Moray By-election (Holyrood)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

With the recent tragic death of Margaret Ewing (SNP) Moray's MSP since 1999 (and M.P from '87 until she retired in 2001) a by-election is due in Moray (I'm assuming the date will be set pretty soon) and, as always in Highland-ish seats, it has the potential to be very interesting indeed, especially as Ewing had a large personal vote.

I get the feeling that the media will hype it up as a Big Test TM for Salmond...

I'll just go find some info on the constituency...

[minionofmidas]

I endorse the candidacy of the Mormaer of Moray. Hey, it's but an idle tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, isn't it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Moray



Labour Market & Etc:

Unemployment: 3.1% (Scot. average: 5.4%) 2004-2005
Employment Rate: 77.6% (Scot. average: 74.9%) " "
Occupation Groups: Notably high %'s of Associate professional & technical, Skilled trades and Elementary occupations. Extremely low % of professional occupations and notably low %'s for Admin & Secretarial occupations.
No Qualifications: 15.8% (better than Scot. average, worse than U.K average).
With Degree: 22.9% (a bit lower than U.K average, a lot lower than Scot. average).
Gross Weekly Pay: £362.2p (let's just say that's a *lot* lower than Scottish or U.K averages... note that figure is for the Moray UA which includes areas not in the constituency; around Keith if anyone is interested).

Local Elections

As of the last set of local elections...

SNP strength: Most of the constituency by the looks of it; their vote seems to be quite evenly spread. They don't have many councillers though; one in Lossiemouth and one in Elgin.
Labour strength: dominate in the working class parts of Elgin (67% in Bishopmill East for example) and also do well in Buckie. Labour candidates in most of the rest of the constituency are notable by their absence.
Tory strength: best town is Forres. They run even less candidates than Labour.
LibDems: not strong anywhere in the constituency; they do well in the parts added to the Westminster constituency though.
Independents of various shades are strong just about everywhere.

Recent Election Results

Holyrood

2003: SNP 42.2%, Con 22.5%, Lab 19.1%, LibDem 12.2%, SSP 4%
1999: SNP 38.8%, Lab 26.5%, Con 25.6%, LibDem 9.1%

Westminster

2005: SNP 36.6%, Con 21.9%, Lab 20.4%, LibDem 19.2%, SSP 1.8% (note: Boundary Change)
2001: SNP 30.3%, Lab 25.1%, Con 23.1%, LibDem 15.7%, SSP 2.5%, Ind 2.4%, UKIP 0.9%

Seat History

Moray (which didn't used to include that big southern tail thing, but did include Nairn) was a Tory stronghold for a long time until falling to the SNP in 1974 (IIRC it was seen as a major upset). The Tories regained it in '79, but Ewing won for the SNP in 1987 and it's been there's ever since (although it's never really been a safe seat for them).
Traditionally Moray has been dire territory for Labour (note that Ramsay MacDonald was born in Lossiemouth...) and it was habitual deposit losing territory for years. Second place in '01 was the first time that had happend since 1966.

[afleitch]

While the Moray seat to be contested is slightly smaller than the Westminster constituency (which covers the whole council), it contains the same centres of population.

In effect it is a rural seat, but with a fairly densely populated coast which is part of the 'commuter' belt for Inverness to the west. In it's verious forms it has seen both Labour and the Conservatives place second, but Labour have fallen back. This is a seat where the Conservatives are the challengers and need to finish in a respectable second place.

The second issue is, if Labour are experiencing swings against them in Scotland, in both Dunfermline at a national level and Milton Ward (King's Park is up for election on March 30th) at a local level where will the votes go if anywhere?

However this is a rural seat, which it makes it less easy to 'blitz' campaign amd it will depend on the strengths of each individual candidate.

Prediction: SNP HOLD.

I can't see the SNP loose this one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The second issue is, if Labour are experiencing swings against them in Scotland, in both Dunfermline at a national level and Milton Ward (King's Park is up for election on March 30th) at a local level where will the votes go if anywhere?

If they go anywhere, they'll stay at home. Mind you, Labour aren't the incumbent party to be beaten in Moray, if that makes any difference. 

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They certainly shouldn't do... although this is the sort of seat where candidates are very important.
My guess right now is for an SNP hold but on a very low share of the vote.
Are the campaign spending limits the same for Holyrood as for Westminster?

[Democratic Hawk]

Prediction: SNP HOLD.

I can't see the SNP loose this one.

Yep, I'd agree with that. The interesting thing here is to see how the Conservative vote compares with Labour's

Dave

[afleitch]

Ewing was one of few persons

www.alba.org.uk (the nasty nationalist site)

seem to like.

Its a very good site for stats and maps. But having a bias takes away much from the validity of their comments.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And the candidats hath been picked.

