 | 'Harsh realities are now catching up with councils like Orkney, Shetland, and Stirling, which have announced increases of 10% and more. Others well in excess of 5% include East Lothian (8.7%), Scottish Borders (8.2%), Aberdeenshire (8.1%), Renfrewshire (8%), Dumfries and Galloway (6.7%), Aberdeen City (6%), and East Renfrewshire (5.9%). Edinburgh restricted its increase to 2.9%.' John MacCalman and Brain Donnelly in the Herald, 10 th March 2000. |  |
In 1984, Labour took control of Edinburgh District Council, sweeping the Tories from power in the process. They held on until 1992 when the vote produced a hung council. Labour won 30 wards, the Tories 23, the Liberal Democrats seven and the SNP two. In order to keep out the Tories, a deal was made between Labour and the Scottish National Party with SNP Councillor Norman Irons succeeding Eleanor McLaughlan as Lord Provost of Edinburgh.
In 1995, the new City of Edinburgh Council was reduced in size from 62 to 58 seats. Labour won back overall control, taking 34 seats. The Tories were reduced to 14, the Lib Dems took 10 and the SNP found themselves without a seat in the capital city until Rob Munn won the Harbour ward from Labour in a stunning by-election victory in October 1996.
Labour was reduced to 31 seats in May 1999, but retained control of the capital city. The Tories held 13 seats, the also Liberal Democrats took 13 and the SNP's Rob Munn astonished Labour by not only holding on to his by-election win, but also increasing his majority.
The Tories lost control of Edinburgh District Council in 1984 and faced further embarrassment in 1999 when they were ousted as the official opposition group on the council. Although they had tied with the Liberal Democrats with 13 councillors each, when the vote was taken, veteran Tory Councillor Brian Meek was not present and the Liberal Democrats became the official opposition.
In 1992 John Allan held the Firrhill ward of Edinburgh District Council with a 538 majority over the Tories. In 1995, he also won the Unitary Council seat of Firrhill with a 1,040 majority over the SNP's Iain Grimston. In 1999, despite a vastly increased turnout from 46.5 % to 60.2 %, his majority was reduced to 919 over the SNP's Robert Shirley.
Unlike the District Council seat, the Regional Council seat of Collington/Firrhill was predominantly Conservative being held by Brain Meek, onetime convenor of Lothian Region until 1992. Indeed, the last time there was a by-election here was on the 7 th May 1992, when Colington/Firrhill was held for the Tories by R. Carus, who took 3,761 votes compared to 1,675 for Labour's J. Moran, 862 for the SNP's G. Walker and 580 for Lib Dem K. Prior. This Tory domination was mainly because the regional division included the ward of Colinton as well as the ward of Firrhill, and Colinton, which was a larger ward then than today, was rock-solid Tory. Parts of the northern end of the old Colinton were transfered into the new Craiglockhart ward in 1995, which is also safely Tory these days (although it was quite marginal in 1995). Of course, the reason for the Tories' success in the 1992 by-election was partly that it was just after their General Election win, and their supporters would have been more willing to come out to vote, and Labour's to stay at home.
Glasgow has long been seen to be prime example of the need for PR in local government with the Labour party running the City as a one party state which almost makes Stalin's USSR look like a model of democracy in comparison. In May 1999, 'Neanderthal' Labour won 93.7 % of the seats (74 out of 79) with just 53.6 % of the vote.
While a Herald System Three poll of more than a thousand voters across 40 Scottish constituencies in March 2000 found a majority in favour of PR running at a ratio of almost six-to-one, many of Labour's mandarins are fighting to keep the corrupt first past the post electoral system which ensures a job for life for the party hacks who would be incapable of running raffle, let a full-blown council.
While Edinburgh is not quite such a rotten burgh as Glasgow, the electoral arithmetic here was also severely distorted in Labour's favour. The ruling Labour group won 31 seats (53.4 %) giving them an overall majority in the council, yet they won less than a third (32.0 %) of the vote. At the other extreme, the Scottish National Party won just 1 ward (1.7 %) with 20.6 % of the vote. With similar results repeated all over Scotland, it is hardly surprising that the Goddess of the Elected Dictatorship, Margaret Thatcher and her High Priest, Tony Blair, are religiously opposed to fair voting systems.
