Ayrshire North and Arran
2010 Results:
Conservative: 7212 (15.64%)
Labour: 21860 (47.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 4630 (10.04%)
SNP: 11965 (25.95%)
Socialist Labour: 449 (0.97%)
Majority: 9895 (21.45%)
2005 Results:
Labour: 19417 (43.9%)
Conservative: 8121 (18.4%)
SNP: 7938 (18%)
Liberal Democrat: 7264 (16.4%)
Other: 1465 (3.3%)
Majority: 11296 (25.6%)
Boundary changes prior to 2005 election: Name of seat changed from Cunninghame North.
2001 Result
Conservative: 6666 (19.7%)
Labour: 15571 (46%)
Liberal Democrat: 3060 (9%)
SNP: 7173 (21.2%)
Other: 1346 (4%)
Majority: 8398 (24.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 9647 (23.5%)
Labour: 20686 (50.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 2271 (5.5%)
SNP: 7584 (18.4%)
Referendum: 440 (1.1%)
Other: 501 (1.2%)
Majority: 11039 (26.8%)
No Boundary Changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Katy Clark(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Philip Lardner (Conservative) Katy Clark(Labour) (more information at They work for you)Gillian Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrat)Patricia Gibson (SNP)Louisa McDaid (Socialist Labour) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 93235
Male: 47.3%
Female: 52.7%
Under 18: 23.3%
Over 60: 23.1%
Born outside UK: 2.3%
White: 99.4%
Asian: 0.2%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 70.2%
Full time students: 0%
Graduates 16-74: 16.3%
No Qualifications 16-74: 35.5%
Owner-Occupied: 63.5%
Social Housing: 28.3% (Council: 23.6%, Housing Ass.: 4.8%)
Privately Rented: 4.7%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 4.2%
Yes, there’s a proportional factor in there somewhere as well in the Electoral Calculus projection.
Can anyone suggest where you can find local election results pre 1974 for councils in this area?
Pre 1973 ones for Northern Ireland would be a bonus.
Alec Graham
Ayrshire North and Arran
Can anyone suggest where you can find local election results pre 1974 for councils in this area?
September 10th, 2008 at 10:03 am
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The Glasgow Room at the Glasgow Mitchell Library has Glasgow Heralds on microfiesh. The election results sections will cover every ward in Scotland and you should be able to access the results for throughout the twentieth century.
According to the Glasgow herald’s website, the SNP candidate for this seat has stood down.
It’s perhaps down to pressure of being a candidate in a key seat.
I recall that there was Cllr Crerar (no relation) in Edinburgh who as the Lib Dem PPC in Edinburgh West in the run up to either 1992 or 1997 (I think it was 1992 but it might have been before 1997).
Actually, he’s been appointed Chief Executive (title?) of the South East England Development Agency.
This is a key seat, but then aren’t all of the ayrshire seats central in the long term for both Tory and SNP.
The SNP candidate (Dr Robert Crawford) has stood down here, due to work commitments.
Thats rather damning for the SNP- this is an important long-term seat. Hasn’t one of their candidates in another Ayreshire seat also resigned?
No, just him, as far as I know. And it’s hardly the fault of the local SNP branches that Robert Crawford’s new job is in the South East of England!
The party will have no problem getting a good candidate for this seat, which represents a great opportunity to beat Labour, if one considers the 2007 election results.
I cannot see the SNP winning here – they need a 13% swing at least, and I would say that Campbell Martin standing as an Independant in 2007 helped the SNP win Cunninghame North by a whisker (and on a smaller swing than is needed in this seat).
Wouldn’t Martin, as an ex-SNP MSP, have been more likely to pick up votes from the SNP than from Labour?
Im interested in how Ayrshire North and Arran breaksdown across the Scottish Parliament Constituencies?
What % of AN&N is made up of Cunninghame North? (presumably quite high?). What other SP seats (and areas) contribute to this Westminster seat? Im guessing something from Cunninghame South but dont know.
Roughly three quarters of AN&N is made up of Cunninghame North, and the rest (Kilwinning and Stevenston) is drawn from Cunninghame South.
I know the Isle of Arran was in (successively) Bute and North Ayrshire, Cunninghame North and the present seat, but was it in the North Ayrshire division from 1868 to 1918? Which seats was it in before then?
No. Buteshire (which includes Arran) had it’s own constituency before 1918. The whole of Buteshire was linked with North Ayrshire from 1918 until 1983 when Bute itself was linked with Argyll but Arran remained with Ayrshire
Belated reply to Matt and Aiden above.
