Denseman on the Rattis

A few months ago, I gave some general advice on who to vote for in the General Election:

1. If the LibDems have any chance of winning in your constituency, vote for them.
2. If not, vote SNP/PC if they have a chance.
3. If it’s down to Labour or the Conservatives, evaluate the local candidates and make your own choice.

It’s now time to have a closer look at the constituency I live in: East Renfrewshire.

Based on the last Westminster election in 2005, it would be easy to conclude that it’s a two-horse race between Labour and the Tories (Labour 43.9%, Cons 29.9%, Liberal Democrat 18.3%, SNP 6.8%).

It’s possible, though, that the SNP’s share of the vote was depressed by fielding a candidate called Osama less than four years after 9/11.

Also, the situation is more complex if one looks at the other elections that have taken place in the meantime.

Let’s start with the local elections in 2007 (1st graph on this page), which were conducted using STV (FPTP had been used in previous local elections).

The two largest parties were the Conservatives and Labour, with the SNP in third place. This is interesting, because it was a huge gain for the SNP: In 2003, the seat distribution (under FPTP) was Lab 8, Cons 7, LD 3, SNP 0.

At the same time, there were elections for the Scottish Parliament. These were conducted using the AMS system, which is basically FPTP with top-up seats.

The FPTP component was a two-horse race between Labour (35.8%) and the Conservatives (33.6%), with the SNP getting 18.9% and the LibDems only 8.5%.

However, the top-up votes probably showed more clearly people’s actual preferences, and this is shown in the second graph. Labour and the Tories were still the two largest parties, but the SNP were very close, and the LibDems did very poorly.

Similar patterns were seen at the European Elections in 2009, only this time the SNP actually overtook Labour (as seen in the third graph).

I would therefore conclude that East Renfrewshire is practically a three-horse race at the moment, with the Tories as the favourites to beat Labour, but where the SNP also have a fair chance of winning.

The LibDems, on the other hand, do not have a realistic chance of success in this seat.

Following my general advice, I must therefore recommend voting SNP in East Renfrewshire.

This recommendation is strengthened by examining the candidates:

• Jim Murphy is well-known as the current Secretary of State for Scotland, who seems to think it’s his job to quarrel with Alex Salmond rather than working with him to get the best possible deal for Scotland. He seems unlikely to stand up to Gordon Brown and help recreate an electable Labour party.
• The Tory candidate, Richard Cook, is commercial manager for Biffa Waste Services, and in his election leaflets he doesn’t provide a single positive reason to vote for him, only reasons not to vote for Jim Murphy. Also, he’s been a parliamentary candidate several times before, and he’s always been the loser.
• Gordon MacDonald, the LibDem candidate, holds important posts in CARE (the Christian charity) and Care not Killing (an anti-euthanasia group), which seems a bit lopsided (although on the positive side he as a PhD in the Political Economy of Defence Procurement).
• The SNP’s Gordon Archer is managing director for Carbon Accountable (a company advising on how to combat climate change) and has in the past worked as senior advisor and spokesperson for John Swinney, so he should be strong on both environmental and general politics.