Politics of Edinburgh

[afleitch]

This is a placeholder for now. But I hope to have 1999-2007 council maps up, Cencus 2001 analysis and finally maps showing councillors from 1920-1973



Don't worry I will put up a ward key.

[afleitch]

1999 and 2003 comparison

[Sibboleth]

I don't know Edinburgh very well - there are some Tory wards where I wouldn't expect them to be, though probably anyone who knows Edinburgh would expect them there...

[Vasall des Midas]

Is that a Green ward in Leith in 1999? Is yellow/orange LD or SNP or are they two different colors? Also, what's that area at the far northwest of the city and why was it included in the city limits at all?

[afleitch]

I don't know Edinburgh very well - there are some Tory wards where I wouldn't expect them to be, though probably anyone who knows Edinburgh would expect them there...

The 1999 and 2003 maps show 'Lib Dems Win Here' in action really well. They consolidate their support in the areas of the west such as Gyle, Queensferry and Corstorphine and in south central Edinburgh in Merchiston, North Morningside. In 2003 you can see how alot of deep red becomes pink just to the north of that (close to University of Edinburgh campus). The SNP collapsed in 2003 where they were the challengers. They also lost their only ward. However in 2007, thanks in part to STV but also due to a genuine upswing in support the SNP were propelled to 12 seats and 1 constituency

If we break down the 2007 results (which I hope to soon) the areas of relative strength remain similar except for Labour v SNP areas.

That wonderful blue blob of wards just south of Leith is the grand Georgian are around Stockbridge and New Town. This formed the bulk of pre-'83 seat of Edinburgh North. It was however carved up in the re-warding for 2007.

I will post the usual employment/industry maps as well as a wonderful Scottish v English born

Is that a Green ward in Leith in 1999? Is yellow/orange LD or SNP or are they two different colors? Also, what's that area at the far northwest of the city and why was it included in the city limits at all?

Sorry; should have included the key. I'm using Al's colour scheme here. Green represents the SNP and the orange/yellow spectrum show the Lib Dems.
The are to the north west of the city, on the coast is South Queensferry. It was as the name suggests, the 'ferry' point for Edinburgh to Fife and now includes to approaches to the Forth Rail and Road bridges. It was included in Edinburgh during the 1970's reorganisation giving the city a quite expansive hinterland to the west (though it's borders to the east are tight)

[Vasall des Midas]

Ah right, heard that name. Still weird to include it in the city.

Could have thought of that re color scheme. (slaps head)

[Bro-mentum]

Fascinating

Is a ward map of the 2007 elections possible?

[afleitch]

Fascinating

Is a ward map of the 2007 elections possible?

Yes. I'm working on one. As they are STV elections it won't quite show similar trends

[Sibboleth]

Interesting - diolch, etc. Must ask about another dark blue ward - the one in the east. Like I said, I don't know Edinburgh so apologies if this seems laughably obvious.

I did once do maps (long since lost) of the 2007 elections in Edinburgh out of curiosity - I seem to remember that the Labour and SNP patterns looked amusingly alike.

[Sibboleth]

On the colour scheme issue, I started liking purple a while ago though don't think I've ever used it. Might cause problems if you were doing maps of the '80's, what with purple being the obvious SDP colour. Oh well.

Ah right, heard that name. Still weird to include it in the city.

You should know by now not to expect much sanity in local government boundaries in Britain. Actually, Edinburgh's is fairly reasonable. Have a look at the local authorities covering the Yorkshire cities.

[The Head Beagle]

Is the roughly horizontal boundary between the red and blue areas downtown Princes Street? (Or somewhere in the Gardens, which would come to the same thing?)

[Vasall des Midas]

Is the roughly horizontal boundary between the red and blue areas downtown Princes Street? (Or somewhere in the Gardens, which would come to the same thing?)

I took it to be the railway line. Anyways, yeah that's definitely the boundary between Old Town and (macro) New Town. The fairly large red ward west of the one Al's asking about is that sizable because of Holyrood / Arthur's Seat in it.

[afleitch]

Interesting - diolch, etc. Must ask about another dark blue ward - the one in the east. Like I said, I don't know Edinburgh so apologies if this seems laughably obvious.

I did once do maps (long since lost) of the 2007 elections in Edinburgh out of curiosity - I seem to remember that the Labour and SNP patterns looked amusingly alike.

The ward in the east was Duddingston held by Ian Berry OBE an 'Edinburgh Conservative' (The Tories did not stand anyone here) and councillor from 1977-2007. It was a local vote that did not hold up (The Tories didn't win a seat in the Craigentinny/Duddingston ward in 2007)

With the exception of the Lib Dems 'gate crashing' local politics in the 1990's, Edinburgh is interesting because of how stable local politics has been. The city is tremendously bourgeois; what was rich 80 years ago is rich now. The city has not suffered from the migration of the middle classes that Glasgow has done. There are few 60's estates barring those in the south east and Sighthill sandwiched between Corstorphine and the Pentlands due in part to Livingstone and Glenrothes taking the overspill. Edinburgh has also not suffered from 'clearances' in the manner that Glasgow has and is still a high density city.

Is the roughly horizontal boundary between the red and blue areas downtown Princes Street? (Or somewhere in the Gardens, which would come to the same thing?)

I took it to be the railway line. Anyways, yeah that's definitely the boundary between Old Town and (macro) New Town. The fairly large red ward west of the one Al's asking about is that sizable because of Holyrood / Arthur's Seat in it.

