Local By-elections

'Tony Blair is my son-in-law and I know him to be a decent man. The pensioners now need Tony Blair to demonstrate again that fundamental decency.' Tony Booth, 1 st September 2000.

Ward 13 (Inverclyde) 21 st September 2000

The Liberal Democrats were celebrating in Inverclyde when Alan McGraw won ward 13 from Labour, overturning a 507 majority to win by 45 votes. The Lib Dem victory here means that Labour loses overall control of Inverclyde Council.

For some strange reason, since local government reorganisation Inverclyde no longer gives official names to its ward, which are simply known by their numbers.

Inverclyde is one of the few areas of Scotland where there is a strong Liberal tradition. The Liberals controlled Inverclyde District Council in 1980 but lost it to Labour in 1984. Since then, the Liberals have, at times, come close to regaining control of the council, but have never quite managed it. One of the best known Lib Dem councillors was Ross Finnie, now one of the two Lib Dem members of the Executive. He has been nicknamed 'Captain Mainwairing', after the pompous, bumbling incompetent from Dad's Army. Cllr Finnie stood for Greenock & Inverclyde in the Scottish General election, coming second with 26.2 % and was elected from the regional lists.

In 1992, Labour, with 37.6 % of the vote took 11 wards while the Liberal Democrats took 8 wards with 36.3 %. The final ward was won by the Tories. The SNP came second in five wards but did not win any. This left the composition of the council unchanged, although the Lib Dems had won Broomhill from Labour and Labour had won Clune Brae from the Lib Dems.

However strong the Lib Dems were elsewhere in Inverclyde, they did not contest the Bow ward. It was held by Labour's Henry Mulholland with 519 votes (66.8%), 261 ahead of the Scottish National party's J. Watson with 258 votes (33.2 %).

After local government reorganisation, Inverclyde District Council became Inverclyde Unitary Council. In 1995, there was a large swing from the Lib Dems to Labour. Labour won 49.5% of the vote, wining 14 out of the 20 wards, while the Lib Dems slipped to 29.5 % of the vote and took 5 wards. The Tories held the remaining ward with 3.7 %, while the SNP, despite taking 16.1 % of the vote, won no wards.

In ward 13, Henry Mulholland was returned once more with an increased majority of 785. He took 1,051 votes (70.9%) compared to 266 (17.9 %) for John McConnell of the SNP and 166 (11.2%) for Lib Dem Stuart Beith.

In 1999, Labour suffered a reverse in Inverclyde, and their share of the vote fell to 37.5 % with 3 wards falling to the Lib Dems to leave Labour with 11. The Lib Dems took 8 wards with 34.6 % of the vote, the Tories one ward with 5.2 %, while the SNP again failed to win a single ward despite winning 22.0 % of the vote.

This meant that Labour had retained overall control of Inverclyde with a majority of two.

Ward 13 was again held by Henry Mulholland but his majority was reduced to 507. He took 943 votes with the SNP's Daniel McConnell coming second with 436 votes. David Bellshaw came third with 334 votes.

Normally, Labour would hope to hold a ward like this with the opposition split fairly evenly between the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. However, the Executive have hardly been endearing themselves to the Scots. First there was the exams fiasco caused by the system imposed on schools by Brian Wilson, Helen Liddell and Sam Galbraith. Education Minister Dr Sam Galbraith refused to accept any responsibility for the fiasco (indeed, Wilson and Liddell are equally guilty) and made false claims that he had no power over the SQA. More recently the Executive have been defending the government's punitive 333% tax on petrol. On the 13 th of September in the Scottish Parliament, Donald Dewar gave a speech which Margaret Thatcher, Hammer of the Scots, could have been proud of. During the same debate, in a outburst which he may live to regret, Jim Wallace accused the peaceful protesters of resorting to 'Mob rule'. Like Margaret Thatcher before them, for Donald Dewar and Jim Wallace it is the Executive against the world and it is the world that is out of step.

With Scotland descending into total chaos as a direct result of the imposition of punitive taxes by out-of-touch, incompetent London Labour politicians like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, aided and abetted by their Scottish puppets, ward 13 in Inverclyde promised to be a very interesting electoral contest to watch.

Indeed in the by-election, the Labour vote was very nearly halved here, fell by no less than 26.1 % to just 28.9 %. The ward was won by Alan McGraw for the Liberal Democrats by a majority of 45 votes with a swing of no less than 20.1 % from Labour to the Lib Dems.

The Scottish National Party came third, 40 votes behind Labour. They will be disappointed at seeing their share of the vote fall by 0.7 %. However, although the SNP had come second in ward 13 in May 1999, their vote was squeezed in the by-election - they have no seats in Inverclyde while the Liberal Democrats were the official opposition with just three wards less than Labour.

The Scottish Socialist Party, contesting the ward for the first time, can be happy with taking 12.7 % of the vote here.

The turnout was 33.0 %, down from 54.9 % in May 1999.

Following the Lib Dem gain of ward 13 from Labour, Labour have lost overall control of Inverclyde Council although they remain the largest party with 10 councillors compared to 9 for the Lib Dems and one for the Conservatives.

Ward 13 (Inverclyde)

21 st September 2000				6 th May 1999
Alan McGraw		323	33.6 %	Henry Mulholland		943	55.0 %
		278	28.9 %	Daniel McConnell		436	25.5 %
		238	24.8 %	David Bellshaw		334	19.5 %
		122	12.7 % %
Lib/Dem gain from Lab	Lib/Dem maj.	45	4.7 %	Lab win	Lab maj.	507	29.5 %