Image by Kake Pugh, By-NC-SASadly it was legendary for all the wrong reasons, for observers and psephologists the most interesting thing was that it had a 13% turnout. The campaign itself all rather failed to set the heather alight, even before weather that would have done for a reasonable lump of thermite. For the electorate (and certainly for the activists) the most remarkable thing was probably the rain that never ended.

This had once, in the dim and distant pre-STV days, been a Tory ward and with the inclusion of places such as Dowanhill in the enlarged ward and the on-going Lib Dem Apocalypse they were likely to benefit, particularly given the rather unconservative candidate they ran in the pro-drug-reform Ewan “Cavonia” Hoyle – a perfectly sensible policy but perhaps a rather brave decision here, minister. The Greens did well, as you’d expect in their strongest ward in the city, Stewart Leckie comfortably consolidating the 2nd that the well respected Martha Wardrop achieved in 2007. The SNP had an effective ground campaign and a solid candidate in Ken Andrew, Labour ran them close with the redoubtable Martin McElroy but didn’t quite manage to overhaul the 2007 1st the SNP had in a single seat election.

Afterwards, the SNP rather predictably claimed holding onto 1st in a ward they’d won was a sign of Glasgow being “anxious for change” and equally predictably Labour pointed out that a 13% turnout was no basis on which to do much analysis and it was very wet after all. I think it’s fairly safe to assume that, had the votes fallen the other way, similar claims of “stopping the SNP bulldozer” and turnout would still have been made with the roles reversed. All so very yawnsome.

Probably the most interesting things happened in the “other” category – there was a continuity-BNP candidate, Charlie Ballie, running under the Brittanica banner who was frequently out and about around Byres Road with his “security” and Neil Craig running for UKIP, who had previously stood as the Independent “9% grow party” and blogs here.

And so, to the count itself, and more importantly the transfer pattern which is interesting if you’re me and if it’s not I’d probably go find something else to read.

Still here? Then let the psephological minutiae begin!

Round 1: Britannica  got 11 votes,  of which 2 didn’t transfer and of the remaining 9 2 went to the Tories, 3 went to the Lib Dems and the SNP, Greens, UKIP and Labour got 1 each. Which struck me as odd.

The next couple of rounds were predictable,  redistributing the UKIP votes to no-one or the Tories, half the Lib Dems vote went to the Greens or didn’t transfer, most of the Tory vote didn’t transfer what did split SNP/Green/Labour in that order and then we’re down to splitting up the Green vote.

That went more or less evenly 3 ways – 208 didn’t transfer, 212 went to the SNP and 219 went to Labour, which I thought was interesting but not really sure what to draw from it. It’d be interesting (would it, Aidan? Would it really?) to see if the Green votes that didn’t transfer were the Lib Dem / Tory transfers in.