The mentality in the City Chambers has changed very little since the days of Deacon Brodie and the Muppets who run Edinburgh City Council continue to be a severe embarrassment to Scotland in general and the capital city in particular. Edinburgh still has a Labour Lord Provost who enraged local traders by extolling how much money he saved by shopping in New York for his Christmas presents in 1998 rather than in Edinburgh. However, some of the more out of touch members of the administration retired at the last election rather than risking almost certain rejection by the electorate. The new council has managed to keep the roof tax rise in the City down to 3 %, one of the lowest rises in Scotland, but more recently has faced accusations of incompetence as sections of the City including Murrayfield stadium were flooded at the end of April.
On a reduced turnout, Labour's Andrew Scobie held on to Firrhill with their majority reduced from 919 to 261 over the SNP's Robert Shirley, who was standing for he second time.
The Conservatives took 466 votes, increasing their percentage vote by 4.1 %. Although the Liberal Democrats also increased their ote, by 1.8 %, they were beatien into fifth place by the Scottish Socialist Party who had also beaten them in the Hamilton South and Ayr parliamentary by-elections. The SSP are probably the party with most to be pleased about here, following on from their excellent result in Woodhead/Meikle Eernock
Despite a drop of over 15 % in their percentage vote, the Labour party will be pleased to have held Firrhill in what was otherwise a bad week for them. On the Mound, Fisheries Minister John Home Robertson gave a bumbling and incoherent performance in the fishing boundary debate on the 26 th, which only four other Labour MSPs bothered to attend. This was followed by the humiliation of the Exectutive on the 27 th when their opposition to the abolishment of warrant sales was sabotaged by a rebellion of Labour's own back bench MSPs. The rebellion led to strains in the coalition as press were informed of that the bill would not be contested by the Executive even before Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace stood up to oppose it.
Meanwhile, in another local council by-election, Labour lost Delph & Cambus in Clackmannanshire to the SNP. This result gave the SNP overall control of their second local council in Scotland.
The turnout in Firrhill was 37.3 %, down from 60.0 % in May 1999.
The Labour hold here leaves the composition of Edinburgh City council unchanged at 31 Labour, 13 Liberal Democrats, 13 Conservatives and one Scottish National Party.
I am grateful to Aidan Thomson for information on the ward and to Eddie Truman for sending the result.
In Thursday night's council by-election in Clackmannanshire, the SNP's Tina Murphy beat Labour's Helen Forrest to win the Delph & Cambus Ward by a margin of 173 votes.
Meanwhile, Labour held the Firrhill Ward of Edinburgh City Council. Andrew Scobie defeated the SNP's Robert Shirley by 788 votes to 527.
SNP leader Alex Salmond took the opportunity at last month's Perth Conference to congratulate the candidates Tina Murphy and Robert Shirley, in two local council elections where they generated substantial swings against Labour.
Councillor Murphy overturned Labour's majority in the Delph and Cambus ward and so won outright control of Clackmannanshire Council, the SNP now having 10 seats, Labour 7 and Tories 1.
Last time the SNP came within 23 votes of victory and this time redoubled thier efforts to win by a majority of 173. "All through the campaign," Tina told us, "we used our caravan as HQ and towed it up to the car park at the polling station ... Labour were not amused. For the future it will be employed as the Lucky Caravan!"
Alex Salmond told the SI: "This is a very significant win for the SNP. Delph & Cambus has never been held by us in the entire history of the seat, and we have never held outright control of Clackmannanshire. And in Firrhill we slashed the Labour majority too.
| 27 th April 2000 | 6 th May 1999 | ||||||
| Andrew Scobie |  |
788 | 33.9 % | John Allan | |
1,866 | 49.2 % |
| Robert Shirley |  |
527 | 22.6 % | Robert Shirley | |
947 | 25.0 % |
| Roderick Sivewright |  |
466 | 20.0 % | Alex Stuart | |
603 | 15.9 % |
| Colin Fox |  |
275 | 11.8 % | Eileen Taylor |  |
373 | 9.8 % |
| David Walker | |
271 | 11.6 % | ||||
| Lab hold | Lab maj. | 261 | 11.3 % | Lab win | Lab maj. | 919 | 24.3 % |
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