Banff and Buchan
2010 Results:
Conservative: 11841 (30.78%)
Labour: 5382 (13.99%)
Liberal Democrat: 4365 (11.35%)
SNP: 15868 (41.25%)
BNP: 1010 (2.63%)
Majority: 4027 (10.47%)
2005 Results:
SNP: 19044 (51.2%)
Conservative: 7207 (19.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 4952 (13.3%)
Labour: 4476 (12%)
Other: 1537 (4.1%)
Majority: 11837 (31.8%)
Boundary changes prior to 2005 election.
2001 Result
Conservative: 6207 (20.1%)
Labour: 4363 (14.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 2769 (9%)
SNP: 16710 (54.2%)
UKIP: 310 (1%)
Other: 447 (1.5%)
Majority: 10503 (34.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 9564 (23.8%)
Labour: 4747 (11.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 2398 (6%)
SNP: 22409 (55.8%)
Referendum: 1060 (2.6%)
Majority: 12845 (32%)
No Boundary Changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Eilidh Whiteford (SNP)
Jimmy Buchan (Conservative) Glen Reynolds (Labour) Galen Milne (Liberal Democrat) Eilidh Whiteford (SNP) Richard Payne (BNP) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 86769
Male: 49.7%
Female: 50.3%
Under 18: 23.9%
Over 60: 21.1%
Born outside UK: 2%
White: 99.5%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 59.9%
Graduates 16-74: 13.9%
No Qualifications 16-74: 37.5%
Owner-Occupied: 66.8%
Social Housing: 24.5% (Council: 21.2%, Housing Ass.: 3.3%)
Privately Rented: 5.4%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 5.7%
Were he actually standing for election Salmond would begin to have a case. But he’s not.
Also several other small parties actually get more votes than the SNP even combining their votes with PC. So if it is right for Alex to take part, then why should they be excluded too?
The debate is between the 3 party leaders with the potential to be PM after the election, and even Alex would admit that is not possible in his case, especially as he’s not a candidate for Westminster.
Those who are arguing that the Prime Ministerial debates have been unfair to the nationalists in Scotland and Wales are obviously right. The problem with the whole idea of having these kind of debates is that there is no answer to the question “which party leaders do you include?” that does not create some degree of unfairness to someone. It is patently absurd that the current debate set up excludes the leaders of the party that forms the devolved government in Scotland, and a party that is part of the devolved administration in Wales.
My contention would be that with the political landscape in the UK as it currently is, debates such as these cannot work in terms of providing a fair crack for all parties, and therefore they should not happen.
The Liberal Democrats have been outstandingly lucky. They have been given this added exposure, at the expense of parties in Scotland and Wales that clearly have a comparable or greater level of support than them, but sufficiently close to polling day that there is simply not the time for that exposure to be coupled with detailed scrutiny of their policies. Indeed proper discussion of policy more generally has been inhibited by the way the debates have in a very real sense become the whole campaign. All the talk has been of who “comes across well”, who manages to come up with a good turn of phrase, score a debating point. It’s as though the country has decided to choose its government on the basis of performance at PMQs.
I can just about understand why the Labour leadership accepted that the debates should take place. They were in the same kind of “lets give anything that might just bring us back from the dead a go” position as Major when he challenged Blair to a TV debate. But I have no idea why the Tory leadership gave the go ahead. This isn’t hindsight, I said before on here that allowing Clegg that kind of parity of exposure would do the party no good, and so it is proving.
“The debate is between the 3 party leaders with the potential to be PM after the election…”
Nonsense Galloglass. Clegg is not and never was a contender to be PM. Even with some polls now showing that there is a possibility that that the Lib Dems could finish first in terms of vote share, the electoral system as it currently stands (love it or loath it) means that the chances of the Lib Dems finishing becoming the largest, or even the second largest, party in the Commons are virtually non-existent. If the Lib Dems are third in terms of Commons seats Clegg is not going to be PM.
The Lib Dems are in only in their current position at all because Clegg has been allowed to pose as a potential PM, when he is nothing of the sort.
