 | 'The SNP may even be facing a tougher fight than it had anticipated in holding on to its North East Scotland seat tomorrow. In a special poll conducted in the constituency,
the SNP has a lead of only four points over Labour among those certain to vote, compared with the 15 point lead won in 1994 by Allan Macartney.' John Curtice, Professor of politics at Strathclyde University, comments on the ICM poll in the Scotsman, 25 th November 1998. |  |
The SNP easily held their North East Scotland Euro constituency, increasing their majority to 33,701 over the Conservatives, while Labour were humiliated, falling to third place. The seat became vacant following the death of SNP deputy leader Dr Allan Macartney who won the seat from Labour in 1994.
The by-election is historic for three reasons. Firstly, it is the first time that the SNP has fought a by-election to defend one of its own parliamentary or European parliamentary seats. Secondly, it was the first ever European by-election in Scotland. And thirdly, assuming that Tory hereditary peers are prevented from blocking PR for the June 1999 European election, it will be the last European by-election ever to be fought in the UK: Under PR, should a seat become vacant, the next candidate in the party list will automatically succeed as MEP.
The new Scottish National Party MEP is Cllr Ian Hudghton, the leader of Angus Council who took 48.03 % of the vote. The result is a personal triumph for Ian Hudghton, who had a hard act to follow in the form of the highly popular and respected Allan Macartney, for whom he acted as constituency agent. Many commentators pointed out the fact that the seat had changed hands twice in the past two elections, that Labour held the majority of the parliamentary seats and had an overall lead in the area in the 1997 general election. A large reduction in the SNP's majority was hinted at almost universally, with even the current writer commenting 'Many of Dr Macartney's votes were probably personal ones and the SNP can consider the by-election a triumphal victory should they manage to increase on his majority of 14.4 %, by far the largest in the four elections here.'
In fact, the SNP majority doubled to 28.14 % over the Tories, compared to 14.38 % over Labour in 1994. There was a 7.55 % swing from Labour to the SNP, and this in relation to, not the 1997 General election, but the 1994 European elections when the SNP already took a record 32.6 % of the vote throughout Scotland, compared to 42.5 % for Labour.
Conservative Struan Stevenson will be happy to have regained second place for the Tories and to have increased their vote by 1.26 %. Ironically, unless PR is introduced, the Conservatives are unlikely to win a single seat in Scotland. Even in South of Scotland, the only seat where they came second in 1994, they were a massive 45,105 votes behind Labour, with the SNP only 563 behind the Tories. Once again, it appears that the main obstacle to a Tory revival in Scotland is the Tory party in London, and in particular Tory hereditary peers.
Liberal Democrat Dr Keith Raffan increased his party's vote by 1.54 %, almost into double figures. However, he still polled 180 votes less in the whole Euro constituency than he did in October 1974 when he was the unsuccessful Tory candidate in Aberdeenshire East and 423 votes less than the Liberal Democrat Nicol Stephen polled when he was runner up in Aberdeen South in 1997. Like the Tories, the Lib Dems are unlikely to win a seat in the European Parliament unless PR is introduced, and even then they may struggle for enough votes to obtain representation.
The Scottish Socialist Party's Harvey Duke can be content with his fifth place and 2,510 votes, 1.78 % up on the Communist vote in 1994. The SSP are in the unique position of having a MEP for an English seat - Hugh Kerr, the left wing Scots MEP for Essex West and Hertfordshire East who was expelled from the Labour party for daring to criticise their demi-god and High Priest of Thatcherism, the Blessed Antony Charles Lynton Blair.
Scottish Green Party's Robin Harper was beaten into sixth place, but the Greens will be consoled by the fact that their vote was up by 0.55 % on their 1994 performance. However, this is still a long way from 1989 when the Greens came fourth with 7.3 % here.
