Talk:2012 Scottish local elections

Date of next council elections

I have changed the date of the next election back to 2017. The date of the next Holyrood election has been changed from 2015 to 2016 by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 to avoid a clash with the 2015 UK General Election. As all major parties are agreed council elections should remain decoupled from Holyrood elections following the Gould Report this means 2017 is the likely date for council elections and indeed the Scottish Government specify 2017 as the date of the next Scottish council elections in the September 2010 report "Administration of Future Elections in Scotland: A consultation exercise to examine the recommendations of the Gould Report to improve administration of future elections in Scotland" http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/09/02171513/2

The 2017 date is also set out in both the Scottish Local Government elections bill: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3_Bills/Scottish%20Local%20Government%20(Elections)%20Bill/b21s3-introd-en.pdf and the review of local government wards by the LGBC Scotland http://www.lgbc-scotland.gov.uk/reviews/ Andrewdpcotton (talk) 12:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

INFO

"The result was both Scottish National Party and Scottish Labour done considerably well as reported by the media. The SNP secured the most councillors and gained outright majorities in Dundee and Angus. Labour gained overall control of Renfrewshire Council, where SNP local government minister Derek Mackay used to be leader, as well as West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire councils. Labour was also facing a strong SNP challenge in Glasgow but managed to secure an overall majority. The Scottish Conservatives lost 16 seats and held 115. The Scottish Liberal Democrats were completely wiped out in Stirling and Clackmannanshire and lost 80 seats."

Could this be adapted or changed slightly, any suggestions?

Seat Change & Net Gain/Loss wrong information

In the article the number of seats gained in this election from the last election in 2007 are incorrect.

These are the correct results:

Party	2007 No of Councillors/Seats	2012 No of Councillors/Seats	Difference
SNP	363	424	61
Labour	348	394	46
Conservative	143	115	28
Liberal Democrats	166	71	95
Scottish Greens	8	14	6

I attempted to edit the article but it was changed back. The 'Seat change' in the top right, as well as the 'Results' table needs to be changed.

there does seem to be a discrepancy between whether the net gain should show the change from immediately before the current election or the change from the results of the last election. im finding different media resources reporting it both ways, is there a precedent or guideline that should be followed? http://news.stv.tv/politics/98124-future-of-scotlands-councils-taking-shape-as-election-count-underway/ stv for example are quoting the number above rather than whats in the article - Polstar — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polstar (talk • contribs) 23:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm really not sure. I always just assumed that the results of an election would always be compared to the results of the previous election. Considering the 2007 result is mentioned for other things in the article, to me it would make the most sense. Scotty0709 (talk) 00:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

It's absolutely standard to compare results of a "general" election to the last time the same seats were contested in the same way. It may be debatable whether seats that changed hands at intervening by-elections should be treated in this way, but in practice they usually are, because by-elections frequently throw up anomalous results and the seat in question then reverts to type at the next GE. The BBC have been remarkably dishonest in my opinion, in comparing this week's results not to the 2007 results, but to the anomalous position on 2nd May 2012. This means that seats won by Labour in 2007, where the sitting councillor resigned the Labour whip late in the term in response to being de-selected as a candidate for 2012, which were then held by the new Labour candidate, have been counted as Labour gains! (I suspect, though I don't know, that a seat where a councillor elected on a Labour ticket defected to the SNP, and was then held by the new Labour candidate, was counted as a Labour gain from SNP.)

The true current figures have been reported by STV. http://news.stv.tv/politics/98124-future-of-scotlands-councils-taking-shape-as-election-count-underway/ (ETA: Sorry, there is even a typo in that, 48 for 46.) I don't believe there is any precedent at all for results being treated in the way the BBC have treated the Scottish council results. I think they have even treated the ENGLISH results in the normal way. The correct figures for overall seats gained are +61 for the SNP and +46 for Labour. Both parties benefited from the meltdown in the LibDem vote, but the SNP to a larger extent than Labour. (I believe it is likely that the SNP tally will increase to 62 next week, as there is a delayed poll in Dunoon due to the death of a candidate.) Morag Kerr (talk) 13:10, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused. How can there be an increase of 113 SNP, Labour and Green councillors combined. But somehow the Lib Dems and Conservatives, Independents and Solidarity lose 145 combined? How does this work? A decrease on one side equals a relative increase on the other side, surely?--Arossmorrison (talk) 15:28, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that "-22" figure given under "other" is wrong. Other sites have independent candidates posting an overall gain. I don't have the definite results to fix it though, as we know the BBC figures are wrong. It could be another mistake caused by the BBC's barmy calculations - if a number of the Labour councillors who resigned were counted as "independent" losses. Somebody needs to get the right figures and fix it. Morag Kerr (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2012 (UTC)~

I'm assuming that the final total given by the BBC is correct i.e. SNP - 424, LAB - 394, CON - 115, LD - 71, GREEN - 14, SSP - 1, IND - 201.

If that's the case, then in comparison to the 2007 election result: SNP +61 (from 363), LAB +46 (from 348), CON -28 (from 143), LD -95 (from 166), Green +6 (from 8), SSP +0 (Remained at 1), LIB - 1 (From 1), SOL -1 (From 1), IND + 9 (from 192) That now works (a few seats still have to be decided in Dunoon, however).

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Not 100% sure on the results for "Independent" and "Other" on the results table (Results for the main parties are accurate). But in total in Scotland there are 1,223 councilors, somewhere 3 seats haven't been included. Scotty0709 (talk) 19:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Who ever edited the results back get a calculator out and add up all the councillors, you'll find that they don't add up to 1,233. 77.97.24.146 (talk) 00:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Remember there is also one more seat overall for 2012 compared to 2007 as there is an extra councillor in Bathgate this year.Andrewdpcotton (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

This is weird the BBC, STV and SNP's own analysis all add up to a different number of councillors... As far as I can tell everyone is right with the main parties but not with the smaller ones/independents 77.97.24.146 (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Somebody has been making a right pigs ear of this

The convention is to list coalition partners from largest to smallest, not in some random order at the editor's whim. A "competence challenged" editor (probably one of the numerous nuisance ip's) has been listing coalition partners in a seemingly random way, not even alphabetically or in any other discernable logical fashion. Stop it. It is going to take us a while to manually check for more as yet undiscovered cock-ups. --Mais oui! (talk) 06:29, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Change, not swing

The fourth column of the results table shows the change in vote share, not the swing. 82.18.249.187 (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

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