Berwickshire Roxburgh and Selkirk
2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 18993 (41.8%)
Conservative: 13092 (28.8%)
Labour: 7206 (15.9%)
SNP: 3885 (8.6%)
Other: 2212 (4.9%)
Majority: 5901 (13%)
Boundary changes prior to 2005 election: Name of seat changed from Roxburgh and Berwickshire.
2001 Result
Conservative: 6533 (22.7%)
Labour: 4498 (15.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 14044 (48.8%)
SNP: 2806 (9.7%)
Other: 916 (3.2%)
Majority: 7511 (26.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 8337 (23.9%)
Labour: 5226 (15%)
Liberal Democrat: 16243 (46.5%)
SNP: 3959 (11.3%)
Referendum: 922 (2.6%)
Other: 244 (0.7%)
Majority: 7906 (22.6%)
No Boundary Changes
Current MP: Michael Moore (Lib Dem) born 1965, Dundonald. Educated at Jedburgh Grammar School and Edinburgh University. Chartered accountant. MP for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale since 1997. Transport spokesman 1997-2001, deputy foreign affairs spokesman 2001-2005, Lib Dem shadow defence secretary 2005-2006, foreign secretary 2006-2007, for international development since 2007 (more information at They work for you)
Candidates: 
Chris Walker (Conservative) Educated at Blackpool College. Hotelier. 
Paul Wheelhouse (SNP) born 1970, Dundonald. Educated at Stewart’s Melville College, Aberdeen University and University of Edinburh Management School. Economic consultant.
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 89370
Male: 48.2%
Female: 51.8%
Under 18: 21.9%
Over 60: 24.9%
Born outside UK: 2.7%
White: 99.4%
Asian: 0.2%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 67.2%
Graduates 16-74: 18.8%
No Qualifications 16-74: 35.4%
Owner-Occupied: 59.2%
Social Housing: 25.3% (Council: 14.5%, Housing Ass.: 10.8%)
Privately Rented: 10.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 7.2%
Thats interesting I hadnt seen the T&R projection? WHat were the other parties. It wasnt that surprising that the Tory share was down compared with last year, because of the strong performance in thee local elections by other parties -UKIP, Greens and BNP. But I was surprised to see the LDs as high as 28% and I didnt believe it. Unfortunately it was the figure being quote as gospel by various LD spokesmen
Pete
T&R had
it
as Con 35, Lab 22 , LD 25 (projection from the CC elections).
Clearly they are projecting the big others figure of 18% somehow - perhaps in a more raw way.
Have you got any inkling of how a sample of Parliamentary seats voted compared 2009 vs 2008?
That would be the best indication I think, but there aren
t actualy that many places.
I may pick out some and ask you which CC wards are in certain seats.
Perhaps Nuneaton would be a good one to pick
I put them up on the blog section of UKPR but I remember you said once you hardly ever visit that part of the site. C - 35%, LD - 25%, Lab - 22%. All three are lower than the BBC’s projection so they must have calculated the minor parties doing much better than the BBC.
As Joe says there are not very manya reas that voted both this year and last year so comparisons are likely to be dubious. There was also a differetn pattern of candidates standing. For example in Broxbourne the LDs contested only 2 of 12 wards in 2008 and won 2% of the vote. This year they contested all 6 county diviosns and got 14%. Naturally the Conservative vote share fell the most but it doesnt really represent a shift in support. I expect there are similar patterns in many places.
Euro result for Scottish Borders council area:
Conservative Party - 8,074 (29.9%)
Liberal Democrats - 6,317 (23.4%)
Scottish National Party - 4,965 (18.4%)
Scottish Green Party - 1,987 (7.4%)
United Kingdom Independence Party - 1,985 (7.4%)
The Labour Party - 1,820 (6.7%)
British National Party - 503 (1.9%)
Turnout - 30.7%
2004 Result (Tweeddale etc. and Roxburgh etc. constituencies, so includes a bit of Midlothian) for comparison:
Con 8677; LD 7103; Lab 4608; SNP 4249;
UKIP 2749; Green 2502; BNP 406; Others 1813.
So it seems that a broad tory sweep across the three borders constituencies are expected unless something of a political disaster befalls D.C.?
The borders does seem to be the Scottish version of England south west- where labour are politically dead in the long term. Thats a position where recovery might be nigh on impossible in the long term. Does anyone think that what we are seeing in places such as the Scottish borders and England South West indicates labour is heading for a 1931 style electoral disaster?
Tam and Dean - I think the real story is the long term decline of the Lib Dems - in the 1980s, they could easily command around 50% support in the Borders. In those days the SNP had just over 2% support. Nowadays people are struggling to articulate what they have achieved (David Steel stood on a platform that if he couldn’t save the railway, he would resign - that was in 1967…..)or what is their relevance - there is no narrative, or one that people don’t buy into.
We polled 18.5% (after deducting spoilt ballots) last Thursday, and with approximately a 5.5% increase in support since 2004 and we are now a fraction less than 5% behind the Lib Dems on 23.5% - their literature claimed we were 34% behind them!!!! Their second candidate was from the Borders and the former MSP for Roxburgh and Berwickshire and they only outpolled us by 4.9-5.0%.
This would have been even closer but we were well behind on postal ballots vs the Tories and slightly behind the Libs- more than 5000 of the 27000 votes were postals. We had almost 22% to the Tories 27% excluding postals, so we have learned a lesson there…..
There are a number of areas in the Borders which are now exhibiting a Lib Dem collapse - just ask the voters of Duns or Hawick what they think of them now.