Kieran, Cameron pushed for the debate because he’s normally a star performer. He then gave a dire performance, nearly as bad as Brown in the first debate.
He also failed to take into account that Clegg normally has to face 600 hostile baying Tory and Lab supporters who shout him down every Wednesday at QT.
That underestimation and his own stage fright is the true reason we are where we are today.
However Cameron had performed Clegg would still have benefited from the circumstances surrounding the debates. As someone over on Pb.com said, Clegg could probably have walked on and puked his guts up over the lectern and many people would still have said that he gave a good performance. The electorate would still have been exposed to a politician they had barely heard of, and much less thought about, before and in these times of great cynicism about politics freshness and the ability to play the role of an outsider is very important. It is much harder for Cameron to come across in that way.
Coupled with that Clegg’s very presence was always likely to play well with a media looking for a fresh angle on a GE contest that they would not want to become predictable.
It was always obvious that the debates would basically present Clegg and his party with a free hit, almost irrespective of how the other leaders performed. I don’t see how those who take the decisions in the Tory party, people who are supposedly professionals at this kind of thing, could not see that that was the case.
Doctorb says
“What fits for Canada does not fit for the UK, for one…”
Why not-their situation is very similar to the UK.
Can we not learn from other countries, particularly those so like our own in many ways?
Kieran, John Knox would have been pleased with your faith in predestination. I’m afraid I don’t subscribe to that particular belief.
Nothing is ever certain, especially in politics and had Cameron performed as well as we know he can in that first debate, then no matter how Clegg had done, we’d very probably be on the brink of a Tory win.
Instead the Tories are going to be fortunate to equal Howard’s vote in 2005.
These Leaders Debates have proven one thing.
Despite the hype and the blogosphere and the “Tory revival” and all the rest of it, Cameron in front of a live audience and camera crew just could not cut it.
They’ve changed the shape of this election, and all subsequent elections, and this is brilliant for democracy.
DOCTORB
DOCTORB
While I hope that the LibDems do sufficiently well so that they can obtain PR (not AV which can be worse than FPTP) you are showing insufficient regard for democracy.
In wishing to block all other parties than the “big 3″ from the Debates the LibDems show themselves to be no more dedicated to fairness than the other 2 parties.
However, I wish you well in the pursuit of PR as this would genuinely advance democracy for ALL parties in the UK and enable the SNP to win 15/20 seats with little effort needed at all
“Why if the Bloc Quebecois (the “Quebec Separatists”) can be included in All-Canada debates at their GEs, cannot the SNP be included here?”
Because for a number of years the Bloc was the official opposition in Canada’s Federal Parliament. The SNP is nowhere near that situation, nor will it ever be.
Peter Stewart says:
“Because for a number of years the Bloc was the official opposition in Canada’s Federal Parliament. The SNP is nowhere near that situation, nor will it ever be.”
You are putting the cart before the horse. Bloc Quebecois only came into existence in 1991 but have always been included in the Canadian GE debates starting with the GE of 1993, the first to occur after they came into existence.
Give the foolishness of FPTP, (it reduced the Canadian Progressive Conservatives to 2 seats in 1993 which is why Bloc Quebecois were for 1 Parliament the official opposition) if there is a LibDem landslide, perhaps the SNP could be the official opposition
The problem with the Debates is that it is giving massively more airtime relative to the SNP to the “big 3″ compared with the airtime allocation in 2005.
That is an affront to democracy.
The Bloc may have been the official opposition at federal level, but it was never a potential federal government. In that sense the comparison with the SNP is a valid one.
The question of participation in the debates has highlighted the limits of the Lib Dem commitment to “fairness” in the electoral process. They wanted the threshold for participation in the Prime Ministerial debates to be just low enough that Clegg would get to participate despite not ever being a potential Prime Minister, but not so low that they would have to share the spotlight with the likes of the SNP, Plaid, UKIP (and let’s remember UKIP finished fourth in terms of vote share at the last GE and second at the last European elections) or the Greens.
