Aberdeen South

[Clark]

Jun 11, 2024 20:33:14 GMT @weld said:

Fuck it. Tory gain (again). The energy issue will put them over the top. I think Bielside, Cults, Milltimber, Peterculter and co will hold their noses and vote blue. 

It certainly could, Weld.

They could've done without the boundary change which brings in an inner city ward where there are few Tory voters but they can still do it.
They will certainly carry that Lower Deeside ward that you mention above (Tories not that strong in Peterculter but the other 3 suburbs, yes)

They will be equally strong in the south west quarter of the city in Mannofield, Seafield, Hazlehead, Queens Cross, Rubislaw and Midstocket
The SNP fight back in the former Labour strongholds of Garthdee, Kincorth and Torry (maybe less so Cove)  The Ferryhill / Holburn area is marginal between all parties.

[Deleted]

If I was a Tory strategist in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, I'd ask the bosses of the big oil companies to write a letter disavowing Labour and SNP energy policies. Scotland may be the difference between the Tories being the official opposition in Westminster as opposed to the Lib Dems. It helped Theresa no end. 

[matureleft]

Jun 12, 2024 6:40:57 GMT @weld said:

If I was a Tory strategist in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, I'd ask the bosses of the big oil companies to write a letter disavowing Labour and SNP energy policies. 

Good luck. It’s a rare large public company that intervenes directly in a UK election, particularly to back what seems a losing cause. They’re almost certainly instead lobbying Labour on aspects of their policy. 

Private companies behave a differently but scale matters. The big ones tend to be pretty careful even when the political sympathies of their owners are well-known. JCB are a qualified exception. 

[Deleted]

Jun 12, 2024 6:52:19 GMT matureleft said:

Jun 12, 2024 6:40:57 GMT @weld said:

If I was a Tory strategist in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, I'd ask the bosses of the big oil companies to write a letter disavowing Labour and SNP energy policies. 

Good luck. It’s a rare large public company that intervenes directly in a UK election, particularly to back what seems a losing cause. They’re almost certainly instead lobbying Labour on aspects of their policy. 

Private companies behave a differently but scale matters. The big ones tend to be pretty careful even when the political sympathies of their owners are well-known. JCB are a qualified exception. 

We just need Wood group, BP, SSE, Shell etc to endorse the Conservatives in North East Scotland . Wood will probably be private by the end of the year. 

[carlton43]

Jun 12, 2024 6:40:57 GMT @weld said:

If I was a Tory strategist in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, I'd ask the bosses of the big oil companies to write a letter disavowing Labour and SNP energy policies. Scotland may be the difference between the Tories being the official opposition in Westminster as opposed to the Lib Dems. It helped Theresa no end. 

The 'big oil companies' are far too savvy to respond to a witless suggestion like that and will hold any party suggesting it with contempt.  They have to work with and under SNP or Labour in Scotland and must be on good terms even if the smiles are false and the cooperation a sham.

Don't take up strategy or Public Relations as a career option. 

[carlton43]

Jun 12, 2024 6:55:25 GMT @weld said:

Jun 12, 2024 6:52:19 GMT matureleft said:

Good luck. It’s a rare large public company that intervenes directly in a UK election, particularly to back what seems a losing cause. They’re almost certainly instead lobbying Labour on aspects of their policy. 

Private companies behave a differently but scale matters. The big ones tend to be pretty careful even when the political sympathies of their owners are well-known. JCB are a qualified exception. 

We just need Wood group, BP, SSE, Shell etc to endorse the Conservatives in North East Scotland . Wood will probably be private by the end of the year. 

If it follows your advice it may not exist at all.

[Flaneur]

SNP hold.

There will be a Labour surge due to national swing splitting any anti SNP vote, also Flynn has a high profile as leader and is generally well regarded locally.

[graham]

Jun 12, 2024 10:00:22 GMT Flaneur said:

SNP hold.

There will be a Labour surge due to national swing splitting any anti SNP vote, also Flynn has a high profile as leader and is generally well regarded locally.

On the new boundaries Labour would have polled 27% here in 2015. The party  now appears to be 10% higher in Scotland polling so 35% might be possible. Pre-2015 the SNP made little impact here  -polling 12% in 2010 and 10% in 2005. To what extent will voters who switched from Labour to SNP in 2015 now switch back?

[Deleted]

Jun 12, 2024 11:07:53 GMT graham said:

Jun 12, 2024 10:00:22 GMT Flaneur said:

SNP hold.

There will be a Labour surge due to national swing splitting any anti SNP vote, also Flynn has a high profile as leader and is generally well regarded locally.

On the new boundaries Labour would have polled 27% here in 2015. The party  now appears to be 10% higher in Scotland polling so 35% might be possible. Pre-2015 the SNP made little impact here  -polling 12% in 2010 and 10% in 2005. To what extent will voters who switched from Labour to SNP in 2015 now switch back?

