Next years Scottish Elections

Yesterday Ross, Skye and Inverness West Liberal Democrats unanimously re-adopted John Farquhar Munro MSP to stand in next years Scottish Parliamentary Elections. The adoption meeting had to be held on a Saturday afternoon to give everyone in this geographically huge constituency chance to get there. It was particularly pleasing to see Charles Kennedy there together with his wife and son. Both he and John were in relaxed mood and feeling positive about our prospects.

There was also some discussion about the Scottish Council Elections which are to be held by Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies. Whilst I welcome STV I am disappointed that each constituency will elect just four members. This could mean in the Highlands that the four main parties will play safe and just put one candidate forward for election. To my mind STV would work best with at least five members per constituency.

The Highland Council is currently run by 'Independents' but many of these are starting to declare their true colours as the change gets nearer.

English Local Elections

Well I must admit I am slightly disappointed in the overall increase in the number of Liberal Democrat councillors and Councils as I had hoped for net gains of 30 and 3 respectively. I expected that we would lose some seats to the Tories but had hoped we would gain far more Labour seats. On closer analysis I note we lost 12 seats to Labour in Islington. This one Council, therefore, accounts for the bulk of my disappointment. Then I notice we gained 16 seats from the Tories in Richmond-on-Thames! Clearly there are particular circumstances in these councils for this to happen. Indeed the closer you look the more local variations you see. This suggests to me that the local elections were more 'local' than the BBC and the rest of the media portray. Perhaps Local Democracy is not yet dead after all.

Of course the national swing is still important but it is encouraging to note that effective Councils, Councillors and candidates can still buck the trend from whatever party they come from. The coverage hear in Scotland has been very basic, 'Politics Scotland' tonight had Scottish Labour MPs queing up calling for Tony Blair to set a date for his departure with the implication that it should be before the Scottish Parliamentary Elections next year.

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This blogg is intended to be the 'political wing' of my original blog.