitment to reduce carbon emissions except for the unproven Carbon Capture technology and the dangerous and expensive nuclear “industry”.

UKIP

UKIP don’t believe in climate change.  I don’t believe UKIP will ever have a say in Scottish Government so that’s okay then.

Scottish Liberal Democrats

Commitment to biomass power plants (but they oppose the one in Leith). Setting a target of Scotland to generate the equivalent of 100 per cent of Scotland’s electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2025 (not, not energy).  No new nuclear power plants, hoping to work with the UK government on transmission charges, a Scotland wide transport smart card. I see conflict with public transport commitments and the desire to build more roads and bridges.  A program for insulation (details lacking), a strategy for on-street recycling across the country.

Scottish Labour Party

Any application for a new nuclear power station will be considered, any replacement coal power station will have to have the imaginary carbon capture technology, a target of 10,000 electric car charging points, a “zero waste” Scotland.  Pledging to reduce the tax on fuel for rural areas – would be better to invest the money from that tax and better and cheaper public transport.

Scottish Socialist Party

Free bus, rail, underground and ferry travel.  A bold challenge but incredible expensive. A system of ferry pricing based on the Road Equivalent Tariff.  (Selfishly I’d like this, but can it be extended to trips to Ireland?).  A national strategy on cycling and training for children in P6/7 (which already exists).  No new nuclear and plan to decommission existing ones. A ban on GM foods.

Scottish National Party

Scotland will produce 100% of its usage of electricity by 2020 from renewables, exporting excess, a Futures Generation Fund for the renewables wealth, carbon capture (coming shortly after cold fusion nuclear power I believe). £50 million towards home insulation, funding for a Climate Challenge Fund, and a young Climate Challenge Fund.  All good stuff.  But a giant new bridge casts a shadow over it somewhat.

(Aside: you can tell the SNP have considerable more money available; and get social networking)

That is just a brief summary of the points in the manifesto’s and you should click through to @cowrin’s posts to get the full details (and extra commentary)

UPDATE (19th April) : The Scottish Green Party manifesto is now out and Suitably Desparing reviewed it here :-  #Sp11 Manifestos: Scottish Green Party

The review is, as expected very positive with the only negative being the storage of nuclear waste.  Briefly, no large biomass, universal home insulation, developing plans for the “supergrid”, 100% renewable electric by 2020, no nuclear, no coal, cycle hire schemes (yes! big win), extra public transport infrastructure investment, peatland restoration, an increase in native woodland cover to 40% by 2050.

Livingston Constituency Results 2007

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Following on from my post on the Linlithgow 2007 results, I’m looking at the sister constituency of Livingston.  In the upcoming election the boundaries have changed and there is a new name, the beautifying Almond Valley.

The interesting point about the 2007 vote was an independent, Ernie Walker, campaigning to save the services at St. John’s Hospital.  Here are the results of the constituency vote in 2007 :-
Here are the constituency results :-

Angela Constance, SNP 13,159
Bristow Muldoon, Labour 12,289
Ernie Walker, Independent 2,814
David Brown, Conservative 2,804
Evan Bell, Liberal Democrats 2,158
Majority 870

Here are the regional voting results (click to enlarge) :-

As in Linlithgow, the most faithful voters are the SNP.  82% of those that voted for Angela Constance followed up with a vote for the SNP on the Regional List.  Apart from the independent voters, again the Liberal Democrat voters were most split with only 63% staying with the LibDem.  10% gave their vote to the Green Party.

The Greens polled 3% of the list vote in total, whilst Margo MacDonald polled 4.5%.  Margo picked up most of her votes from SNP Constituency votes (29%) but it was pretty even from all the parties.  The Greens picked up a quarter of their votes from the SNP and Labour.  As in Linlithgow, the LibDems were twice as likely to vote Green than Margo.

Linlithgow Constituency 2007 Results

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The wonderful @PeatWorrier posted a link to a positive data bomb of election results which you can download yourself at http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/updatedversionJune08.xls

The detail is quite extraordinary. Not only has a constituency breakdown for regional and consituency votes, it has a box by box count of votes per party, the boxes linked to the postal district. It also gives an incredible useful Cross Paper Combination of Regional Candidate by Constituency candidate so you can see how many SNP voters, for example, voted for Liberal Democrat, or Green or even Labour in their second vote.

So detailed is it, that I know that for my postal district that the SNP outvoted Labour, the Conservatives outvotes Liberal Democrats, and Margo polled better than the Greens.

My constituency is Linlithgow in the Lothians region. The boundaries have changed for 2011, but it ranges from Whitburn in the south, Winchburgh in the east and Linlithgow in the north.