Campbell Martin’s vote in 2007, split by ‘List’ votes:
Scottish National Party 1136
British National Party 118
Christian Peoples Alliance 52
Save Our NHS Group 88
Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship” 100
Conservative and Unionist Party [The] 540
Scottish Green Party 301
Scottish Jacobite Party (The) 24
Labour Party [The] 652
Liberal Democrats 399
Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party 311
Scottish Socialist Party 58
Scottish Unionist Party 52
Scottish Voice 42
Socialist Equality Party 12
Socialist Labour Party 34
Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement 254
United Kingdom Independence Party 79
Uncertain or Blank 145
Voting for too many candidates 26.
So it would tend to agree with Aiden, not Matt.
In the 1959 General Election, 2 MP’s switched constituencies for no apparent reason.
Sir Fitzroy MacLean switched Lancaster for Bute & North Ayrshire and Sir Harry Hylton-Foster switched The City of York for The Cities of London & Westminster?
Does anybody know why, and if there are any other examples in post WW2 elections where there no boundary changes?
I dont know the reasons but I suppose at least in the case Sir Harry Hylton-Foster there was a logic in swapping a highly marginal seat for an ultra-safe one – less so in the case of Sir Fitzroy MacLean who enjoyed a safe enough margin in 1955. The scale of the Tory victory in 1959 was not a foregone conclusion of course so one may have reasonably felt that York was under threat – as it happens it was held until 1966, a year after Sir Harry Hylton-Foster’s death. Lancaster fell to Labour also at that election so it turns out Fitzroy MacLean had made a wise move. I expect his reasoning was more to do with preferring to represent a Scottish seat.
It is a funny coincidence that the two seats involved were York and Lancaster.
I read somewhere that the 1959 election programme will be shown soon. Apparently the BBC themselves don’t have a copy of any elections until 1970 but other people made copies using rudimentary devices available at the time.
The Libdem vote is clearly one to squeeze here – probably to under 10% but not quite to losing their deposit. With a drop in the Labour vote and both the Conservatives and the SNP on the rise, this could leave what looks more like a marginal seat for 2014. Labour hold, majority slashed to around 3500.
Labour – 16000 (34.8%) [-9.1%]
Conservative – 12500 (27.2%) [+8.8%]
SNP – 11500 (25%) [+7%]
Libdem – 4500 (9.8%) [-6.6%]
Other – 1500 (3.3%) [nc]
Majority (Lab) – 3500 (7.6%) [-18%]
Swing (Lab-Con) – 9%
I think all four Ayrshire seats will become ‘marginals’.
Two – Lab/ Con marginals
One – Lab/ SNP marginal
One – Lab/ Con/ SNP marginal
Peter,
It would obviously depend on the definition of marginal – but if you took a gap of 10% between first and second as marginal (10% between first and third as a 3 way marginal) you could be about right.
This seat would be the 3 way marginal, Kilmarnock & Loudon the Lab/SNP marginal and the other two Lab/Con marginals. Trouble is, Labour will hold them all, with the possible exception of Kilmarnock & Loudon if the SNP have a good night. They must be thanking their people on the Boundary Commission.
Neil I think its got more to do with our shocking performance in Scotland in 2005 than a Labour rigged boundary commission!
But your prediction seems reasonable.
One thing that always as puzzled me is why the Isle Bute was taken out of North Ayrshire in the 1983 Boundary Changes. Traditionally it was linked with Ayrshire from the First World War.
Of the old County of Bute, Arran and Great Cumbrae remained with North Ayshire. Yet, the Isle of Bute’s principle connection with the mainland is the ferry route to Wemyss Bay (just in Greenock and Inverclyde by 150 yards) while its ferry connection via Colintriave is either end on a minor B Road. Indeed Calmac recognises this in that it has in the last few years introduced two high capacity Ro-Ro ferries on the Rothesay-Wemyss Bay route.
There is stroing merit in the next Boundary Commission in bringing the Isle of Bute (electorate approx 5,500) back with North Ayrshire.Indeed it would be equally sensible to bring Gourock, Inverkip and Wemyss Bay into the Consituency. For instance it worth mentioning that the Church of Scotland’s Parish of Wemyss Bay and Skelmorlie crosses the Constituency Boundary as do many other local organisatios
Still anyones game for 2nd place, although I think the LD’s the less likely of the 3 to take that place.
Which seats have included Ardrossan, Largs, and Saltcoats?
