1990 Scottish regional elections

Regional elections were held in Scotland on Thursday 3 May 1990, as part of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, and were the first test of public opinion on the Community Charge, which had been introduced in Scotland in 1989.

1990 Scottish regional elections

3 May 1990 (1990-05-03)

First party Second party   Leader Neil Kinnock Margaret Thatcher Party Labour Conservative Leader since 2 October 1983 11 February 1975 Seats won 223 52 Seat change - 13 Percentage 44.0 19.2 Swing 0.1 2.3   Third party Fourth party   Leader Gordon Wilson Malcolm Bruce Party SNP Liberal Democrats Leader since 15 September 1979 3 March 1988 Seats won 42 40 Seat change 6 - Percentage 21.8 8.0 Swing 3.6 7.1

Colours denote the winning party with outright control

Results by ward

National results

Summary of the 1990 Scottish regional council election results

Parties		Votes	Votes %	+/-	Wards	Net Gain/Loss
	Labour	729,922	44.0		223
	SNP	372,770	21.8		42
	Conservative	333,823	19.2		52
	Liberal Democrats	147,122	8.0		40
	Independent	76,516	5.0		73
	Scottish Green	35,048	2.0		1
	Other Parties	15,140	2.0		4

Party performance

The Labour Party dominated the election, gaining the most seats and votes, even though their total vote was slightly down compared with 1986. This was the last election fought under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, and her Conservative Party suffered a decline of 13 seats, mainly due to the introduction of the unpopular Poll Tax in 1989. The Conservative Government had recently given tax concessions to ratepayers in England and Wales, excluding Scotland, with criticism extended in particular to then-Secretary of State for Scotland Malcolm Rifkind, who was portrayed to not care about the interests of Scotland.

The newly formed Social and Liberal Democrats (a merger of the SDP and Liberals) fared badly, dropping 6.4% of the vote that the Alliance had taken at the previous election. Despite this, they stayed stationary on 40 seats. The Scottish National Party, once again the second-largest party in terms of vote share, benefitted from modest gains to take almost 22% of the vote. The Scottish Greens gained their first ever councillor in the Highland region. Turnout was marginally up 0.3% to 45.9%.

Results by council area

Council	LAB	CON	SLD	SNP	GRN	OTH	Wards	Turnout	Details	Control
Borders	0	3	6	2	0	11	22	42.6%	Details		Independent hold
Central	22	5	6	0	0	1	34	49.1%	Details		Labour hold
Dumfries and Galloway	10	0	4	2	0	19	35	44.4%	Details		Independent hold
Fife	30	2	2	10	0	1	46	46.5%	Details		Labour hold
Grampian	19	10	14	11	0	3	57	41%	Details		No overall control hold
Highland	10	1	2	3	1	35	52	42.9%	Details		Independent hold
Lothian	34	12	1	2	0	0	49	50.2%	Details		Labour hold
Orkney	0	-	-	-	-	24	24	??%	Details		Independent hold
Shetland	4	-	-	-	-	21	25	??%	Details		Independent hold
Strathclyde	89	5	1	5	0	2	103	45%	Details		Labour hold
Tayside	18	14	10	2	0	0	46	47.8%	Details		No overall control hold
Western Isles	0	-	-	-	-	30	30	??%	Details		Independent hold