Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey
Dec 12, 2023 21:55:03 GMT
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Post by ntyuk1707 on Dec 12, 2023 21:55:03 GMT
Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey is a county constituency covering the historic counties of Moray and Nairn in northern Scotland, in addition to eastern parts of Inverness-shire and western parts of Banff-shire.
In 1975 these counties were amalgamated into Moray Council and Highland Council. Six wards of this seat come from the Moray Council area with the remaining three belonging to Highland Council.
Running across the south and east of this constituency and across both Council areas is the River Spey, which runs from Loch Spey in the Highland Council area to the North Sea on the north coast of Moray. The 'Speyside' region is reputed for its so-named single malt whisky and the area is home to the two best-selling single malt whiskies in the world: the Glenlivet and Glenfiddich.
Speyside has the most whisky-producing areas of Scotland. A stretch of the region from Laggan up to Grantown-on-Spey, within the Highland Council ward of 'Badenoch & Strathspey', is also part of the Cairngorms National Park. The landscape here is heavily wooded, with the flat plains of Speyside giving way to the Cairngorm Mountains which separate the region from Royal Deeside in Aberdeenshire. At the heart of the area is Aviemore, a tourist hub and popular ski resort.
Heading downstream along the Spey and north-east into Moray, whisky distilleries become more numerous, particularly around Dufftown which has six working distilleries and an annual capacity of 40.4 million litres of spirit.
Speyside as a whole is a fairly prosperous rural region. But despite there being strong economic and geographic similarities across the Highland and Moray sides of the area, political differences have persisted over the years.
The Badenoch & Strathspey ward of Highland Council was once a Liberal Democrat-leaning area, having helped to return Danny Alexander as the MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey in the 2005 and 2010 general elections. At the 2007 local election, Lib Dem Councillor Stuart Black beat the SNP on 31% of the vote compared to 24% of the vote for SNP Councillor David Fallows. Since 2011 however, the SNP have surpassed the Liberal Democrats in the ward, and since 2017 the Conservatives have been the central challengers to the SNP in this part of the Highlands, performing strongly in the Grantown-on-Spey area in contrast to a stronger SNP vote in Aviemore.
Speyside Glenlivet ward in Moray Council covers a majority of Moray Council's total land area and brewing towns such as Dufftown, Rothes and Charlestown of Aberlour. This ward was one of the safest SNP wards in Scotland, with the party winning over 50% of the vote in the ward despite a strong Independent showing at the 2007 and 2012 local elections. The Conservatives had a modest presence in the region, which has grown in recent years. At the 2022 local election, the SNP won 36.8% of the vote and the Conservatives took 33.8%.
At the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Speyside Glenlivet and Badenoch & Strathspey wards were both estimated to have rejected Scottish independence with a 57% No vote.
Towards the mouth of the River Spey is the 'Laich of Moray' area, a more populous flat agricultural plain spanning from Fochabers in the east to Brodie on the edge of Moray in the west. At the heart of this region is the self-proclaimed city of Elgin.
Elgin is the largest settlement in the constituency and is home to just under 25% of the total electorate. The 'city' is best known for its historic Cathedral established in 1224, which was later abandoned following the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Elgin includes a patchwork of owner-occupied bungalows and former council estates, accompanied by many newly built developments on the periphery. Despite Moray having been a marginal seat at Westminster, contested between the SNP and Conservatives since the SNP's breakthrough in the area in the 1970s, Elgin has flirted with voting Labour. At the 2003 local election, the Labour Party won four out of six wards here. At the most recent 2022 local election, the 'city' voted 34% SNP, 28% Labour and 26% Conservative, with the Conservatives topping the poll in more affluent areas to the west of Elgin and the SNP performing stronger in former council estates in southern and eastern Elgin. The residual Labour vote in Elgin allowed the Labour Party to poll a historic second place in the Moray constituency at the 2005 general election on 25% of the vote to Angus Roberton's 30% of the vote, coming just 1,744 votes behind the former SNP MP. At the 2014 independence referendum, Elgin voted approximately 60% against Scottish independence.
East of Elgin, the Fochabers Lhanbryde ward includes several villages and steadings such as the dormitory village of Lhanbryde, the distilling village of Fogwatt and the coastal village of Kingston. The social profile of this area is broadly quite affluent and in line with other parts of the constituency. Only the western side of the ward from the River Spey to Elgin joins this new constituency, and at the 2022 local election, this area was evenly split between the Conservatives polling ahead in Fogwatt and Mosstodloch in contrast to a higher SNP vote in Lhanbryde. The full ward voted 43% SNP to 40% Conservative at the 2022 local election and is estimated to have rejected Scottish independence in 2014 on a 57% No vote. Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross represented this area on Moray Council from 2007-2017 and he has since represented the Moray constituency at Westminster since 2017 but is set to stand down at the next election.