They were all in North Ayrshire & Bute before 1983 and Cunninghame N thereafter. Bearing in mind the good Labour vote in Ardrossan & Saltcoats, it’s a little surprising that N Ayrshire & Bute was never won, and in fact not even nearly won, by Labour.
Lab Hold= 8,000 maj
LAB 8,000
Labour 17400
SNP 9800
SCUP 9500
LD 5000
Gillian Cole-Hamilton has been selected as LD PPC here. More info on libdemsDOTorgDOTuk
She stood in Edinburgh E & Musselburgh in 2007
With regards to Barnaby’s point I wonder if Tory strength in the old North Ayrshire seat rested upon a base of typically Conservative voters from Bute and the nicer parts of the mainland and ‘Orange’ voters in places like Ardrossan. Ayrshire is an ‘Orange Order’ heartland and David Torrance in his book about Thatcherism in Scotland mentions the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1986 as a reason for the near loss of Ayr a year later, which had previously enjoyed a fairly large Tory majority (although much of it was down to Alliance voters switching to Labour). Also a few years ago the Tories won a council by-election in Ardrossan which would point to some residual Conservative strength there.
This seat had a Labour majority of under 3000 in 1992 and was won by the SNP in 2007.
I don’t see a Labour majority of 8000 + as likely, more like 4000 – 6000 (and that would be over an opposition divided between SNP and Tory).
Ardrossan and Saltcoats where once solid working class ‘orange unionist areas’.
Labour
Conservative
SNP
Libdem
Majority – 5500
Lab hold maj 7000
Lab Hold
Maj 9100
this will be intresting after the snp won here in 2007 then a big swing from lab to snp in the kilbrinie by election (council ward in the area) lib dem collapse known what the snp candidates husbanad is like wouldnt suprise me if very close lab/snp
Lab maj 6,000 (SNP 2nd)
BBC news just reported that the conservative candidate has been suspended for homophobic remarkes……
A Conservative candidate has been suspended for describing gay people as “not normal” on his website, the party says. The comments made by Philip Lardner, running for the seat of North Ayrshire and Arran, were branded “deeply offensive and unacceptable” by a Tory spokeswoman.
Has the deadline for withdrawals passed? If it has, it makes a mockery of the postal voting system, where most of them have already voted.
From the BBC:-
“”Conservative election candidate Philip Lardner has been suspended for describing gay people on his website as “not normal”, the party has said.
Scottish Conservatives chairman Andrew Fulton described the North Ayrshire and Arran candidate’s comments as “deeply offensive and unacceptable”.
“These views have no place in the modern Conservative party,” he said.
Mr Lardner was reinstated to the party in 2008 after a previous suspension over claims he made racist comments.
The primary school teacher was alleged to have portrayed former leader of white-rule Rhodesia, Ian Smith, as a hero.
On that occasion, Mr Lardner did not deny making the comments but suggested they had been taken out of context.
His latest suspension was provoked by comments he made on his website.
Under the heading “What I believe in”, Mr Lardner had written: “Homosexuality is not ‘normal behaviour’.”
The comment has since been removed.
Mr Lardner had been challenging Katy Clark’s Labour majority of more than 11,000. Other candidates in the seat are Liberal Democrat Gillian Cole-Hamilton, the SNP’s Patricia Gibson and Louise McDaid of the Socialist Labour Party. “”
Which leads one to wonder if the Tory vote could gang up against Labour. I suspect Katy Clark starts with too large a majority for that to happen.
What does it mean to suspend a candidate whose name remains on the ballot paper against that party nonetheless? Are the Tories going to go in for Labour’s Cambridshire South East hypocracy of saying that people should still hold their noses and vote for the candidate, or are they going to follow through on the logic of suspension and say that voters should vote for one of the other candidates?
They could of course do neither of these things – keep shtum, or urge abstention.
Yes, but there are two parties standing with pretty similar policies to thiers.
Phillip Lardner is still campaining albeit as an “Independent Conservative”
The Postal Votes have been delivered to the electors, and by now many will be in the post. Electors will have received their free election mail.
I am fairly certain the issue which triggered the suspension is not as important as it would inside the Beltway of the M25 and, if the suspension stays and no advice to Conservatives is issued by CCO (and they won’t) it will be very interesting to see how the Conservative Vote changes in say comparison with the adjacent constituencies.
If Phil Lardher won though, would the Tories give him the Whip? He does seem to have gained a lot of sympathy judging by the comments on “Conservative Home”