Talk:1995 City of Dundee Council election

Change figure
I am not sure that change figures here are 1) fair 2) meaningful. The change seems to be calculated against the 1992 City of Dundee District Council election. However Dundee District Council (which had 44 wards) included 4 wards that were transferred out of Dundee to Angus or Perth and Kinross and so did not vote for the new council (covering the area around Invergowrie and the Carse of Gowrie,two words cobvering Monifieth and its surrounds, and the area to the north of the city). All 4 wards were one by the Conservatives in 1992 so of the 8 Conservative "losses" 4 can immediately be discounted and a large chunk of the decline Conservative vote share can be explained. Removing these four wards would have left 40 wards in Dundee District, but the number of councillors was reduced to 36, causing boundary revisions and leading to some wards disappearing. For instance Clepington Ward, which had been Conservative since its creation in 1974 was effectively split between the Labour-held Fairmuir and Maryfield Wards. Likewise Conservative Craigiebarns merged with SNP held Craigiebank. At the time it was unclear what the results would have been in 1992 on the new boundaries, but it is unlikely the Conservatives would have held 8 seats. There is also the additional complication that in between these election there had been the 1994 Tayside Regional Council election which partially used the new boundaries (in so far as the wards were based on pairing of wards which would be used in 1995). The Conservatives did substantially worse in this contest than they had done in 1992. With the region being abolished, the 1995 elections saw both ex-regional councillors and district councillors standing for election, sometimes against each other. For example Conservative District Councillor Jack Barnett fought Labour Regional Councillor Merv Rolfe. Thus I think using 1992 as a comparison does not work. Dunarc (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2020 (UTC) amended by Dunarc (talk) 19:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)