North of Elgin is the ex-fishing town of Lossiemouth. The town is home to RAF Lossiemouth, which employs over 3,000 civilians and military personnel. As might be expected, the combined tradition of fishing and ties to the Royal Airforce have helped to define the town's political landscape as a stronger area for the Scottish Conservatives, particularly after it voted against Scottish independence in 2014 and in favour of Brexit in 2016. At the 2022 local election, polling districts covering Lossiemouth voted 40% Conservative to 29% SNP.
West of Lossiemouth, the more remote communities of Burghead, Hopeman and Kinlass on the North Sea coastline and interior villages of Moor of Ganary, Dyke, Carnach, Alves and Pluscarden are good areas for the Conservatives, with the party leading the SNP by over 10% of the vote at the 2022 local elections. Findhorn is a former fishing village north of Forres which since the 1990s has become the home of an 'ecovillage' which has shaped the politics of the village, to the extent that the Scottish Greens managed to poll first in Findhorn polling district in 2022 with 33% of the vote to 28% for the SNP and 26% for the Conservatives, helping to contribute to the election of a Scottish Green Councillor in the wider four-member ward of Forres. The town of Forres itself has a sizeable population of just under 10,000, making it the third most populous settlement of this constituency. The social profile of the town is mixed, with more affluent areas to the east of the town being stronger for the Conservatives in contrast to a stronger vote for the SNP in the west of the town. At the 2022 local election, the Conservatives took 41% of the vote in Forres to 37% for the SNP.
My notional estimates from the 2014 Scottish independence referendum suggest that the Heldon & Laich ward, covering Lossiemouth, Burghead, Hopeman and rural communities further inland, voted 65% against independence whilst Forres ward, covering Forres, Findhorn, Kinlass and surrounding rural areas, had a 58% No vote, mostly concentrated in villages outside of Findhorn and Forres proper.
The final section of this constituency is located within the Highland Council area. It includes the seaside town of Nairn which was an ancient fishing port and market town, its nearby villages, and the villages of Inshes, Westhill, Cradlehall, Culloden and Balloch, which effectively operate as suburbs of the city of Inverness to the west of this constituency. Despite these areas forming part of the Highland Council area, the bulk of electors live in urban communities in the town of Nairn or on the periphery of the Inverness urban area.
Up until 1975, Nairnshire was a county in its own right. In local government, this area has intermittently supported SNP and Independent candidates since the 1990s, with a Conservative presence having recently re-emerged particularly in the rural elements of Nairnshire particularly. The ward shares a similar demography to Forres, having a mixture of affluent and deprived neighbourhoods in the town and more affluent rural communities in the remainder of the ward. The town of Nairn itself is the second-largest settlement in the constituency after Elgin with over 10,000 inhabitants. Culloden and Ardersier ward contains the more deprived village of Ardersier north of Inverness Airport near Fort George, and predominantly suburban residential areas in eastern Inverness. Culloden is the site where the Jacobite rebels faced a decisive defeat against the Government of Great Britain in 1745. However, despite the history of Culloden as the site where the Jacobite rebelts were defeated by the British Government, the ward itself had the SNP comfortably ahead on 37% of the vote in 2022 to 18% for the Conservatives.
It is estimated that Nairn & Cawdor ward voted 53% No to Scottish independence in 2014, contrasting a 51% Yes vote in Culloden & Ardersier ward.
Overall, this consistency has a unique demography which straddles across several distinct geographic regions. The Conservatives, Labour Party and SNP each enjoy strength in the City of Elgin, whilst in the rural communities of Strathspey and the 'Laich of Moray' from Forres to Lhanbryde there is a stronger Conservative element, contrasting the fairly urban Nairn, Culloden and Ardersier area where there was a more decisive SNP lead at last year's local elections.
At the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, this constituency is estimated to have voted 57% No to independence, slightly less than the Moray Council area. At the 2019 UK General Election, Douglas Ross of the Scottish Conservatives was returned as MP for Moray constituency with a 513 vote majority ahead of the SNP's Laura Mitchell. The Conservatives won 45% of the vote to the SNP's 44%, Labour and the Lib Dems on 5% each and UKIP on under 1% of the vote. It should be noted the newly established 'Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey' constituency would have voted SNP in 2019 through the addition of Nairnshire, Culloden and Ardersier, but nonetheless returned a marginal result at that election.
