U.K election maps

[afleitch]

Thanks Al I'm working backwards on my Scottish stuff for uni and I was about to do the two 74 elections! My boundary maps were a little offset when I did 79 and this should correct them

[afleitch]

Thanks Al I'm working backwards on my Scottish stuff for uni and I was about to do the two 74 elections! My boundary maps were a little offset when I did 79 and this should correct them

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Any suggestions for the next one to do?

1983 would be fun- esepcially to see how well the Alliance polled (or didn't poll in all honesty) in certain seats

according to the map of 2005 on the BBC website (where you can click on a seat and it shows the results) I was looking around  there were some other seats that were kind of close with the conservative party in second, any chance the conservatives pick up seats in Scottland next election.

Oh yes, there's still quite a few seats were the Tories are fairly strong in Scotland. Dumfries & Galloway (the Galloway part was the Tories only M.P from Scotland's seat in the 2001-2005 Parliament) is probably a very unlikely gain now, but they are breathing very hard down the SNP's necks in Angus and Perth & North Perthshire. In the longrun they should really think about rebuilding themselves in Edinburgh... and then there's always that Borders seat held by Mike Moore (LibDem).
One hope of their's that was dashed with the boundary changes was Ayr; it were cut into pieces and largely combined with an ultra-Labour old mining area (the core of the old Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley seat)...

I agree. The Conservatives can only benefit in Scotland from an SNP downturn combined with a little tactical voting to unseat them. The fact they won Dumfrieshire, Clydesdale and Tweedale instead of Dumfries and Galloway as was expected was the strangest suprise. However with the removal of Dumfries and the Lanarkshire ex mining villages (where the SNP poll strangely well in local council elections) made it easier for them to take. Any strong movement against the Lib Dems could see them loose Berwickshire; unlikely but it is still early days.

In the Scottish Parliament they are doing better in terms of FPTP seats holding 3; Ayr, Galloway and Pentlands. Perth is in reach next time round, but other seats like Eastwood are not as within reach as they should be.

[afleitch]

88,000. It seems the Conservatives even then suffered from an electoral bias towards inner city and urban seats

[afleitch]

It is lovely to see all that blue...and very little yellow!

[afleitch]

If only Shirley had run against Roy or David had beaten Roy, then maybe we could have had a little more purple on that map.

I might do a map under my wet dream scenarios of the Alliance taking some chunks out of the Tories and Labour or something.

Like winning East Kilbride

[afleitch]

That is a fantastic book and well worth buying as it deals with alternative poltiical histories rather than just history itself.

[afleitch]

1992- The election the Conservatives wished Labour had won

[afleitch]

Likewise with Lanarkshire



I use a slightly differnt colour scale from Al's, but it shows the deep red, almost 'brown' Labour vote in it's Lanarkshire heartlands.

[afleitch]

1955 was a year where the Conservatives in Scotland (or rather Scottish Unionists) polled over 50% of the vote IIRC.

[afleitch]

The 'burgh' thing was a throwback to the pre 1707 Scottish 'Pairlament' (note the spelling ) when the Burgh had a priveleged position in the local hierarchy which entitled it in many cases to a higher representation that the whole county surrounding it and even over larges cities (Rutherglen had a higher status than the much larger Glasgow until the 1800's). This lead to those strange constituencies. That status, while dwinding, was only officially abolished in 1975.

[afleitch]

Seeing the Conservatives (Scottish Unionists) holding Rutherglen and 5 other Glasgow seats is rather strange looking back The Conseratives then began their steady decline in Scotland.

[afleitch]

Wiki is eveloving intoa  good source. It is interesting to read about the university seats and the 'Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds'

[afleitch]

There is one question that has always been puzzling me about 2001 and that's the divergence of the nationalist parties.

SNP 1997: 22.08% 2001: 20.07%
Plaid 1997: 9.94% 2001: 14.27%

Can this be explained in maps showing the percentage change between 1997 and 2001 in each seat for Plaid and the SNP?

Probably.

But combine a strong year for the Lib Dems and a weak year for the SNP and in Scotland it's simply a change within the 'not Labour' vote. It reversed (to an extent) in 2007.