BREAKING... Drew Hendry has conceded that the Lib Dems will win the seat after the recount, so 72 it is.
One general election result remains to be announced: it's the one from the Scottish Highland constituency of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. A second recount will be held there tomorrow morning.
The delay does not appear to be caused by an exceptionally close result, but we are still having to wait for what sounds as though it will be a 72nd seat for the Liberal Democrats.
The Press & Journal describes what went on at the Highland Football Academy in Dingwall in the small hours of this morning:
Jamie Stone held on to his seat for the Lib Dems around 5am and a result in the neighbouring constituency was expected to follow shortly after.
However, election count officials were seen looking exasperated shaking their head as the delay wore on.
The candidates for the election were also left in the dark, unable to say what exactly was the problem.
Counters were left twiddling their thumbs and to grow increasingly frustrated as speculation about the next step filled the air. ...
At 6.30am a recount was announced.
That was due to take around 90 minutes but shortly before 10am, returning officer Derek Brown announced that another recount was needed.
The reason given was a “discrepancy between the number of verified votes totalled and provisional counted votes”.
A fresh recount will now take place at 10.30am on Saturday.
The Press & Journal says the Lib Dems, whose candidate is Angus MacDonald, are confident of victory - is closest challenger is Drew Hendry from the SNP.
And the Inverness Courier report suggests why:
Count agents have widely credited Liberal Democrat Angus MacDonald with having pulled off a major upset and secured the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire seat ahead of the SNP’s Drew Hendry. ...
The calculus is quite simple as by the end of the night Mr MacDonald had between three and four more boxes than Mr Hendry – in each box there are 500 ballots so the margin of victory was likely between 1500 and 2000 votes.
Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire covers much of the area that was represented by Charles Kennedy. It would be good to reclaim it, just as we took back Paddy Ashdown's Yeovil yesterday.
4 comments:
I understand the SNP candidate is unavailable for Saturday's recount and in his statement says that he has lost and wishes the new MP well.
Thanks, I saw that just after I put this post up.
The report hadn’t appeared on the BBC News or Guardian websites as of 20:25 Friday; they still give the LD seat count as 71.
Not the first time Liberals have been waiting for an Inverness count. The 1952 by-election, held late in December, had a delayed count, and when the result was finally known it got little publicity as it nearly Christmas Eve. Nevertheless, it came to be seen as the moment the Liberal Party revival began gaining second place and pushing Labour into third
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