For Labour, the result was a disaster. They were beaten into third place by the Tories and were the only party to be down on their 1994 result - this by almost 10 %. The North-East by-election may signal the end of Labour's apparent summer recovery after their Hard Man, Mrs Helen Liddell selflessly gave up half her Ministerial responsibilities (but not half her salary) in order to stick the boot into the SNP (and any Scottish teachers who happened to get in her way en route). The Labour candidate's attempt to smear the SNP as 'racist' and Donald Dewar's refusal to condemn this undoubtedly did not help the 'new' party's cause. And while one can understand the point of Tony Blair attempting to conceal from the public his use of Scotland as a dustbin for the ex-USSR's nuclear waste, or Donald Dewar's apparent attempts to fiddle the Scottish Office books, it is difficult to comprehend why the Labour candidate felt it necessary to conceal her English birth and make false claims that she was born in Aberdeen, especially when many leading members of the SNP, including Chief Executive Michael Russell, David McCarthy and Dot Jessiman were born in England. In the words of Roseanna Cunningham when she won the Perth & Kinross by-election for the SNP in 1995, 'It is not where you come from that is important but where we are going together as part of the community of Scotland.' This appears to be something which New Labour does not understand.
But the real losers in the by-election were pollsters ICM whose credibility was completely shattered after they predicted that Labour and the SNP were almost neck and neck on the eve of the by-election. After the 1997 general election, ICM were justifiably proud of their prediction of the result using the 'Shy Tory' technique. The reason for their success in 1997 and abject failure this year may be understood when one listens to Nick Sparrow, managing director of ICM, who, when affirming that their methods were the most accurate, said in July 1998 'Our voting estimates assume that 50 per cent of the 'don't knows/refusers' will return to the party they supported in 1997. This has the effect of increasing the projected Labour and Conservative share of the vote in the Scottish parliamentary elections at the expense of the SNP.'
Although this technique worked for the 1997 General election when the swing was directly from Tory to Labour, it appears to fall flat on its face in the current Scottish political climate where the swing is from Labour to SNP. ICM will probably attempt to publicly explain away their aberration by claiming that there was a late swing. However it seems that ICM's assignment of 50 % of the 'don't knows' who voted for Labour in 1997 back to that party is inappropriate and causes great inaccuracies. This result also calls into doubt the accuracy of all ICM's Scottish polls since the general election. Undoubtedly, ICM, who are using this technique to predict that Donald Dewar is already home and dry for the Scottish parliamentary election in May 1999, may have to radically alter their methods of calculation if they wish to avoid further extremely embarrassing gaffes like this by-election poll in the future.
| Logo | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Scottish National Party (Scotland's Party) | Cllr Ian Hudghton | 57,445 | 48.03 % | + 5.25 % % |
 | Conservative and Unionist Party | Struan Stevenson | 23,445 | 19.85 % | + 1.26 % |
 | Labour | Kathleen Walker-Shaw | 22,086 | 18.47 % | - 9.93 % |
 | Liberal Democrat | Dr Keith Raffan | 11,753 | 9.83 % | + 1.54 % |
 | Scottish Socialist Party | Harvey Duke | 2,510 | 2.10 % | + 1.78 % |
 | Scottish Green Party | Robin Harper | 2,067 | 1.73 % | + 0.55 % |
| SNP hold | SNP majority | 33,701 | 28.18 % | + 13.80 % |
| Logo | Party | Poll |
|---|---|---|
| Scottish National Party | 41 % |
| Labour | 37 % |
| Conservative and Unionist Party | 14 % |
| Liberal Democrat | 7 % |
| Logo | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scottish National Party | Dr Allan Macartney | 92,892 | 42.78 % |
| Labour | Henry McCubbin | 61,665 | 28.40 % |
| Conservative | Ronald Harris | 40,372 | 18.59 % |
| Liberal Democrat | Simon Horner | 18,008 | 8.29 % |
| Green | Keith Farnsworth | 2,569 | 1.18 % |
 | Communist GB | Mary Ward | 689 | 0.32 % |
| North East Ethnic | Louis Mair | 584 | 0.27 % | |
 | Natural Law Party | Duncan Patterson | 371 | 0.17 % |
| SNP gain from Lab | SNP majority | 31,227 | 14.38 % |
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