To be honest I’ve never paid much attention to local council elections. Since I was old enough to vote I was either in Edinburgh or in Glasgow. Well there was a break for some years in Shropshire. But especially in Glasgow, you knew what the outcome was going to be. One of our local councillors was a LibDem chap for a long time but everyone knew that it was going to be a Labour run council. Again. And again. And again.
Oh well, apart from 1949-52 and 1968-71 when the council was run by Progressives and mostly without overall control. Oh and 1977-79 when again there was no overall control and it was run by a Conservative. Apart from those years, for all the other years since 1934 – Wikipedia doesn’t venture further back than that – it’s been Labour run.
Last elections were in 2012 when again Labour were the largest party and had an overall majority with 44 seats, SNP was second with 27 and the Greens were third with 5 seats. Tory and LibDems had one seat each, leaving the final seat to a party called Glasgow First.
You can see the effect of the alternative voting system in how the seats for Greens and Tories turn out. The Tories had more first place votes than the Greens but clearly the Greens had a lot of second or lower places votes because they end up with five councillors to the Tories one.
In 2012, the polls actually had SNP ahead of Labour though only by a smidgeon. But the polls didn’t hold up in the actual result and Labour got back in. Maybe the pitiful 34% turnout had an effect on that. This time the polls have the SNP with more than a 20% lead. And what’s funny, if it wasn’t also tragic, is that it’s a lead over the Tories. The SNP vote has increased from 32% to 47% . Meanwhile Labour’s vote has collapsed from 31% to 14% while the Tories have climbed from 13% to 26%. This is much the same within a few % points as opinion polls show for Scotland as a whole just now.
OK, well fingers crossed for the 4th May!!! Hey Pa Broon, we might be getting an SNP toon cooncil in Glasgow. Whit dae ye say tae that?
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