News that there seems unanimous agreement amongst the parties that the elections for the Scottish Parliament and Local Government should be decoupled is most welcome. On three occasions we have had elections for both on the same day, in 1999; 2003; and most recently this year.
It is fair to say that on the previous two occasions where this occurred did not result in the fiasco that took place on 3rd May 2007.
Much has been said and written about the fact that over 100,000 votes were lost as spoilt ballots. And this should rightly form part of the consideration when coming to a decision as to whether or not the polls should be held on separate days.
However, I have believed that this should be the case since well before 3rd May 2007.
For me it is justified that the polls are held apart from one another for the far more straight forward reason that the local government ballot is a hugely important one, but always gets lost amongst the equally important Scottish Parliament campaign. It is right that elections to our local authorities are allowed to hold the limelight on their own, so that people are well informed of the issues affecting local government as opposed to those affecting our country as a whole. For that simple reason a decision to decouple the two different elections will most likely win my support.
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