Here are the constituency results :-

Mary Mulligan, Scottish Labour Party 12,725
Fiona Hyslop, Scottish National Party 11,565
Donald Cameron, Scottish Conservatives 3,125
Martin Oliver, Scottish Liberal Democrats 2,232
Majority 1160

Now look at the Regional Vote by Constituency Candidate (click to enlarge) :-

The most faithful votes are from the SNP where 78% of people who voted for Fiona Hyslop voted SNP on the regional list. The least faithful are Martin Oliver’s voters, only 55% of voters for Martin Oliver voted LibDem on the list. Not called Liberal for nothing.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the biggest gainer of votes from the constituency candidates was the Independent, Margo MacDonald. She picked up nearly 5% of the list vote in the Linlithgow constituency. After their own Party, Conservative, Labour and SNP constituency voters were mostly likely to vote for Margo.

The exception was the Liberal Democrats who were more like to vote Green (13.9%) than Margo (8.1%). This might actually be Green voters voting LibDem because they didn’t have a choice of voting Green. The Green vote was actually very evenly split between Labour, SNP and the Liberal Democrats (310,307,310).

There are few other surprises. Both BNP (of which there were 490 in the constituency) and UKIP voters where more likely to vote Conservative and Socialist voters were not likely to vote Labour; 3 times more voted SNP and indeed, just as many voted LibDem.

A Simplistic Look at the motivation on Tuition Fees

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What are the various parties agendas on higher education?  What is the underlying ethos guiding what they do?

I’m not talking about the current fashion for demanding hard and fast cuts “in the current economic climate”.  There was no recession when Labour introduced top up fees in 2004.

Let’s take a simplistic look at why each major political party would want to increase fees for students :-

  • Conservatives.   If you have to pay much much more to go to the best universities, then only the rich will be able to afford to go, and therefore Tory children won’t lose their Oxbridge places to the poor however stupid they might be.
  • Labour. The whole point of Labour is to keep people in poverty so they need to work, need the social crux of the Welfare State.  What better way to keep even the brightest young person under the cosh?  Saddle them with as much debt as possible.
  • Liberal Democrats. Well, I can’t think of a good reason here.  Care to supply one?  I think the better educated, the more likely to be liberal and therefore more likely to vote LibDem ( I did say this was simplistic didn’t I?).  That’s one of the reasons that the party policy is to abolish tuition fees (I’d link to the website, but it has been removed).  So why are the LibDems raising the fees?  Well, they are not.  Coalition ministers are.  LibDem policy remains the same.  The rebels here will be the MPs who votes for raising fees.

One final thought as the whole thing is depressing me.  The LibDems should be better than Labour, who had in their 2001 party manifesto

“We have no plans to introduce University top-up fees, and have legislated to prevent their introduction.”

and then proceeded to introduce them.

Is breaking a pledge worse than breaking legislation?

Feel the benefit?

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Do you get the idea that the Conservative Party have yet to work out what they are doing? On the one hand they introduce an idea, cutting child benefit for higher tax payers, that isn’t designed to impact the poor.  Yet they manage to manage to mess it up by making it means tested against single parents rather than a family household, giving Labour an easy target to attack.

And where did this idea come from? Not their manifesto, where there isn’t a sign of it, nor from their coalition partners, who seem to be quite surprised by it.

Then, they bring back their married couple tax break, universally disliked by all the other parties (the LibDems going so far as to specifically exempting themselves from having to vote for it in the coalition agreement), whilst also talking about completely overhauling the welfare system in the future.

Why not stop announcing all the ill thought out, half baked ideas now and wait to produce the complete new system when they’ve worked it out?

Is it because if they keep quiet it’ll start to look like all the good ideas from this government have been coming from the Liberal Democrat ?

Voted and waiting for the result

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Today, I went out and voted in my local constituency, basing my decision on a large number of facts.

But I’d long since come to the conclusion that the only party to offer electoral reform, libel reform, full backing to remove the heinous Digital Economy Act and tax reform were the Liberal Democrats.   It helps that they are a party that was against the illegal Iraq war, didn’t lead us into the worst recession in my lifetime and are not a party that wants to give the rich even more of an advantage over the poor – a party that would cut twice as hard to save £20 a month in council tax for their middle class voters.

I went to the local hustings in Linlithgow and wasn’t impressed by either Tam Smith (SNP) or Andrea Stephenson (Tory).  Michael Connarty came over very well, but one moment summed him up.  Whilst Stephen Glenn was explaining that Connarty voted for the Digital Economy Bill, Connarty gave an enthusiastic nod and a thumbs up.

This is despite telling other bloggers that he was against the idea, and not even attending the debate.  It is unlikely he really understands the implications of the DE Act at all.

However well he comes across and performs, he is a party man, and the New Labour Party is driven and whipped by the likes of Peter Mandelson.

As of now it is 20:20 and there is still over an hour and a half to vote.  Should you randomly cross this post before heading out to vote, bear these words in mind.