By Jonathan Isaby
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Following the very sad death of Labour MP David Cairns last month, a by-election is pending in the West of Scotland constituency of Inverclyde.
Sky News were reporting last night that the writ for the by-election will be moved this afternoon for a contest on June 30th.
I am reliably informed that the Conservative candidate is poised to be David Wilson (pictured), who contested the seat at last year's general election. A retired businessman, he is a member of Inverclyde Council and active in a variety of organisations in the local community.
He will be formally adopted as candidate at a meeting tomorrow.
The result at the general election was:
- Labour - 20,933 (56.0%)
- SNP - 6,577 (17.5%)
- Lib Dem - 5,007 (13.3%)
- Conservative - 4,502 (12.0%)
- UKIP - 433 (1.2%)
It is clearly one of Labour's safest seats and on paper would require a swing of more than 19% to the SNP for the Nationalists to take the seat. At last month's Scottish Parliament election, the nearest equivalent seat, Greenock and Inverclyde, was held by Labour with a majority of 511 over the SNP.
