Your new councillor
Good news for me and for the SNP both locally and nationally
Before I start this post I see that I’ve gained 50% more subscribers since being elected so welcome to you all.
A good result
You've probably heard by now but the SNP had an excellent result across the Highlands in Thursday's local council election with 22 of our 23 candidates being elected and this pattern was repeated across Scotland.
In Nairn & Cawdor I got the most first preference votes with 1401, beating Laurie Fraser with 1215. After the single transferable vote mathematics did its work your other two new councillors are Michael Green who was elected at stage 5 and Barbara Babs Jarvie who was elected at stage 8 so we now have one SNP, two independent, and one Tory councillor.
Congratulations to my fellow councillors who got elected and commiserations to the others who didn’t, especially those who really put the effort in with canvassing, leafleting, and lamp posters for whom it must be particularly frustrating.
If you did vote for me then thank you and also a big thank you if you put my poster up. As we leafleted our way around the ward we kept coming across them in house windows which was very heartening. I'd also like to thank everyone who turned out to leaflet for me, many times in some cases, and my campaign team for their help, advice, and support.
Who’s going to run Highland Council?
As a result of this election the make up of Highland Council is now:
SNP – 22
Independent – 21
LibDem - 15
Tories - 10
Labour - 2
Green – 4
… so the various groups are now negotiating with each other trying to find a viable alliance to run the council.
I should stress that this is normal in Scottish politics. Before the last election no council in Scotland had a majority for one party (the three island councils sort of did as they all had a majority of independents). This has now changed slightly in that West Dunbartonshire now has a Labour majority and Dundee has an SNP majority but they are outliers and that still leaves 27 of the 32 Scottish councils where no group or party has a majority.
What have I been doing?
Unsurprisingly I’ve got little to report at the moment as I’ve not yet even signed my Declaration of Acceptance of Office which I have to do on Monday at Highland Council’s HQ in Glenurquhart Road in Inverness. That’s just one of many things I’ll be doing over my first two induction days this week. And then there’s another five induction days to go after that spread across the month as there’s a lot to get up to speed with before my first council meeting on Thursday, 26th May. I’ve also already got other meetings lined up in my diary with various groups around Nairnshire.
I can also illustrate how busy this role looks like being by mentioning who contacted me asking for my support even before I was elected. I was contacted by sixteen different national campaigning organisations by email, direct message and letter, and multiple times in some cases (Cycling UK I’m looking at you: five times? Really?!). In addition several local organisations contacted me looking for support and that’s continuing now I’m elected.
But this is all part of being a councillor and I was aware that this was what I was letting myself in for so I can’t complain.
Anyway thanks again if you did vote for me and I will post here again when I have more news for you.