An affront to democracy is the leader of a minor national group running to court in a last ditch attempt to get national television coverage, when his party will only contest a (very) small percantage of seats across the country.
It smacks of panic. The SNP clearly have failed to grab the attention of voters in Scotland, so Salmond is now trying to invent a news story by scuttling off to court.
Do the SNP not notice that they, in Westminster are a smaller party than even the DUP, who do not feel the need to be a part of the leaders debates.
DOCTORB/GRIL
As I said:
“The problem with the Debates is that it is giving massively more airtime relative to the SNP to the “big 3? compared with the airtime allocation in 2005.”
You are avoiding the unfairness that I indicate by this point and are just blustering away. It does you and the LibDems no credit
Still I am confident that, in the level TV (though not newspaper) playing field for Holyrood, the SNP will top the popular vote for Holyrood next year. Whether the LibDems will beat the Tories for 4th place, I don’t know. It is via Holyrood that independence will come.
Incidentally the DUP are not opposed by Labour or the LibDems, and barely by the Tories, so it matters little to them what support Brown, Cameron or Clegg gets in terms of their own seats.
Absolutely Tom. The comparison with the DUP is idiotic.
I would have a lot more respect for Lib Demmers if they accepted that they have dropped lucky with regard to the extra publicity afforded to them and their leader via participation in the debates, and also that this has come partly at the expense of parties not afforded the same opportunity. As I said upthread, they have been presented with the opportunity for their leader to pose as a potential PM. At the same time he has been allowed due to his previous relative anonimity to present himself as a kind of anti-establishment, non-politician knowing that in the limited time before polling day there was no chance for that image to be held up to sustained scrutiny.
Instead they try to maintain that their participation in the debates is some kind of absolute right, while the exclusion of those parties that have been excluded is an obvious response to realities of the current political landscape. They are simply not interested in the question of whether the election is a fair contest, merely in ensuring that their side gets the rub of the green.
Kieran W
Sadly for democracy-and fairness-we are in total agreement
Oh what rot.
“Poor us, the Lib Dems have finally been awarded the coverage they have been refused by us big two all these years”
For years now, generations, the “main two” have acted as though they are the only show in town, ignoring the increasing success of our party in local (and national) elections.
No general election for 60-odd years has been “a fair contest”, Kieran. This year has been as close to fairness as I have known. Long may the Leaders Debates continue if the breaking of the red/blue consensus is the main consequence…
DOCTORB
“Oh what rot.”
Is that supposed to be a considered response?
Anyway, keep up the pressure for PR (STV is fine by me). The LibDems were critical in delivering this for Scottish Councils thereby allowing to the SNP to emerge with the largest number of councillors.
Next GE-15/20 seats minimum for the SNP-if the LibDems show skill in negotiation. A big if, I know.
“
Doktorb, you only define this election as being more fair because your leader has managed to break into what I accept has for some time been something of a two party monopoly. However your acceptance of the exclusion of other parties beyond the three whose leaders have participated in the debates points to a desire to pull up the ladder behind you, lest you be subjected to a serious challenge from Plaid, SNP, UKIP, Green etc.
Tom Robinson
You are supposed to carry on reading after the first line…..
DOCTORB
Anything beyond the first line I was in agreement with along the lines of Kieran W’s most recent post.
I guess it didn’t really follow on from your first line.
SNP HOLD
On an otherwise disappointing night for the Scottish Tories this seat gave them their best result – a 10% swing to the Tories with their vote increasing to 30% from under 20%. Is this a potential target for the Tories at the next election, likely in a year’s time? I have my doubts – a lot of the swing must be down to the loss of Alex Salmond’s very substantial personal vote – but’s it’s not quite the impregnable SNP fortress everyone had assumed.
In fact if you look at the innards of the Scottish result the old Grampian region was reasonably positive for the Tories – they increased their vote (and not simply paltry increases, 2 – 3 percent movements) in places like Aberdeenshire West, Aberdeen South and Moray. In Perthshire and Angus they did hold onto their vote, while in Berwickshire they increased it fairly substantially, being foiled by tactical voting for the Lib Dem candidate.