Before 2015, this was a Labour - Lib Dem fight, and the latter held the Holyrood seat, IIRC. The areas where the Lib Dems polled best helped deliver Aberdeen South to the Conservatives as part of the Ruth Davidson surge - Milltimber, Bieldside, Cults, Peterculter, Queen's Cross, Hazlehead, Rubislaw - all well-off and anti-independence. I think they will split between the UK-wide big three and the SNP could come through the middle to hold.

Maybe something like SNP 32% LAB 31% CON 27% LD 8% OTH 2% - Flynn's bigger profile because of the debates might save his bacon. Politics aside, Flynn is much more agreeable than the odious Blackford.

[graham]

Jun 12, 2024 11:17:03 GMT @weld said:

Jun 12, 2024 11:07:53 GMT graham said:

On the new boundaries Labour would have polled 27% here in 2015. The party  now appears to be 10% higher in Scotland polling so 35% might be possible. Pre-2015 the SNP made little impact here  -polling 12% in 2010 and 10% in 2005. To what extent will voters who switched from Labour to SNP in 2015 now switch back?

Before 2015, this was a Labour - Lib Dem fight, and the latter held the Holyrood seat, IIRC. The areas where the Lib Dems polled best helped deliver Aberdeen South to the Conservatives as part of the Ruth Davidson surge - Milltimber, Bieldside, Cults, Peterculter, Queen's Cross, Hazlehead, Rubislaw - all well-off and anti-independence. I think they will split between the UK-wide big three and the SNP could come through the middle to hold.

Maybe something like SNP 32% LAB 31% CON 27% LD 8% OTH 2% - Flynn's bigger profile because of the debates might save his bacon.

Until 1997 the seat had been a Tory/Labour marginal. Donald Dewar defeated Lady Tweedsmuir in 1966 but then lost to Ian Sproat in 1970. Sproat held it until replaced by Gerry Malone in 1983 . Frank Doran gained it for Labour in 1987 but lost to Raymond Robertson in 1992 - the only Tory gain from Labour that year compared with 1987. The SNP vote here in the 1980s was pretty derisory - 5% in 1983 rising to less than 7% in 1987. Prima facie it looks far from being natural SNP territory.

[tamar]

Jun 11, 2024 20:31:13 GMT Clark said:

long serving local councilor Willie Young [...] trying to appeal

Good luck with that.

[xenon]

This is a really hard one to predict. I think Flynn will probably hold on, but it's certainly looking like the winner will be elected on a very low share (maybe even sub 30% if the Lib Dems run an effective campaign in their strongholds). I'd be inclined to think Labour will edge Conservatives into third – polling and recent elections show that the Tories will fall the most in "urban affluent" seats such as this one (along with East Ren, Edinburgh SW etc), but the North East oil situation adds another dimension.

[Clark]

Yes, this seat really shouldn't be great for the SNP (as history shows) but they've eaten up the vast majority of the Labour vote in the areas where Labour used to be strongest and will have a not insignificant vote in all other areas. Based on nothing but my intuition, the SNP support in the city seems quite stubborn now and Labour feel miles off the support they used to have across the city. Considering how interesting this seat is you wouldn't know there was an election happening here in a few weeks - not 1 poster or stakeboard to be seen anywhere yet. I'm sure the odd SNP one will inevitably appear soon enough though. The other unknown is how the new black vote will go - we've seen a huge influx from Nigeria in recent years.

[stb12]

Jun 12, 2024 13:59:31 GMT Clark said:

Yes, this seat really shouldn't be great for the SNP (as history shows) but they've eaten up the vast majority of the Labour vote in the areas where Labour used to be strongest and will have a not insignificant vote in all other areas. Based on nothing but my intuition, the SNP support in the city seems quite stubborn now and Labour feel miles off the support they used to have across the city. Considering how interesting this seat is you wouldn't know there was an election happening here in a few weeks - not 1 poster or stakeboard to be seen anywhere yet. I'm sure the odd SNP one will inevitably appear soon enough though. The other unknown is how the new black vote will go - we've seen a huge influx from Nigeria in recent years.

Flynn could of course retain his seat but go back to leading an SNP rump with third party privileges lost etc

[graham]

Jun 12, 2024 13:59:31 GMT Clark said:

Yes, this seat really shouldn't be great for the SNP (as history shows) but they've eaten up the vast majority of the Labour vote in the areas where Labour used to be strongest and will have a not insignificant vote in all other areas. Based on nothing but my intuition, the SNP support in the city seems quite stubborn now and Labour feel miles off the support they used to have across the city. Considering how interesting this seat is you wouldn't know there was an election happening here in a few weeks - not 1 poster or stakeboard to be seen anywhere yet. I'm sure the odd SNP one will inevitably appear soon enough though. The other unknown is how the new black vote will go - we've seen a huge influx from Nigeria in recent years.

