1977 Midlothian District Council election

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "1977 Midlothian District Council election" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The 1977 Midlothian District Council Election was held in May 1977, the same day as the other Scottish local government elections. This was the second election for the Midlothian District Council, and constituted the only time in the District Council's 21-year existence that Labour failed to win a majority of the seats. It would take 30 years, until the 2007 Midlothian Council election and the introduction of the use of STV in local elections, for the SNP to win as many councillors again in Midlothian.

In the ward of Bonnyrigg South, the SNP and Labour candidates tied for votes. As a result, the winner was decided by means of drawing cards. Robert Mathieson, the Labour candidate, drew a 10 of Diamonds, losing the seat to the SNP's Francis Rigby, who drew an Ace of Diamonds. With the loss of Bonnyrigg South, Labour were left with only 7 of the councils 15 seats, losing them control of the council.^[1]

Midlothian Local Election Result 1977^[2]

Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net gain/loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/−
	Labour	7			4		41.4	9,286	8.8
	SNP	5			4		30.5	6,844	15.7
	Conservative	2			0		20.3	4,548	3.6
	Independent	1			0		4.9	1,097	13.0
	Communist	0	0	0	N/A	0.0	0.7	164	New
	Liberal	0	0	0	N/A	0.0	0.4	99	New
	Other parties	0	0	0	0	0.0	1.7	372

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (February 2016)