There seems to be something special about Highland Council by-elections in early October for the Liberal Democrats. On 8 October last year, Jean Davis won the Aird and Loch Ness ward. Now, a year later, Trish Robertson has been elected as Liberal Democrat councillor for Culloden and Ardersier in a thrilling count that went to the wire. The photo shows a bit of the ward on the other side of the firth from our holiday cottage near Rosemarkie.
Trish Robertson (Scottish Liberal Democrats) has been duly elected as Cllr for @HighlandCouncil #Culloden & #Ardersier Ward pic.twitter.com/osEGe7dwgO
— The Highland Council (@HighlandCouncil) October 7, 2016
Scotland uses the Single Transferrable Vote for local elections and the Alternative Vote for single place by-elections. On first preferences, the SNP were 290 ahead of Trish in second place. The Tories were a mere 24 votes behind us.
Stage 1 results #Culloden & #Ardersier By-Election #Inverness pic.twitter.com/PtaCOW6Uzq
— The Highland Council (@HighlandCouncil) October 7, 2016
By stage 8, Trish had moved to 25 votes ahead of the SNP.
Result stage 8 #Culloden & #Ardersier By-Election # Inverness pic.twitter.com/N5bAAHqLAW
— The Highland Council (@HighlandCouncil) October 7, 2016
It just goes to show what you can do with a great local candidate, a record of action in the ward from incumbent Liberal Democrat councillor Kate Stephen, and a busy campaign. Willie Rennie went up to campaign for Trish.
It shows that last year’s win was not a flash in the pan and that support is returning to us in the Highlands.
Congratulations to Trish and her excellent campaign team! As you can imagine, I am delighted to see a win in the area where I was born.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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10 Comments
Fantastic. To win a seat with just 16.7% of the first preference votes…. Now I remember why we delivered STV for council elections when we were in the Scottish coalition! 8=) If you look at the detailed result on the Highland Council website, it was the transfers from the Tory that really closed the gap. We got 231 of his votes; the Nat got 30. No doubt the Nats will sneer about that, but all it shows is that we were able to to get those votes, and they weren’t. Brilliant result. Well done to all involved. (PS When was the last Thursday when we didn’t gain a seat somewhere??)
That a super count for an old geek like me! This shows one thing that is little understood. In a multi-member STV election where parties put up more than one candidate it’s transfers within a party that really matter. In an AV election it’s transfers between parties that matter.
This was real nail-biting stuff to follow live this afternoon. Well done Trish & all involved 🙂
I have become so used to waking up on Friday morning to news of another local election win, but had to wait a bit longer for this one. Congratulations to all involved, especially those doing the count!
It’s understandable that some SNP supporters are miffed by this, and I’ve seen some claim that the “unionists are out to get us”, but this is a voting system their party supports, so tough! More importantly, it shows that the SNP cannot lazily claim that they are the voice of Scottish people. Clearly, many do support them, but in this ward at least, there are more who think the LibDems will represent them better.
Congratulations to the tellers and officials for their perseverance. Well done to the winning team.
It’s great to see transferrable votes delivering an upset. On the basis of this result and others, we can argue that ATV or STV can be used by voters to express orders of preference.
A question for STV historians. Conor Cruise O’Brien stood for the Irish parliament several times. I recall reading a story that on one occasion he failed to win after all votes had been transferred because he was below threshold. Myth or truth?
@TonyJ: “(PS When was the last Thursday when we didn’t gain a seat somewhere??)”.
Well, based on the ALDC tables:
* We’ve had SEVEN unbroken weeks of by-election gains (since August 11th);
* We’ve had TWENTY-SEVEN weeks without a by-election loss (March 31st).
STV proving once again why it’s a great voting system. 🙂
Watching the twitter updates in Friday morning was strangely compelling viewing. There were two key moments. At stage an independent was eliminated which generated almost 140 transfers, this ensured Trish was in second place well ahead of the Conservative candidate. At the final stage it was a unionist trade off with most of the votes switching to the non-SNP candidate most likely to win. In the Highlands it is clear that it is the LibDems who challenge the SNP and therefore LD candidates will mop up transferred votes. The open question is, how long will it be before sufficient voters in Highland realise they need to transfer their vote before they reach the polling booth in order to defeat the SNP at a Westminster FPTP election?
To Phil Beesley – Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien was elected to the Dail for Dublin North East (around Clontarf) in 1969 and 1973 and the minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the Fine Gael / Labour National Coalition government 1973/77. The Dublin constituencies were redrawn for the 1977 general election to 3 seat constituencies, intended to benefit Fine Gael and Labour. The swing against the government in 1977 proved so big, this strategem favoured Fianna Fail. Dr Cruise O’Brien stood in Dublin Clontarf (3 seats) in 1977 general election. He was in third place on 3,511 votes (11.6%), 418 votes ahead of Dr Michael Woods of Fianna Fail on the first count (you call stage). In a three seater, the quota to be elected is 25% (divide 100 by number of seats + 1, plus 1 vote) or placed 3rd after all but 4 candidates remain – deemed elected without reaching the quota. Fianna Fail’s deputy leader George Colley (minister for finance 1977-79, beaten by Charles Haughey for the Fianna Fail leadership in 1979) had a surplus of 1,000 votes above quota to transfer & the third FF candidate 1,590 votes. Dr Woods finished 714 votes above Dr Cruise O’Brien after the final count and was deemed elected without reaching the quota. The Fine Gael transfers intended to elect Cruise O’Brien never came as Fine Gael’s 3 candidates polled 23 3/4% & their lead candidate hadn’t sufficient surplus.
Thank you, Hibernian Liberal.