This was of course a disappointing result nation-wide for the Scottish Tories, but there are some slender rays of light for them and I wonder if they will put more effort into targetting seats North of the Tay. Regardless, even if they do, it’s not just a case of money – they will have to be very careful of what they do visa vi Scotland with a Tory minority government – perhaps fiscal autonomy might be something they could push through, which will then avoid the disastrous situation they’d get of a Tory Government forcing cuts upon Scotland’s public sector. I suspect they also have to look at their organisation and leadership.
This seat is now more winable for the Tories than East Renfrewshire! Who would have thought that over a year ago?
My prediction was fairly close.
Jimmy Buchan is very popular here, and so was Alex Salmond.
May 18th 2009
“The retirement of 3 jobs Alex will result in one of the largest swings from SNP to Con here.
SNP: 16000
Conservative: 12500
Liberal Democrat: 3500
Labour: 3000
Other: 1500
Majority: 3500″
Fantasy stuff going on here. There was always going to be a dip in the SNP vote here given the stepping down of Alex Salmond. Dr Whiteford is local and a smart cookie;she will consolidate her position quickly.
As for Angus and Perth & North Perthshire. In the former the Tories spent what is widely believed to be a six-figure sum. The outcome? Mike Weir doubled his majority over bthem. In Perth & North Perthshire Pete Wishart almost trebled his. The Tories spent megabucks on both these seats and stood still. For the foreseeable future there are no pickings for them on Tayside.
Still surprising though. I didn’t think that a change of candidate would cause that great a drop…..
As for Pete Wishart…starts whistling *In a Big Country*
It isn’t really just a change of candidate, though, is it? It’s the loss of the dominating figure in Scotland’s domestic politics, so not surprising that this would have a noticeable impact.
As for the the whistling. Pete would be delighted! He likes people to remember his pre-Runrig days. Sad that the loss of Ian Cawsey in Brigg & Goole also meant the end of MP4, at least in its original incarnation. Shame, as he was a great front man.
The new Buchan Coastal will be interesting, particuarly if Jimmy Buchan stands again as Tory candidate.
It combines fishing communities of Banff & Buchan and Moray where Buchan has some personal support.
Give the choice between Aberdeenshire West and Aberdeenshire East, I would have thought that Salmond will stand in East (as it combines parts of both his old B & B and Gordon constituencies).
Obviously I’m not saying that this is a sure-fire gain for the Tories – far from it, and even if there was some sort of Tory bounce at the next election they would have difficulty taking this seat – but they’re certainly doing something right here. If it was just a question of Salmond’s personal vote dissipating, then you might expect it to spread itself between all three parties, rather than simply concentrate upon the Tories.
On the question of targetting, I don’t think it’s particularly contentious to say that the Conservatives did perform better in constituencies North of the Tay than South. In southern Scotland now, looking at seats upon a numerical basis rather than trying to predict what the opinion polls will be saying when the next election comes around, aside from DCT, what targets have they got? Dumfries and Galloway is a longshot, Berwickshire a bit less of one but still difficult, East Renfrewshire is probably now out of range. They could sit around and wait for a more favourable configuration of the boundaries in Ayrshire, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.
In contrast, there are still some seats in range for the Conservatives North of the Central Belt – Argyll, Perthshire, Angus, Aberdeenshire West and Banff. If I were drawing up a target list for the Scottish Tories, you could do worse than focus on these seats. Are they going to fall like ripe fruit from a tree? Of course not. However, going upon the basis that the Tories have to be looking to expand somewhere in Scotland, these seem like the best seats to take a shot at. Plus they are facing the SNP and the Lib Dems, which has the advantage that they’re not Labour.
On the subject of Perth and North Perthshire, btw, you have the problem of a candidate obviously too young and callow for the good electors of Tayside!