But how committed to the SNP are those voters who switched from Labour in 2015 and later? Why would they not revert given the national Labour surge and the difficulties faced by the SNP recently?

[Deleted]

This was one of the few seats where the SNP did better in 2019 than in 2015, so there's a lot votes Labour can claw back from them.

[Clark]

Jun 12, 2024 14:04:10 GMT graham said:

Jun 12, 2024 13:59:31 GMT Clark said:

Yes, this seat really shouldn't be great for the SNP (as history shows) but they've eaten up the vast majority of the Labour vote in the areas where Labour used to be strongest and will have a not insignificant vote in all other areas. Based on nothing but my intuition, the SNP support in the city seems quite stubborn now and Labour feel miles off the support they used to have across the city. Considering how interesting this seat is you wouldn't know there was an election happening here in a few weeks - not 1 poster or stakeboard to be seen anywhere yet. I'm sure the odd SNP one will inevitably appear soon enough though. The other unknown is how the new black vote will go - we've seen a huge influx from Nigeria in recent years.

But how committed to the SNP are those voters who switched from Labour in 2015 and later? Why would they not revert given the national Labour surge and the difficulties faced by the SNP recently?

I'm sure some will revert back but not in the same numbers that they probably will in the central belt which is based on nothing more than my hunch.  I guess we will only known once the declaration is announced.

[stb12]

Jun 12, 2024 14:06:17 GMT @weld said:

This was one of the few seats where the SNP did better in 2019 than in 2015, so there's a lot votes Labour can claw back from them.

Here, East Renfrewshire and Stirling seemed to have a particularly large amount of anti-Brexit tactical voting

[aberdeensouth]

I don’t know what evidence there is to say Flynn is well-regarded locally. Granted, he’s not a bad media performer but he’s just another glaikit SNP careerist. Not a fan at all. I’ll be voting tactically against him.

So I’ll be (begrudgingly) voting Labour here, I think. Best chance of getting Flynn out by the looks of things. Ed Davey and the Lib Dem’s have charmed me I have to say, and I have given them a second thought. At a local level, they’re still popular in the 3 west end wards.

I would agree that this will likely be an SNP hold. The best areas for the Conservatives (west end and Cults etc) is the type of place where this populist, culture war Conservatism will not go down well at all. This isn’t Hartlepool. Or even Banff and Buchan.

Labour I imagine will see a large uptick, Lib Dems a more modest rise.

Conservatives will fall. Although, I think they’ll hold up fairly well. I think the Scottish Conservatives have done a fairly good job over the past decade as carving themselves out as different to the UK party and the West End has to be one of their best areas in Scotland.

I’m sceptical as to how much impact the oil issue will help them - since the downturn 10 years ago I hardly know anyone who works in the industry anymore. ‘Aberdeen - Oil Capital of Europe’ is a phrase long forgotten.

SNP vote will surely fall. 45% in 2019 was a particularly egregious and disappointing result. They were barely getting past 10% until 2015. But I think the other 3 will split allowing them to win on a fairly low vote share. Just like Labour in the 2000s.

[stb12]

Jun 12, 2024 14:16:54 GMT aberdeensouth said:

I don’t know what evidence there is to say Flynn is well-regarded locally. Granted, he’s not a bad media performer but he’s just another glaikit SNP careerist. Not a fan at all. I’ll be voting tactically against him.

So I’ll be (begrudgingly) voting Labour here, I think. Best chance of getting Flynn out by the looks of things. Ed Davey and the Lib Dem’s have charmed me I have to say, and I have given them a second thought. At a local level, they’re still popular in the 3 west end wards.

I would agree that this will likely be an SNP hold. The best areas for the Conservatives (west end and Cults etc) is the type of place where this populist, culture war Conservatism will not go down well at all. This isn’t Hartlepool. Or even Banff and Buchan.

Labour I imagine will see a large uptick, Lib Dems a more modest rise.

Conservatives will fall. Although, I think they’ll hold up fairly well. I think the Scottish Conservatives have done a fairly good job over the past decade as carving themselves out as different to the UK party and the West End has to be one of their best areas in Scotland.

I’m sceptical as to how much impact the oil issue will help them - since the downturn 10 years ago I hardly know anyone who works in the industry anymore. ‘Aberdeen - Oil Capital of Europe’ is a phrase long forgotten.

SNP vote will surely fall. 45% in 2019 was a particularly egregious and disappointing result. They were barely getting past 10% until 2015. But I think the other 3 will split allowing them to win on a fairly low vote share. Just like Labour in the 2000s.

Noticed you liking a few things, good to see you make your first post!