The collapse of the SNP in Scotland and a difficult set of electoral circumstances for the Conservatives in the UK makes marks this seat as one of the most marginal and unpredictable in the whole of Scotland, and one of very few seats which the Conservatives could feasibly gain from another party based on current polling.
In 1975 these counties were amalgamated into Moray Council and Highland Council. Six wards of this seat come from the Moray Council area with the remaining three belonging to Highland Council.
Running across the south and east of this constituency and across both Council areas is the River Spey, which runs from Loch Spey in the Highland Council area to the North Sea on the north coast of Moray. The 'Speyside' region is reputed for its so-named single malt whisky and the area is home to the two best-selling single malt whiskies in the world: the Glenlivet and Glenfiddich.
Speyside has the most whisky-producing areas of Scotland. A stretch of the region from Laggan up to Grantown-on-Spey, within the Highland Council ward of 'Badenoch & Strathspey', is also part of the Cairngorms National Park. The landscape here is heavily wooded, with the flat plains of Speyside giving way to the Cairngorm Mountains which separate the region from Royal Deeside in Aberdeenshire. At the heart of the area is Aviemore, a tourist hub and popular ski resort.
Heading downstream along the Spey and north-east into Moray, whisky distilleries become more numerous, particularly around Dufftown which has six working distilleries and an annual capacity of 40.4 million litres of spirit.
Speyside as a whole is a fairly prosperous rural region. But despite there being strong economic and geographic similarities across the Highland and Moray sides of the area, political differences have persisted over the years.
The Badenoch & Strathspey ward of Highland Council was once a Liberal Democrat-leaning area, having helped to return Danny Alexander as the MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey in the 2005 and 2010 general elections. At the 2007 local election, Lib Dem Councillor Stuart Black beat the SNP on 31% of the vote compared to 24% of the vote for SNP Councillor David Fallows. Since 2011 however, the SNP have surpassed the Liberal Democrats in the ward, and since 2017 the Conservatives have been the central challengers to the SNP in this part of the Highlands, performing strongly in the Grantown-on-Spey area in contrast to a stronger SNP vote in Aviemore.
Speyside Glenlivet ward in Moray Council covers a majority of Moray Council's total land area and brewing towns such as Dufftown, Rothes and Charlestown of Aberlour. This ward was one of the safest SNP wards in Scotland, with the party winning over 50% of the vote in the ward despite a strong Independent showing at the 2007 and 2012 local elections. The Conservatives had a modest presence in the region, which has grown in recent years. At the 2022 local election, the SNP won 36.8% of the vote and the Conservatives took 33.8%.
At the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Speyside Glenlivet and Badenoch & Strathspey wards were both estimated to have rejected Scottish independence with a 57% No vote.
Towards the mouth of the River Spey is the 'Laich of Moray' area, a more populous flat agricultural plain spanning from Fochabers in the east to Brodie on the edge of Moray in the west. At the heart of this region is the self-proclaimed city of Elgin.
Elgin is the largest settlement in the constituency and is home to just under 25% of the total electorate. The 'city' is best known for its historic Cathedral established in 1224, which was later abandoned following the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Elgin includes a patchwork of owner-occupied bungalows and former council estates, accompanied by many newly built developments on the periphery. Despite Moray having been a marginal seat at Westminster, contested between the SNP and Conservatives since the SNP's breakthrough in the area in the 1970s, Elgin has flirted with voting Labour. At the 2003 local election, the Labour Party won four out of six wards here. At the most recent 2022 local election, the 'city' voted 34% SNP, 28% Labour and 26% Conservative, with the Conservatives topping the poll in more affluent areas to the west of Elgin and the SNP performing stronger in former council estates in southern and eastern Elgin. The residual Labour vote in Elgin allowed the Labour Party to poll a historic second place in the Moray constituency at the 2005 general election on 25% of the vote to Angus Roberton's 30% of the vote, coming just 1,744 votes behind the former SNP MP. At the 2014 independence referendum, Elgin voted approximately 60% against Scottish independence.
East of Elgin, the Fochabers Lhanbryde ward includes several villages and steadings such as the dormitory village of Lhanbryde, the distilling village of Fogwatt and the coastal village of Kingston. The social profile of this area is broadly quite affluent and in line with other parts of the constituency. Only the western side of the ward from the River Spey to Elgin joins this new constituency, and at the 2022 local election, this area was evenly split between the Conservatives polling ahead in Fogwatt and Mosstodloch in contrast to a higher SNP vote in Lhanbryde. The full ward voted 43% SNP to 40% Conservative at the 2022 local election and is estimated to have rejected Scottish independence in 2014 on a 57% No vote. Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross represented this area on Moray Council from 2007-2017 and he has since represented the Moray constituency at Westminster since 2017 but is set to stand down at the next election.
