Prediction - North East

The North East. Part of me thinks we should have built the parliament there. Seats changing hands constantly, hot topics springing up constantly, more free parking spaces available in Edinburgh. All good.

The best thing about the North East is that Labour only have 2 FPTP seats up there giving everyone else a fighting chance of making a fist of giving them a run for their money in the overall scheme of things.

Well, by my reckoning, that number drops to 1. Here are my thoughts on what's going down up there come May 3rd....


Aberdeen Central - Lewis MacDonald of Labour is the current holder of this seat and I've been told by people who have worked with him that he is a bit ropey to say the least. My problem is he seems like such a nice guy, based only on his photos mind you, so I'm sure he gets a few votes on that basis alone. The challenge by Karen Shirron is expected to be strong.

This is the SNP's 8th target seat but I fear the fact that Lewis is a deputy minister might just help him out here.

The SNP candidate Karen Shirron will either finish 1st or 2nd so no tactical voting is required.


Aberdeen North - Despite being a target seat for Labour, this is expected to be a safe hold for SNP unless a particularly strong Labour candidate is rolled out.

No tactical voting is required, get the SNP vote out and Brian Adam shall walk it.


Aberdeen South - Safe hold for Nicol Stephen. He has an 8,000 majority and the rest of the votes are pretty much split 3 ways.

No tactical voting required. Bit of a lost cause basically.


Angus - Safe hold for SNP's Andrew Welsh

No tactical voting required


Banff and Buchan - Alex Salmond's old stomping ground. Safe hold for Stewart Stevenson. I'm very glad there wasn't an internal tussle for who was going to stand here. Well, glad there wasn't a public one anyway!

No tactical voting required


Dundee East - Labour's top target seat. The tension must be so tight here you wouldn't be able to fit a credit card in between.... Actually, I won't finish that sentence.

Iain Luke is the Labour candidate. Shona Robison is the SNP candidate and current MSP for the area. My prediction states that Shona will expand her slim majority, based solely on the SNP jump in the polls but with such a precarious lead (0.34% in 2003) you never know what could happen.

SNP to win, no tactical voting required. Get the vote out!


Dundee West - This is the opposite of Dundee East. Labour hold with a slim majority.

However, unlike Dundee East, I predict that this seat will easily change hands to SNP candidate Joe Fitzpatrick. It sounds like Joe is a pretty decent, stand-up guy and the Labour candidate Jill Shimmi is flapping around in a way that only some Labour candidates know how...


I found this quote (at alba.org.uk) very interesting for example -

'Few Telegraph readers will have been surprised to find Councillors McPherson and Mackie rushing to the defence of Jill Shimi's petulant attack on Joe FitzPatrick. They are, after all, the leaders of the Lib Dem and Tory minority groups on Dundee City Council and keep Jill Shimi in her post as Leader of the Administration. Both these groups have been well rewarded for their deference to the Labour Party with convenerships and special responsibility allowances worth tens of thousands of pounds each year. Councillor Shimi may be facing an electoral disaster of her own making but at least she can take comfort in the fact she is getting value for money from her political stooges.'
Kenneth Guild in the Evening Telegraph, 3rd October 2006.



No tactical voting required. Vote Joe.



Gordon - I will weep hot tears if Alex doesn't win this constituency. And, not being funny or anything, but it's hardly a foregone conclusion that he will win it. The SNP finished 3rd here in 2003 and have a 15% swing to make up.

However, Alex Samond is a bigger heavyweight than Dr Alasdair Allan who stood here in 2003 (I predict Alasdair will win the Western Isles seat this year anyway). Labour do not have a strong enough base to cause significant mischief by voting for the Lib Dem MSP Nora Radcliffe either.

Speaking of Nora - this was rather interesting: http://fibdems.blogspot.com/2007/02/unknown-in-her-own-kingdom-nora-who.html


SNP to win big in Gordon, and Alex to give a tub-thumping speech afterwards which is hopefully not too smarmy. (*Mental note to have a special bag of popcorn ready for that moment*)


West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine - Mike Rumbles of Lib Dem to win by an absolute country mile.

No tactical voting required. With these results, I make it Labour get only 2 regional MSPs which is a poor haul given they only had one FPTP so unsettling the results (a Tory win here for example) could change the 2 to a 3.



So, 6 seats for the SNP in the North East by my reckoning, a fine result. Not quite enough regional votes to get a 7th person in but they aren't too far away.

Regional result is...

Labour to get 2 seats (Richard Baker and Marlyn Glen) with 21% of the vote.

Conservatives to get 3 seats (Alex Johnstone, Nanette Milne and David Davidson) with 17% of the vote.

Lib Dems Alison McInnes to win a seat with the Libs getting 19.5% of the vote.

Green party's Shiona Baird to win a seat with 6.4% of the vote.




Note that even with 33% of the regional vote, the SNP aren't that close to getting a regional MSP, they would need to go to round 10 of voting to see a winner so that's a lot of votes that could be put to the Greens or the Lib Dems or the Tories to try to reduce the Labour regional count. It makes little difference who it is given to as once the counting gets down to round 7 of the regional vote, the numbers are so close it is difficult to judge who you should vote for. I make it Labour get candidates early however, at rounds 2 and 4 with the Labour party getting another candidate if the rounds stretched to 8. So these "extra" votes for the Greens etc would be more likely to prevent a 3rd rather than a 3rd candidate. Makes for an overall score of SNP 6 - Labour 3 though which isn't too bad. (Apologies to any Liverpool fans reading this and wanted to consign that 6-3 scoreline against Arsenal to oblivion)