Monday, June 08, 2009

Euro-election results

Euro election results now all in - full details for the UK can be found here and Scottish result here.

No doubt that it is a disappointing set of results for Labour - particularly down in Wales :-(

In Scotland, despite the overall popular vote being won by the SNP (and credit to them for that victory) the number of MEPs for Scotland (basically) stays the same SNP-2; Lab-2; Tory-1; Lib-Dem-1. Tories have lost 1 compared to 2004, but that's really just down to the overall reduction for Scotland from 7 to 6 MEPs.

Here in Edinburgh, the SNP also did reasonably well and won the overall popular vote ... the city-wide breakdown can be found here. Before they get too carried away by their Edinburgh result though, it is worth pointing out that in 1999 the SNP got 22.2% of the popular vote, as compared to 21.4% last night. 10-years of devolution, and 2-years of being in power in Edinburgh, and their vote-percentage in the Capital has dropped.

And it is disappointing to see Edinburgh Labour lose out to the Tories who took second-place city-wide ... but the Lib-Dems who were telling anyone who would listen last night that Labour were 5th in the city must be feeling a little foolish this morning?

And - what about those 1,724 votes that went to the 'very recently' formed Socialist Labour Party who were just above Labour on the ballot paper...

c'est la vie :-(

Anyhow, personally delighted to see David Martin and Catherine Stihler returned to the European Parliament: they're both excellent MEPs.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Andy,

A fair summary, as usual, but the Tories' loss of a seat isn't just down to the reduction in seats. If there had still been 7 MEPs, the SNP would have won 3, at the Tories' expense. So isn't it a real loss for the Tories and a notional loss for the SNP?

Andrew said...

Anonymous

You're quite right - I've checked the Scotland-wide results sheet and the 7th seat would indeed have gone to the SNP (not by a huge amount though).

I stand corrected :-(

Andrew

Anonymous said...

It was the socialist labour party on the ballot above labour not the SSP.

They have been around for some time.

The 1999 figure would have included Musselburgh so not strictly comparable.

Andrew said...

Anonymous

Thanks - my typo: I'll change the post just now.

Andrew

P.S. No Nats in Musselburgh?? ;-)