The line is essentially Princess Street running west down Shandwick Place. You're correct in that it is the physical and social divide in Edinburgh though the whole area is currently unpassable due to the tram works

Speaking of which if you were..I dunno say a Labour group of politicians wanting to build a tramline where would you put it? If you were Lib Dem junior partners who might just might get line built later if the first one is successful where would you beg for it to be put?

Scottish politicians have a tendency to go on 'jollies' (usually to Dublin), see something they like and try to introduce it. So the then Lab/Lib coalition in Edinburgh saw trams and thought 'lets have those'. With the cancellation of EARL; the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link the tram takes its place going from the Airport, to a new interchange at Gogar, through the centre past Murrayfield, Waverley Station and then heading north east towards the Firth and the Port of Leith. Which follows a wonderful line right the way through all those red Labour wards. And just to demonstrate that the Lib Dems really were Labour's 'bitch', the planned (and probably shelved) second extension which is supposed to fund itself, takes a sweep through the Lib Dem wards to the west

Infact 2/3rds of the line shadows the existing rail line between Haymarket and Edinburgh Waverley. The areas most in need of decent transportation are the south and south east of the city. But that is 'Toryland' to the south and ignores the rock solid Labour estates which when the realised they had been sold a pup swung to the SNP propelling a certain Mr Macaskill to Holyrood...

[Vasall des Midas]

Public transport in Edinburgh as pre-tram was far too depressing to be even called a bad joke. Same goes for Dublin - it probably was the worst in Western Europe.
A tram is cheaper - and a lot less disruptive - to build than a subway (though they might have gone for tunnelling under the Old Town's hill, running the same trains as a tram elsewhere in the city. But then you'd've had subway entrances on the High Street.) They're slower, too, of course, but as you point out Edinburgh is dense enough to be almost walkable anyways.
Now, maybe they planned a few lines too few. But you can always add more later on. (And yeah, just looking at the map, the southeast looks like the place the next line ought to be built after that. Not sure how necessary a more northerly parallel line is - certainly makes sense on the map, but I'm not sure if there's enough people who actually want to travel that way?)

[Јas]

Scottish politicians have a tendency to go on 'jollies' (usually to Dublin), see something they like and try to introduce it.

Oh dear...

[afleitch]

A Scottish City?


A map of where residents were born.



More to follow. There is even enough statistical variation to allow a decent map of where 'North Americans' live....

Edinburgh Haves

The first of the professional/economic maps

[afleitch]

I shouldn't be jumping about as much as this

2007 results

This was reached by adding all the party candidates first preferences together giving the total 'party' vote.

SNP are yellow in one and 'green' in the other

[afleitch]

Back to the Past! Ward Key map for 1920-1938

[Vasall des Midas]

The first of the professional/economic maps

Hm, so who lives in the Old Town now? Student slum? It's not the proletariat anymore as until 40 years ago or so (as see also the English-born map ) but it seems not as solidly boboified (why is French the only language with a decent word for it?) as I would have assumed, either.

[afleitch]

Hm, so who lives in the Old Town now? Student slum? It's not the proletariat anymore as until 40 years ago or so (as see also the English-born map ) but it seems not as solidly boboified (why is French the only language with a decent word for it?) as I would have assumed, either.

Not quite student slum (I'll try and get a good map for this) but some of the wards have 40%-50%+ aged 16-24 (i.e students) The houses here are not cheap to rent. Bearing in mind this is the hub of the University of Edinburgh campus you (or your parents) have to be quite well off or in serious debt to afford to rent here, even in multiple occupancy homes and flats.

[Vasall des Midas]

Btw, what's up with the relatively bourgeouis, and certainly Tory voting in 99 and 03, ward in the western half of what once used to be West Leith ward. Leith has its own ancient middle class west side - it was once a burgh in its own right after all - , or is that dockland-style hardcore gentrification?

[afleitch]

Btw, what's up with the relatively bourgeouis, and certainly Tory voting in 99 and 03, ward in the western half of what once used to be West Leith ward. Leith has its own ancient middle class west side - it was once a burgh in its own right after all - , or is that dockland-style hardcore gentrification?

That is Trinity; it's a very desirable area of the city and is a 'mansion house' district. It is part of Leith, and you're right; it was the then autonomous Leith's answer to similar districts in Edinburgh.

[afleitch]

First up the interesting 'transition' period for Edinburgh. This map is from 1960 to 1973, the last year of the authority before re-organisation.

[Kuu ülevaade olulisematest]

What happened in '68?

[Sibboleth]

What happened in '68?

The Wilson government was extremely unpopular by that point, and Labour did extremely badly in local elections just about everywhere (that is, even worse than the worst of the round just finished has been for the current government and even worse than the worst of local elections were for the Major government), though the scale differed from place to place - Labour didn't win a single ward in Birmingham that year, but held up fairly well in Coventry (much to the relief of Richard Crossman). London (which had then (and still does) all-out elections) in particular was a total disaster with Tory majorities (I think quite lopsided ones too) elected in such unlikely places as Islington and Hackney - there were significant longterm consequences of that as the old right-wing Morrision machine in the inner London boroughs was devastated to an extent that similar machines in other cities weren't, meaning that it was easier for various New Left groups to take over local Labour parties in London than elsewhere.