Preview of Jan 2025 double by-election in Edinburgh's Colinton/Fairmilehead ward, where the resignation of SNP councillor Maarco Biagi and newly-elected Lib Dem councillor Louise Spence left two vacancies to be filled.
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00:00People in Collington and Fairmile Head probably don't want to hear this, but they've got another
00:06election coming up very soon, just for them. It's only a couple of months since they went
00:11to the polls the last time, on November the 14th. That was a by-election to choose a new councillor
00:17after Labour's former transport convener Scott Arthur was elected as an MP at the general
00:23election. The Lib Dems won a surprise victory in that by-election and hailed it as a spectacular
00:29result. But a week later, their new councillor Louise Spence resigned. The Lib Dems had made
00:35great play during the campaign of the fact that she lived in the ward, but then it was discovered
00:40she was selling her house and planned to move to Dubai, where her husband had got a job.
00:46In the meantime, the SNP councillor for the ward, Marco Biagi, had also resigned after being
00:51appointed a Scottish Government special advisor. So the new by-election on January 23rd will be
00:58to elect two new councillors. This time, the Lib Dems have chosen Peter Nicholson, now retired
01:05after a career in the law. He's lived in Fairmile Head with his wife for 25 years. He's a former
01:11chair of a local neighbourhood watch and is active in one of the local churches. Tory candidate Neil
01:16Cuthbert is hoping it will be third time lucky for him, having stood here in both the 2022 local
01:23elections and the November by-election. He lives in Fairmile Head and is director of a small PR
01:29agency. Standing for Labour is Conor Savage, who comes from Wales but moved to Edinburgh as a
01:35student and now works in finance. He once stood for Plaid Cymru and was Labour's candidate in
01:41Orkney and Shetland at the general election in July. The SNP candidate is retired Open University
01:48lecturer Marianna Clyde, who stood last time, and the Greens are fielding Daniel Milligan, who also
01:55stood last time. There are a total of 13 candidates. Here's the full list.
02:13The by-election will use the single transferable vote system,
02:17where voters rank the candidates 1, 2, 3 and so on, in order of preference. In November the Lib Dems
02:24won by a comfortable majority. The Tories were second on first preferences, narrowly ahead of
02:30Labour, but there were 12 candidates altogether and once preferences were redistributed, Labour emerged
02:37as the runner-up. The turnout was 37.4%. The by-election is on Thursday the 23rd of January.
02:45Polling stations will be open from 7 until 10 and the votes will be counted the following day.