The SNP and the Tories are both running list MSP's (Richard Lochhead and Mary Scanlon respectively), Labour are running an Elgin counciller (Sandy Keith; who represents the Bishopmill East ward mentioned above) and the LibDems are running the counciller for Keith (which is just outside the Holyrood consitutency), Linda Gorn.

[afleitch]

and the LibDems are running the counciller for Keith (which is just outside the Holyrood consitutency), Linda Gorn.

Thats not going to sit too well

[Harry Hayfield]

Nominations have just closed for the Moray by-election and I have just spoken to the returning officer's office who hope to have the statement of nominations up on their website by "close of play". I can tell you so far that the electorate is 60,859 (+4.5% on Scotland 2003)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Moray still growing then? Must be Inverness commuters.

[afleitch]

Moray still growing then? Must be Inverness commuters.

Exactly. If it wasn't for the old regional boundaries (carried through asfter 1996) seperating Moray from the Highlands we would probably have seen a coastal seat stretching from the outskirts of Inverness, through Nairn and across the nortern Moray coastline. Similar to the pre 1983 seat of Moray and Nairn actually.

[minionofmidas]

The Nat candidate already is a list MSP. I suppose once he's directly elected, the list seat gets filled by the next person down the list? If so, wouldn't it be more honest to just run that person?

[afleitch]

The Nat candidate already is a list MSP. I suppose once he's directly elected, the list seat gets filled by the next person down the list? If so, wouldn't it be more honest to just run that person?

Thats the only problem with the list system; there is no by-election when a list MSP dies or resigns and as they constitute 56 of the 129 members it is it a bit absurd.

Having said that I cannot think of another way to do it. You could hold a whole 'regionwide' election- but financially it would cost a lot for the parties involved.

[minionofmidas]

You could do away with by-elections altogether, and fill direct MP's vacancies from the list.

[afleitch]

I'm still a fan of the AMS under the d'Hondt system, however there may be calls for change if for example Labour poll lower than the SNP (unlikely) yet win more seats.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I reckon they might as well switch to STV

[afleitch]

I reckon they might as well switch to STV

They probably will. One of the main problems is the fact we have so many voting systems

Westminster FPTP
Holyrood FPTP where the seats are different
Holyrood AMS using unnatural regions left over from the old EU boundaries
Council STV from 2007

And thats not including the Euro elections

The public are confused; even those who follow politics closely. I will be watching closely in 2007 to see if the Executive publicly explains the council voting system. Though I've been privatly told by an ex-Labour friend of mine (now in the SNP) that Labour would rather not explain any of the PR systems as electorate confusion helps them out come election time

[afleitch]

Look at this little gem from the Lib Dems

http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/news/0604121.shtml

Just two weeks before polling in the Scottish Parliamentary by-election for Moray - a private poll carried out by Linda Gorn’s Lib Dem campaign team has revealed that it’s shaping up to be a close two horse race between the Liberal Democrat candidate and the SNP come election day on April 27th.

The poll is based on 600 local voters who were canvassed at the end of the first full week of campaigning. The results of the survey are as follows: SNP 35.3%
Liberal Democrats 32.0%
Conservatives 18.4%
Labour 10.2%
Don’t Know 4.1%


Commenting on the survey results Linda Gorn said

“These figures prove what is clear out on the doorsteps –the Tory campaign seems to have turned the voters off and their support in Moray has collapsed. More and more people are now switching their votes to the Lib Dems. We are closing the gap on the SNP and winning fresh support from all corners every day.”

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I wonder what member of the Lib Dem campaign team made up that little poll 600 people in Moray - thats quite a number to poll...Sadly there are no classic ' Lib Dem Win Here bar charts' on the site.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just two weeks before polling in the Scottish Parliamentary by-election for Moray - a private poll carried out by Linda Gorn’s Lib Dem campaign team has revealed that it’s shaping up to be a close two horse race between the Liberal Democrat candidate and the SNP come election day on April 27th.

I'll have to ask this but... what are the campaign finance limits for Holyrood by-elections?

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Funny that such private "polls" the LibDems release tend to have a very similer set of numbers, but with different parties in front of them, isn't it?

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Heh.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Things have turned nasty already:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4909268.stm

By the sound of it, no one has a clue how this'll turn out...

Polling is on the 27th of April.

[Harry Hayfield]

I don't know if this is any help, but in 2001 I calculated that on average when a standing member stands down (or indeed dies / resigns) that party's vote share drops by about 25%, so in the case of Moray that's 2,846 votes up for grabs (and considering that the SNP majority is 5,312 you can see why people are unsure which way Moray will go)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Things have taken a strange turn... Police urged to investigate 'dishonest and deceitful' Tory election tactics

Edited

[minionofmidas]

So where will Tory votes go?

[Ben.]

So where will Tory votes go?

To the Tories? They should finish second in  Moray and the SNP seem worried that the Tories could at the very least be taking votes away from their candidate and might even have a chance of winning the seat.