Glenrothes by-election, 2008
Encyclopedia
The 2008 Glenrothes by-election was a by-election
held in Scotland
on 6 November 2008 to elect a new Member of Parliament
(MP) for the House of Commons constituency of Glenrothes
in Fife
, Scotland
.
The seat fell vacant when the previous MP, John MacDougall
(Labour
), died of pleural mesothelioma on 13 August 2008, aged 60. Pleural Mesothelioma is a rare form of lung cancer caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos
.
The by-election was won by Lindsay Roy
of the Labour Party.
, since 2001, when he succeeded Henry McLeish
. Willie Hamilton
had previously represented the area, which has elected Labour MPs since Hamilton won West Fife from the Communist Party of Great Britain
in 1950.
The poll followed a run of poor by-election results for the Labour Party, which included a loss to the Scottish National Party
(SNP) in Glasgow East
, formerly the party's twenty-fifth safest seat in Britain. Glenrothes has a considerably smaller Labour majority than Glasgow East had.
According to the Financial Times
, Labour privately admitted that they expected to lose Glenrothes to the SNP. The Guardian
described the constituency's main town, Glenrothes
, as a "core area" for the SNP. The SNP were in second place in the seat in the 2005 General Election
and won the nearest equivalent seat in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election
.
The SNP also ran Fife
Council, which covers the constituency, in coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats
. The Scottish Liberal Democrats won the last by-election to be held in Fife
from Labour on a swing of 16%.
Had the writ been moved immediately the by-election could have been held as early as mid-September, although this coincided with the Trades Union Congress
annual conference and the following weeks were filled with various party conferences. A Labour loss during this period could have provided a particular boost for their opponents, or for dissident elements within the party. The SNP may have favoured a quick by-election, noting that Labour called the Glasgow East by-election rapidly, when commentators believed it was to Labour's advantage.
selected Maurice Golden while the Liberal Democrats chose Harry Wills. The Scottish Socialist Party
stood Morag Balfour, their national co-chair, who lived in Glenrothes and had been a candidate in the constituency before. Solidarity stood Louise McLeary, a community activist who lived in the part of Kirkcaldy
which lies inside the constituency. The UKIP candidate was Dr. Kris Seunarine a specialist in the science of biophotonics at Dundee university, and chairman of the Fife branch of UKIP.
Two of the minor party candidates had disabilities: Balfour was a wheelchair
user and McLeary was visually impaired
.
for Central Fife, Tricia Marwick, had asked for a copy of the marked register on 19 November 2008; after ten weeks, the Scottish Court Service
admitted the marked register was lost. An inquiry by the Scottish Court Service identified significant failings in its handling of election documents, which had been placed in a room at the court office in Kirkcaldy
to which outside contractors had access.
In October 2009, the Scotland Office agreed a protocol to create a substitute marked register for the election.
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
held in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
on 6 November 2008 to elect a new Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for the House of Commons constituency of Glenrothes
Glenrothes (UK Parliament constituency)
Glenrothes is a British Parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons. It was created for the 2005 general election.The seat is currently held by Lindsay Roy, of the Scottish Labour party...
in Fife
Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
The seat fell vacant when the previous MP, John MacDougall
John MacDougall (Scottish politician)
John William MacDougall was a Scottish Labour politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Glenrothes from the 2005 general election until his death; he was first elected to the House of Commons for Central Fife in the 2001 general election.He was a low-profile MP who was loyal to the Labour...
(Labour
Scottish Labour Party
The Scottish Labour Party is the section of the British Labour Party which operates in Scotland....
), died of pleural mesothelioma on 13 August 2008, aged 60. Pleural Mesothelioma is a rare form of lung cancer caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
.
The by-election was won by Lindsay Roy
Lindsay Roy
Lindsay Allan Roy, CBE, FRSA is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Glenrothes since 2008, and is the former Rector of Inverkeithing High School and Kirkcaldy High School.-Teaching career:...
of the Labour Party.
Result
Background
Fife is traditionally a stronghold for the Labour Party. McDougall had held Glenrothes and its forerunner, Central FifeCentral Fife (UK Parliament constituency)
Central Fife was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from February 1974 until 2005, when it was largely replaced by the new Glenrothes constituency, with a small portion joining the expanded North East Fife.It elected one Member...
, since 2001, when he succeeded Henry McLeish
Henry McLeish
Henry Baird McLeish is a Scottish Labour Party politician, author and academic. Formerly a professional association football player, McLeish was the Member of Parliament for Central Fife from 1987 to 2001 and the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Central Fife from 1999 to 2003, during which...