There are a good number of interesting posts on Iain Dale with regards to the plight of the Scottish Tories, which indicate that (a small part) of the problem was targetting):
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/05/scottish-conservatives-have-questions.html
Alex Salmond in the Scottish elections might want to stand in Aberdeenshire West IMO for a few good reasons :-
Firstly, Aberdeenshire East is such a safe seat that any SNP candidate could win there.
Secondly, his standing in Aberdeenshire West would considerably increase their chances of taking this seat from the Lib Dems.
Thirdly, his bid to remain First Minister would almost certainly be accomplished if they could win Aberdeenshire West – this is why he stood in Gordon in the first place.
Finally, even if he doesn’t win, he is almost guaranteed a list seat.
Douglas – I’d have to disagree with you. Since Salmond got most of his personal vote from the Tories in the first place it’s not surprising that it’s the Tories who benefit most when he retires. I wouldn’t have expected his personal vote to have dissipated between all the parties by any means.
Well at long last we are getting somewhere by being in government.
Already the signs are there that providing the Tory party “beast” is kept on a tight leash then this country will be able to move forward in a way that more modern democracies, including a devolved Scotland, have enjoyed for years.
Cooperation is not a dirty word but in doing so we have to live with a certain degree of compromise, which for some is considered to be unpalatable.
For sure this is not the time for feint hearts and whilst we might lose a few more blinkered supporters I’m sure the majority of UK citizens will reconise the true benefit of living in an expansive and more liberal democracy associated with economic revival.
PS
Lewis no more
Skye no more!
Lochaber no more
Sutherland no more
and come 2011
Salmond no more
Just watch this space
Dream on Galen – you’re finished in Scotland after this. It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference how much good work you do on civil liberties and devolution – as long as you are part of the government instigating instant and savage cuts on the people of this country you will not survive as a political force. It may be different in England, but in Scotland, with the promise of fiscal autonomy and the leadership of a man who is not at all popular in Scotland and wasn’t even before the betrayal, I don’t see the Lib Dems even vaguely holding off the SNP in rural and suburban Scotland or challenging Labour in the central belt and urban areas. Labour might end up making huge gains, the SNP could consolidate and improve their position also, but I don’t see any Lib Dem gains. Of course it’s still 11 months away so a lot could change but I don’t see it myself.
Lib Dems polling roughly 6-8% in Scotland in YouGov Westminster polling (though to be fair the SNP are in the low 20s so Labour have swallowed most of that vote at least at westminster). The coalition has finished the Lib dems as a force in the UK and particularly in Scotland. I’m amazed every Liberal Democrat in the Highlands hasn’t defected yet.
@ Calum W
Actually if you look at the break down in the Others voting for Scotland in the last two polls on the YouGov site, the SNP are down at about 11-14% with 6-7% of others (Greens, UKIP, BNP, etc…) so I wouldn’t get too cocky yet.
Is it possible to guess how the old Banff seat (of 1979) would have voted in 2010?
(It was only a 700 or so majority in 1979 for the Tories, over the SNP)
There is probably more meaningful data from the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, where the picture isn’t so clouded by Independents. The local elections give only a very rough guide to the relative strengths of the various parties in the different elements of these seats.
Banff was a very small seat of only a bit over 30,000 electors and the majority of it went to the new Moray seat in 1983. Only Banff itself came into this seat where it was merged with the majority of the old Aberdeenshire East.
The large STV wards now in use in Scotland do not exactly fit the old boundaries, but roughly speaking the Banff ward was in Banffshire and the other 6 wards were in East Aberdeenshire (Buchan)
The local election results in those two areas show the SNP to be not quite so strong in Banff as in buchan, but we don’t know how the Independent vote went:
‘Buchan’
SNP 13319 47.7%
Con 4186 15.0%
LD 2642 9.5%
Lab 550 2.0%
Ind 7008 25.1%
Oth 199 0.7%
Banff
SNP 1588 35.0%
Con 616 13.6%
LD 694 15.3%
Lab 0 0.0%
Ind 1340 29.5%
Oth 298 6.6%
Dividing up the current Moray seat in a similar way. The wards of Buckie, Keith & Cullen and Speyside/Glenlivet were in the Banff seat (again roughly speaking) and the remaining five wards of Moray district were in Moray & Nairn. Here there is a much more makred difference witht he SNP being totally dominant in the Banffshire section with both the Conservatives and Labour (with their strength in Elgin) much stronger in Morayshire.