Don’t forget this election was a UK-wide election. We traditionally struggle in those elections in terms of our support coming out. We will be able to catch the wave of our campaign building up to a referendum bill and the 2010 election itself.
If the local Tories themselves concede this is a three way contest (ask their candidate), and it most definitely is demonstrated in the last two elections, then perhaps you should put aside your blue tinted specs and accept that, yes it might just be true. We were the only party actually campaigning in many areas of the seat over the last month. The Tories are playing a smart game and well-resourced, but we hold no fear for the Lib Dems who we know we can more than match.
Regardless of whether we reach agreement, if I can be forgiven for bordering on partisan comment, I am looking forward to playing a part in the team that will prove our case next year.
Borderer it definately shall be interesting campaigning down in the borders! However I will probably be restricted to Dumfries & Galloway on the west coast.
One thought for this geographical area though; in a YouGov poll from a couple of months back placed the tories on an overal 34% in the borders; given the low turnout in the euros etc, this result does seem to demonstrate that the expenses scandal hasnt severely damaged us here.
And yes, the Liberals are struggling here as you suggest- just look at the Holyrood election from 2007- the shock loss to the conservatives of the holyrood equivilant in Berwickshire demonstrates that they can loose in this seat. (As the SNP capture of the Arygyl seat in Holyrood demonstrates that they can loose their also). Its all to play for.
Hi Dean,
I agree that Argyll is an interesting seat, as is Gordon - the Lib Dems are struggling to fight on so many fronts simultaneously, including the Borders. The Tory party has plenty of local activists in the Borders and while we have fewer, we are a growing band, with a crop of new members joining even since polling day. I think we are on a par with the Lib Dems or ahead, but can’t find any figs for Lib Dem membership locally. In my opinion (based on the 2007 results and last week) the Tories are front runners now and we are aiming to supplant the Lib Dems as the main challengers. Labour, after last week and with just 91 members accoriding tio their own publicity, are probably no threat in the short to medium term.
The Lib Dems shouldn’t have been shocked at John Lamont’s win in 2007. They had taken the seat for granted for years and they, according to press commentary, had a really weak MSP in place who as education minister presided over local school closures and much else. They were asking for trouble. However, I am content for us to sneak up on them on the rails this time and before they know it……they’ll be third. That’s the theory at least……
Borderer - “Don’t forget this election was a UK-wide election.” Well, its a good job the General Election isn’t a UK-wide election!
You miss my point, Tam. What I was trying to raise was that, normally, we don’t poll this well in UK-wide elections.
We topped the poll in Scotland (for the first time ever in a UK-wide poll) and locally, we are closing the gap between UK-wide elections and our Scottish Parliament performance, where we were very much in touch even in the Borders!
I wouldnt get carried away, Scottish tories have suffered so much damage since 1997 (noting especially that our 2001, 2005 results saw us perform even worse than in 1997!!!) that we have a huge recovery to make.
We have to increase our share of the vote in Scotland from 15.6% to at least 22% to make a recovery on the scale of what is expected ‘acceptable’ by our (rather unhelpful) english tory counterparts.
One thing is for sure there aint a D.C bounce in Scotland, Annabel Goldie is our strenght. But in shortthe euros (despite obvious reasons for taking the results with pinches of salt) have told us that we are on target to recover at least 6MPs in the areas targeted. But dont discount a liberal recovery in Scotland; there is 10 months till the next election probably.
But the scale of our topping the polls in Dumfries and Galloway in the euros for example; where we had a rato over the labour party (incumbents) on a 2:1 ratio does tell us that our major problem in the borders does seem to be the eternal liberal threat for that clean sweep. And lets be frank, we need these three border seats to get more than a handful of Scottish tories in the next parliament.
I’m sceptical about the possibility for SNP success here because all these figures that are being bandied were for elections carried out under PR, not FPTP. In the Roxburgh seat at Holyrood the SNP were barely a blip on the radar, and, despite the relatively good showing of the SNP here in a Euro election (but remember they did as well as that in most places in Scotland, and I don’t see the SNP gaining seats in all of those places), I expect that the Nationalist vote in this constituency at the next election will not be enough to pose a significant challenge to either the Lib Dems or Tories.
It is true that the separatists do very well in the Tweedale Ettrick and Lauderdale (TEL) part of the seat at the Scottish Parliament elections, but I think the reasons for this are less to do with the party, constitutional matters, or even the voting system, and more to do with the candidate.
1) Christine Grahame has been standing for this seat since, I believe, 1992, and so has a good solid local profile and has built up a network of support, showing her commitment to the area and its people.
2) Christine’s campaigning style is somewhat unethical but very successful. She is very good at jumping on bandwagons, using local campaigns and groups for her own publicity and going to just about every event in the constituency and (particularly) at Holyrood, making herself known and gaining a reputation (some might say an undeserved one) as a hard working politician.
3) Christine’s press tactics follow a similar direction of that of the BNP down south. Picking up on every tiny nationalistic and flag waving matter she can think of and going for it hell for leather! Whether it be the ‘repatriation’ of Mary Queen of Scots’ body to Scotland, the flying of the Union flag over Edinburgh Castle, the removal of saltires from inside the national library…all the kind of emotive issues that appeal to the lowest common denominator and stoke up those patriotic hormones to blind out comon sense and practicality. It’s classic BNP tactics wrapped in a tartan Saltire! Worked for them, and works for her.
Therefore, with Christine a Holyrood focused politician now, and so out of the picture for General Elections, I doubt the separatist campaign would gain any significant momentum in BRS. It is a disappointing theme in politics, that it is often the personality that people vote for rather than the politics, and I think this can be clearly shown in the personage of Christine Grahame
Tory gain here