Scottish Constituency Target Seats

Party target seats » Con Lib Dem SNP 1 Eastwood - Read 2 Aberdeen South - Read 3 Edinburgh Pentlands - Read 4 Ayr - Read 5 Stirling - Read 6 Inverness East - Read 7 Dumfries - Read 8 Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine - Read 9 Tweeddale, Ettrick and Laud - Read 10 Edinburgh West - Read 11 Gordon - Read 12 Perth - Read 13 Tayside North - Read 14 Galloway and Upper Nithsdale - Read 15 Moray - Read 16 Glasgow Govan - Read

Party seats pre-Election 2001 Party target seats » Con Lib Dem SNP 17 Ochil - Read 18 Kilmarnock and Loudoun - Read

The 1997 General Election in Scotland was a disaster for the Conservative Party. Opposing devolution and deeply unpopular in the nation, the party lost all of its 11 seats. More importantly, the Conservative Party's share of the Scottish vote dropped below that of the Scottish National Party, effectively challenging the position of the Conservatives as the main opposition party to Labour. In terms of votes, the main beneficiary of the Conservatives' demise was the Labour Party, increasing their vote share from under 40% in 1992 to over 45% in 1997. In terms of seats, the Labour Party made six gains from the Conservatives and one from the Liberal Democrats, taking their total to 56. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats gained one seat overall taking their total to 10 while the SNP took two seats from the Conservatives to increase their seat share to six.

Much has happened in Scottish politics since 1997, most notably a referendum in favour of devolution and the creation of a Scottish Parliament and Executive. Following the outcome of the referendum, the Conservatives have accepted devolution and have been trying to reclaim lost ground. Although multi-faceted, their strategy has been populist in character and includes a volte-face of position on some of their least popular policies such as university tuition fees, and a hardening of position on high-profile populist issues such as asylum seekers, family values, Europe and law and order. This populist approach has been developing in response to perceived Labour Party weaknesses at Westminster as well as perceived Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition weaknesses in the Scottish Executive. Devolution for Scotland may have created an additional layer of governance for Labour to prove itself, but the down-side of this is that parties such as the Conservatives and the SNP now have an additional layer of governance at which they can level criticism. In short, the new multi-layered system has created a situation in which criticisms and disillusionment with a party in power can be magnified. The next general election will be interesting from this point of view because we have no prior experience of the potential impact of magnification.

Consequently, any analysis of the results of the 1999 Scottish Parliament Elections has to be treated cautiously. Prior to the elections the public could only base their judgement of Labour on the performance of the Westminster Government. In terms of Scotland, performance was most evident on constitutional issues. In particular, Scotland had voted for devolution and the main party to thank on this front was Labour. Emerging unease over mismatches between promises and delivery on key policy areas such as health and education was largely inconsequential in the case of Scotland because these were the very issues that the Scottish Parliament would now be able to address itself. In short, things could get better post-devolution. With the exception of a few marginal seats such as Ayr and Eastwood, the Conservatives posed no real threat to Labour in the Scottish Parliament Elections. Opinion polls showed little evidence of a Conservative revival and support wavered between 10 and 15%. According to the polls the main threat for the Labour Party in Scotland was the SNP. Indeed, on several occasions in the year prior to the 1999 elections the SNP appeared neck and neck with Labour at around 40% support. The Labour Party has been somewhat surprised and concerned over the level of support that devolution has created for the SNP, and at the Holyrood level at least, the SNP look capable of taking numerous key seats in the future.

In the event, little changed at the constituency level during the 1999 Scottish Parliament Elections. Labour managed to hold onto seats such as Ayr, Eastwood, and Govan and only two seats exchanged par

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