Banffshire
SNP 4731 40.5%
Con 1311 11.2%
Lab 507 4.3%
LD 300 2.6%
Ind 4715 40.4%
Oth 116 1.0%
Morayshire
SNP 7211 32.4%
Con 4063 18.3%
Lab 2438 11.0%
LD 287 1.3%
Ind 7820 35.1%
Oth 438 2.0%
It seems clear from this that the old Banffshire would have been very safely SNP – more so than either Moray or Banff & Buchan. Moray & Nairn on the other hand may have been an awful lot closer (but massive caveats because of that Independent vote). It would certainly be worthwhile to look at the breakdown of the Scottish parliament election results in these wards to get a clearer picture.
2007, Holyrood, votes cast on the day:
Banff (both Aberdeenshire ward and Moray wards, as Pete has it):
SNP 7514 (56.5)
Con 2382 (17.9)
LD 1837 (13.8)
Lab 1476 (11.1)
Oth 80 (0.6)
‘Buchan’ (other six wards of B&B)
SNP 12504 (58.8)
Con 4012 (18.8)
LD 2427 (11.4)
Lab 2269 (10.7)
Oth 51 (0.2)
Moray and Nairn (other Moray wards, plus Nairn ward in Highland)
SNP 10707 (47.7)
Con 4845 (21.6)
Lab 3709 (16.5)
LD 3189 (14.2)
Oth none
So Banff would have been much more strongly SNP than Moray & Nairn, but M&N would still have been pretty safely SNP, in part because of the very split opposition. (Actually, Labour didn’t poll very well in Elgin in 2007: they came third behind the Tories, though the two Elgin wards were still their best in the Moray council area.)
“but M&N would still have been pretty safely SNP”
In 2007 yes.. I was saying it may have been fairly close in 2010 (on the assumption that the SNP were much stronger in the ex-Banffshire part of the seat than in Morayshire and vice versa the Tories). Your figures though, which expunge the Independent votes, show the Tory vote more evenly spread than the breakdown from the local elections did.
It occurs to me how badly the SNP did out of the various sets of boundary changes from 1983 onwards. If the pre-1983 boundaries were still in use the SNP would have 3 seats in Grampian where there are now 2. Also there were 3 seats in Tayside which they would have won in 2010 which are now covered by the 2 seats of Angus and Perth & North Pertshire (Angus S, Perth/E Perthshire, Kinross/W Perthshire). Moreover they would probably have had a very good chance of winning Angus North & Mearns. So in the rural areas of the former Grampian and Tayside regions they could potentially have 7 seats where they currently have 4.
as opposed to the 6 of 59 (1 in 10) which they did win.
They would probably also win Galloway if it had not been merged with Dumfries (though obviously it would not be notionally SNP based on actual 2010 voting figures). The only consolation for them is that they have Dundee East which I guess they would not have on the old boundaries (without Carnoustie and Monifieth).
Basically they would have been able to win 9 of 72 seats on the old boundaries (1 in
Conversely the LDs have done well out of the deal as depsite there being fewer seats overall they have two extra seats which they either definitely (Dunbartonshire East) or probably (Aberdeesnire West) would not have had
(1 in 8 )
Banffshire and Buchan Coast 2011 prediction:
SNP 16000 (-8)
Con 8500 (+7)
Lab 5250 (+4)
LD 2000 (-3)
Swing of 7.5% from SNP to Con, largely in line with the GE result without the loss of Salmond incumbancy increasing the swing.
Was this seat called Banff or Banffshire before 1983?
It was called Aberdeenshire East
Well I mean the seat that was called either Banff or Banffshire.
It was Banffshire, Andy. Its last MP was the Conservative David Myles.
Thanks. I know it was referred to as Banff by some people. Maybe that was just shorthand.