North of Elgin is the ex-fishing town of Lossiemouth. The town is home to RAF Lossiemouth, which employs over 3,000 civilians and military personnel. As might be expected, the combined tradition of fishing and ties to the Royal Airforce have helped to define the town's political landscape as a stronger area for the Scottish Conservatives, particularly after it voted against Scottish independence in 2014 and in favour of Brexit in 2016. At the 2022 local election, polling districts covering Lossiemouth voted 40% Conservative to 29% SNP.
West of Lossiemouth, the more remote communities of Burghead, Hopeman and Kinlass on the North Sea coastline and interior villages of Moor of Ganary, Dyke, Carnach, Alves and Pluscarden are good areas for the Conservatives, with the party leading the SNP by over 10% of the vote at the 2022 local elections. Findhorn is a former fishing village north of Forres which since the 1990s has become the home of an 'ecovillage' which has shaped the politics of the village, to the extent that the Scottish Greens managed to poll first in Findhorn polling district in 2022 with 33% of the vote to 28% for the SNP and 26% for the Conservatives, helping to contribute to the election of a Scottish Green Councillor in the wider four-member ward of Forres. The town of Forres itself has a sizeable population of just under 10,000, making it the third most populous settlement of this constituency. The social profile of the town is mixed, with more affluent areas to the east of the town being stronger for the Conservatives in contrast to a stronger vote for the SNP in the west of the town. At the 2022 local election, the Conservatives took 41% of the vote in Forres to 37% for the SNP.
My notional estimates from the 2014 Scottish independence referendum suggest that the Heldon & Laich ward, covering Lossiemouth, Burghead, Hopeman and rural communities further inland, voted 65% against independence whilst Forres ward, covering Forres, Findhorn, Kinlass and surrounding rural areas, had a 58% No vote, mostly concentrated in villages outside of Findhorn and Forres proper.
The final section of this constituency is located within the Highland Council area. It includes the seaside town of Nairn which was an ancient fishing port and market town, its nearby villages, and the villages of Inshes, Westhill, Cradlehall, Culloden and Balloch, which effectively operate as suburbs of the city of Inverness to the west of this constituency. Despite these areas forming part of the Highland Council area, the bulk of electors live in urban communities in the town of Nairn or on the periphery of the Inverness urban area.
Up until 1975, Nairnshire was a county in its own right. In local government, this area has intermittently supported SNP and Independent candidates since the 1990s, with a Conservative presence having recently re-emerged particularly in the rural elements of Nairnshire particularly. The ward shares a similar demography to Forres, having a mixture of affluent and deprived neighbourhoods in the town and more affluent rural communities in the remainder of the ward. The town of Nairn itself is the second-largest settlement in the constituency after Elgin with over 10,000 inhabitants. Culloden and Ardersier ward contains the more deprived village of Ardersier north of Inverness Airport near Fort George, and predominantly suburban residential areas in eastern Inverness. Culloden is the site where the Jacobite rebels faced a decisive defeat against the Government of Great Britain in 1745. However, despite the history of Culloden as the site where the Jacobite rebelts were defeated by the British Government, the ward itself had the SNP comfortably ahead on 37% of the vote in 2022 to 18% for the Conservatives.
It is estimated that Nairn & Cawdor ward voted 53% No to Scottish independence in 2014, contrasting a 51% Yes vote in Culloden & Ardersier ward.
Overall, this consistency has a unique demography which straddles across several distinct geographic regions. The Conservatives, Labour Party and SNP each enjoy strength in the City of Elgin, whilst in the rural communities of Strathspey and the 'Laich of Moray' from Forres to Lhanbryde there is a stronger Conservative element, contrasting the fairly urban Nairn, Culloden and Ardersier area where there was a more decisive SNP lead at last year's local elections.
At the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, this constituency is estimated to have voted 57% No to independence, slightly less than the Moray Council area. At the 2019 UK General Election, Douglas Ross of the Scottish Conservatives was returned as MP for Moray constituency with a 513 vote majority ahead of the SNP's Laura Mitchell. The Conservatives won 45% of the vote to the SNP's 44%, Labour and the Lib Dems on 5% each and UKIP on under 1% of the vote. It should be noted the newly established 'Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey' constituency would have voted SNP in 2019 through the addition of Nairnshire, Culloden and Ardersier, but nonetheless returned a marginal result at that election.
The collapse of the SNP in Scotland and a difficult set of electoral circumstances for the Conservatives in the UK makes marks this seat as one of the most marginal and unpredictable in the whole of Scotland, and one of very few seats which the Conservatives could feasibly gain from another party based on current polling.
