Scotland - By-election

Grandmabatty

The conservatives, traditionally, don't figure much in central Scotland and what used to be labour heartland. I suspect Reform have targeted disenchanted SNP voters mainly

I reckon all voters are so seriously disenchanted with the SNP, they voted "any other party" as a hard kick in the arse to SNP Govt.

If you live in Scotland ,yes vote anything please to get this awful Labour government out !

At the next GE I'll be voting tactically. Anything to get Labour out. I don't like Reform but if it means I vote for them then sobeit.

Gains & losses

Casdon

Grantanow

Labour squeaked home by a narrow margin, I'm not sure wild celebrations are called for. There is much to do.

I don’t think anybody would argue with that Grantanow, I certainly wouldn’t.

The celebration is in the defeat rather than the gain.

Well done Labour!

All the polls and media commentators who had Labour ‘dead and buried’ were wrong🤣

Grantanow

Labour squeaked home by a narrow margin, I'm not sure wild celebrations are called for. There is much to do.

I don’t think anybody would argue with that Grantanow, I certainly wouldn’t.

I think that had this election been three months ago it’s more likely that Reform would have won though. Their reputation is slowly being affected by a range of internal issues and the Trump effect. If they can transform it might be a different story by the next UK wide elections, but there hasn’t been evidence yet that they can.

Labour squeaked home by a narrow margin, I'm not sure wild celebrations are called for. There is much to do.

Yes I know, but it is worrying that people have chosen to vote in any numbers for a racist far right party.

WW11 is being completely forgotten.

Whitewavemark2

But looking at the numbers, Reform didn’t do that badly 😡

Reform didn’t do badly, but they didn’t do as well as the poll predictions indicated either. Labour were third in the poll predictions, and were 2% down on their general election vote share. What matters at the end of it all is who wins a seat, so actually it is an unexpectedly good result for Labour.

I am dismayed that Reform got enough votes to come third as the Sarwar advert was a disgraceful display of an outright distortion of the truth. I don't understand why anyone would vote for this even as a protest against existing parties. What am I missing?

But looking at the numbers, Reform didn’t do that badly 😡

Thanks - my knowledge of Scottish politics (to my shame) is very limited.

The conservatives, traditionally, don't figure much in central Scotland and what used to be labour heartland. I suspect Reform have targeted disenchanted SNP voters mainly

Is Reform picking up disenchanted Tory votes I wonder, or a mixture of SNP and Tory?

Quite interesting to see the words "very respectable" used to describe anything to do with Reform!

No problem Grandmabatty
44.2% turnout which is reported as "reasonably high" for a Scottish by-election (though l think it's diabolical) voting age is 16+

My apologies, I had read only four were standing. My fault!

Reform were 3rd out of 10, l haven't listed all the other candidates

Grandmabatty

The General Election showed a move away from SNP, so this wasn't a surprise. I'm glad as we need a creditable opposition to SNP who have made some poor decisions lately. I don't consider Reform's third out of four 'respectable'.

Call it what you want but Reform are up with the two main contenders, Swinney is rightly scared of them, I suspect the Sarwar "advert" contributed to Zia Yusuf resigning the day of the by-election.
Labour 8559 votes
SNP 7957 votes
Reform 7088 votes
Conservatives 1621 votes
Green 695
Lib Dem 533

The General Election showed a move away from SNP, so this wasn't a surprise. I'm glad as we need a creditable opposition to SNP who have made some poor decisions lately. I don't consider Reform's third out of four 'respectable'.

And well done Labour for winning against the pollsters’ predictions and the media pumping up the odds of a Reform win.

Well done Scotland for putting Reform third.

Quite a turn up for the books!