. Willie Hamilton
Willie Hamilton
William Winter "Willie" Hamilton was a British politician who served as a Labour Member of Parliament for constituencies in Fife, Scotland between 1950 and 1987...
had previously represented the area, which has elected Labour MPs since Hamilton won West Fife from the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
in 1950.
The poll followed a run of poor by-election results for the Labour Party, which included a loss to the Scottish National Party
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
(SNP) in Glasgow East
Glasgow East by-election, 2008
The 2008 Glasgow East by-election was a by-election for the UK Parliamentary constituency of Glasgow East which was held on 24 July 2008. The election was triggered when, on 30 June 2008, the sitting MP David Marshall stood down due to ill health....
, formerly the party's twenty-fifth safest seat in Britain. Glenrothes has a considerably smaller Labour majority than Glasgow East had.
According to the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, Labour privately admitted that they expected to lose Glenrothes to the SNP. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
described the constituency's main town, Glenrothes
Glenrothes
Glenrothes is a large town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is located approximately from both Edinburgh, which lies to the south and Dundee to the north. The town had an estimated population of 38,750 in 2008, making Glenrothes the third largest settlement in Fife...
, as a "core area" for the SNP. The SNP were in second place in the seat in the 2005 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
and won the nearest equivalent seat in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election
Scottish Parliament election, 2007
The 2007 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the third general election to the devolved Scottish Parliament since it was created in 1999...
.
The SNP also ran Fife
Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
Council, which covers the constituency, in coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats
Scottish Liberal Democrats
The Scottish Liberal Democrats are one of the three state parties within the federal Liberal Democrats; the others being the Welsh Liberal Democrats and the Liberal Democrats in England...
. The Scottish Liberal Democrats won the last by-election to be held in Fife
Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, 2006
The Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, in Dunfermline and West Fife, Scotland, was held on 9 February 2006 following the death of sitting Labour MP Rachel Squire on 6 January. The by-election was the first seat to change hands in the 2005 Parliament when Willie Rennie won the seat for the...
from Labour on a swing of 16%.
Polling date
By tradition, the polling date was decided by Labour, as MacDougall's party, and set for Thursday, 6 November 2008..Had the writ been moved immediately the by-election could have been held as early as mid-September, although this coincided with the Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
annual conference and the following weeks were filled with various party conferences. A Labour loss during this period could have provided a particular boost for their opponents, or for dissident elements within the party. The SNP may have favoured a quick by-election, noting that Labour called the Glasgow East by-election rapidly, when commentators believed it was to Labour's advantage.
Candidates
The Labour party candidate was Kirkcaldy High School rector Lindsay Roy. The SNP selected the leader of Fife Council, Peter Grant. The Conservative PartyConservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
selected Maurice Golden while the Liberal Democrats chose Harry Wills. The Scottish Socialist Party
Scottish Socialist Party
The Scottish Socialist Party is a left-wing Scottish political party. Positioning itself significantly to the left of Scotland's centre-left parties, the SSP campaigns on a socialist economic platform and for Scottish independence....
stood Morag Balfour, their national co-chair, who lived in Glenrothes and had been a candidate in the constituency before. Solidarity stood Louise McLeary, a community activist who lived in the part of Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...
which lies inside the constituency. The UKIP candidate was Dr. Kris Seunarine a specialist in the science of biophotonics at Dundee university, and chairman of the Fife branch of UKIP.
Two of the minor party candidates had disabilities: Balfour was a wheelchair
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...
user and McLeary was visually impaired
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
.
2005 Election Result
Marked register
Some months after the election, the marked register (on which the electors who had cast their vote were marked) was discovered to be missing. In law the register ought to have been preserved for a year and a day; the Returning Officer from Fife Council had transmitted the marked register to the Sheriff Court as required by law and obtained a receipt. The Member of the Scottish ParliamentMember of the Scottish Parliament
Member of the Scottish Parliament is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament.-Methods of Election:MSPs are elected in one of two ways:...
for Central Fife, Tricia Marwick, had asked for a copy of the marked register on 19 November 2008; after ten weeks, the Scottish Court Service
Scottish Court Service
The Scottish Court Service is the body which is responsible for the administration of the Court system in Scotland. The Service employs over 1000 staff members in Scotland's 49 Sheriff Courts, the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary, Justice of the Peace Courts and at the Service's HQ...
admitted the marked register was lost. An inquiry by the Scottish Court Service identified significant failings in its handling of election documents, which had been placed in a room at the court office in Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...
to which outside contractors had access.
In October 2009, the Scotland Office agreed a protocol to create a substitute marked register for the election.