 | 'At meeting after meeting I had to use all of my authority as chair to exert my control as they ranted and bawled at the leader. They were, I believe, part of a wider conspiracy to undermine Bob Gould.' Ex-Glasgow Lord Provost Jean McFadden's written statement to investigators concerning the suspended Labour Councillors, Bailie Mosson and Bailie Mutter. |  |
Labour's loss of Kildrum & Park in North Lanarkshire to the Scottish National Party confirmed that Blair's party is in deep trouble again after their humiliating performance in the North East Scotland by-election last week. There was an 18.8 % swing from Labour to the Scottish National Party, more than double that in the Euro by-election, as Margaret Murray overturned a Labour majority of 236 to win by 371 votes.
Scotland's part time Deputy Secretary of State, Helen Liddell was elected in the Monklands East by-election after she made a spectacular U-turn and promised to clear up Monklands District Council. Although Monklands is now no more, its successor, Labour controlled-North Lanarkshire has a £4.5 million black hole in its budget. The Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar has been forced to intervene as Helen Liddell and other Lanarkshire MPs pursue their personal political careers while doing a passable impression of the three wise monkeys as far as their local councils are concerned.
Voters reacted with Labour losing Condorrat North, Westfield and Smithstone (North Lanarkshire) in June and Carmichael (South Lanarkshire) in September to the Scottish National Party. Condorrat saw the largest swing from Labour to the SNP since the 1995 elections while in Carmichael, where the previous Labour Councillor resigned in disgust, new Labour were beaten into third place behind the Tories.
Eventually, Labour appeared to have regained control of the situation and regained a few points in the opinion polls. In October Labour even managed to managed to hold both Whinhall in North Lanarkshire and Cadzow in South Lanarkshire where the swings to the SNP were only 5.7 % and 6.0 % respectively.
Kildrum & Park is in the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth area where the SNP controlled the council in the past with veteran Nationalist Gordon Murray holding the post of Provost in the 1970s. In 1988 Labour and the SNP pulled even with 6 wards each and in 1992 Labour gained control of the council when it won Carbrain East from the SNP. However, Labour were still only 1.3 % ahead of their rivals, taking 45.4 % of the vote compared to 44.1 % for the SNP.
The SNP held Kildrum & Park until Cumbernauld & Kilsyth District Council was abolished in 1996. In the 1992 District Council elections the SNP's Tom Johnson took 1,035 votes compared to 631 for Labour's W. Taylor and 154 for Conservative W. Munro.
In 1995, the new North Lanarkshire ward of Kildrum & Park was won by Labour's Douglas Gilchrist who obtained a 236 majority over the Scottish National Party's John McIntosh. The by-election was caused by the death of Cllr Gilchrist.
The result was another political bombshell for Labour. They will be extremely disappointed by this result as on the previous two swings in Lanarkshire, Labour would have just scraped in. In fact, with Labour still shell shocked by their humiliation in North east Scotland, the SNP's Margaret Murray took the ward with a swing of almost 20 % and a majority of over 25 %.
The result will no doubt set alarm bells ringing for New Tony Blair with the Council elections now less than six months away and the Scotland's Party looking set to make major gains at London Labour's expense.
The Scottish Socialist Alliance will be happy with their third place here, taking more votes than the Liberal Democrats and Tories together. The Scotsman has been making hilarious attempts to talk up a Conservative revival in Scotland, but there was certainly little sign of it in Kildrum & Park with the Tories falling to fifth place with only 25 votes.
The turnout was 44.7 %, down from 59.2 % in 1995.
Following the by-election, the political composition of North Lanarkshire Council is 58 Labour, 9 Scottish National Party and 2 Independents.
I am grateful to David Halliday for sending me the result.
Douglas Gilchrist, 69, was paragliding in Turkey despite having been warned to take things easy after suffering a heart attack.
Mr Gilchrist had been accused of downloading pornographic material from the Labour room at North Lanarkshire Council headquarters in Motherwell in March this year. Police were investigating the allegations.
The result was: Margaret Murray, Scottish Nationalist Party - 849; Allan Graham, Scottish Labour Party - 478; Kevin P McVey, Scottish Socialist Party - 77; Charles Conlon, Scottish Liberal Democrat Party - 44; William Gibson, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party - 25.
The SNP majority was 371. The former Labour majority had been 236. Dec 4
| 3 rd December 1998 | 6 th April 1995 | ||||||
| Margaret Murray |  | 849 | 57.6 % | Douglas Gilchrist |  | 1,048 | 54.9 % |
| Allan Graham | | 478 | 32.4 % | John McIntosh | | 812 | 42.5 % |
| Kevin McVey |  | 77 | 5.2 % | William Munro |  | 50 | 2.6 % |
| Charles Conlon |  | 44 | 3.0 % | ||||
| William Gibson | | 25 | 1.7 % | ||||
| SNP gain from Lab | SNP maj. | 371 | 25.2 % | Lab gain | Lab maj. | 236 | 12.4 % |
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