Inverclyde’s importance

On June 30th, 2011, it was announced that Iain McKenzie had been elected as an MP in the Inverclyde by-election. I understand that news about PMQs and the performance of Ed Miliband is more important in the eyes of the media. However, any by-election at this time is a key opportunity to test the success of Miliband and his plans for Labour whilst they are the Opposition. What makes this more interesting is that even though it’s been considered a Labour stronghold, the SNP dominated at the Holyrood elections, so there was always a chance that it could have some form of influence.

So, what caused the by-election? How did McKenzie perform? What happened to the other parties? In the grand scheme of things, is it important?

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Found on Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons (CC Attribution-ShareAlike)

Electoral history

This by-election happened because of the untimely death of David Cairns, the long-standing MP who had been suffering with acute pancreatitis. He was considered popular amongst his colleagues and the majorities he enjoyed over the years show that he was popular in his community too.

The following is his last win – the 2010 General Election:

Cairns got a 38.4% majority and the voter turnout was a healthy 63.4% (notably more than e.g. the trade union ballots that took place recently).

In the 2005 General Election, his vote total and majority were noticeably smaller (18,318 and 50.7% respectively), however, the turnout was also smaller (60.9%) which could explain things. That particular election was also the first for the Inverclyde constituency.

Previously, the area that Inverclyde now covers was split across the constituencies of Greenock & Inverclyde and West Renfrewshire. Unsurprisingly, both of these were both safe Labour seats. In 2001, Cairns successfully defended Greenock and Inverclyde (14,929 votes and 52.5% share), whilst Jim Sheridan won in West Renfrewshire (15720 votes, 46.9% share). Nowadays, Sheridan is the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire.

The winner

Iain McKenzie’s selection was incredibly sensible. He has been a Councillor for the Inverclyde South ward since 2003 and was (up until now) the Leader of the Council, so he has a substantial amount of representative and executive experience, as well as name recognition amongst the electorate. After he was chosen, he said…

“This is an election no-one wanted, because David Cairns was a well-respected MP who served people well.

The next MP has big shoes to fill and I do think we need someone local to do the job.”

In the recent election history for this region, Labour has always won and the only time that the SNP didn’t finish second was in 2001, when Charles Brodie finished second for the Lib Dems in Greenock and Inverclyde (on a side note, this was during a period when the charismatic Alex Salmod was not the leader of the SNP, although it’s debatable what impact that had).

So, it was unsurpring when Labour won again in the by-election. Here are the results:

With a 20.8% majority and several thousand more votes than the second-placed SNP candidate, it’s safe to say that this was another convincing win for Labour.

Overstated importance?

According to this Coffee House blog post, McKenzie thought that this was the start of a “Labour fightback”. I’m not so sure about this.

If Labour HQ felt they had a chance of losing, then they would have made more out of the victory. This indicates that the by-election wasn’t exactly high on their priorities list. Yes, the SNP destroyed Labour in the Holyrood elections, but it’s noticeable that the elections for Westminster MPs are very different. Normally, the SNP only return 5 or 6 members, whereas Labour enjoy a significantly higher figure. The electorate clearly trust the two parties with differents sets of responsibilities

Reductions

Despite the expected success of McKenzie, it wasn’t quite as good as you first think. The majority was far less than anything David Cairns had and the same can be said for the vote total and share. The turnout was also very low. 20.8% is what you expect from union votes. I think there was a slight hint of complacency in the Labour camp. However, it didn’t hurt them in the end. It’s also worth noting that some by-elections have lower turnouts, so it will be interesting to see what happens at the next General Election.

One of the bigger stories is the performance of the Liberal Democrats. Not only did they suffer a substantial reduction in their vote total, but they also lost their deposit for the first time in this region. It’s uncertain whether Sophie Bridger will be a candidate at the next election. She stands a chance because it’s a safe seat, but do the Lib Dems really want someone going for that position who can’t do the basic thing of keeping a deposit?

Summary & Conclusion

I think the importance of this election has been iverstated by some people, but it did deserve more coverage in the media. The Liberal Democrats performace was awful, but that can be attributed to many things. It was unsurprising that Labour won, but the winning margin was slashed dramatically. The replacement for David Cairns was a sensible choice, but it’s clear that Cairns the more popular out of the two.

Finally, I’ll mention a very interesting point that was made about Scottish MPs in Westminster on the Better Nation blog. It makes you wonder whether he will have been busier if he’d stayed as Council leader:

“So it is back to business as usual with this by-election now out of the way but, with the current debate at Westminster being issues that are largely devolved, what Iain Mackenzie MP and his 58 Scottish colleagues will be working on is as clear as the mud on the banks of Inverclyde.”

So, what do you think?