Post by MacShimidh on Nov 1, 2020 20:52:38 GMT
Largely cut off from the rest of the city by the M8 and M80 motorways, Glasgow North East has historically been overlooked even by fellow Glaswegians. There are few points of interest here, and those areas that are well-known tend to be known for the wrong reasons. It is a constituency of startlingly high deprivation and social problems, as becomes depressingly obvious when walking around Milton, Possilpark or Springburn. However, for whatever reason, these areas have never accrued the notoriety of, say, Drumchapel or Easterhouse, and have seen comparatively little regeneration, making this seat the second-most deprived in Scotland (only barely behind Glasgow East). The general ignorance towards this seat is encapsulated by the experience of its most famous MP, Michael Martin. Derogatorily nicknamed “Gorbals Mick” by the press, Martin shot back that the Gorbals was far away from his constituency on the other side of the Clyde, and would have been considered a step up from many of the communities in this seat.
This is not to say that the whole constituency is grim. In recent years, Dennistoun has become the yuppie capital of Glasgow, and Robroyston is one of the city’s most pleasant northern suburbs. Furthermore, over the last five years, the seat has made a name for itself because of its rapid metamorphosis from amongst the most blood-red of Labour strongholds into one of the most volatile and swingy seats in the UK. Indeed, the swing from Labour to the SNP in the 2015 general election holds the record for being the largest recorded in the post-war period. In terms of constitutional politics, this was one of the most pro-independence constituencies in 2014, with a Yes vote in the mid-to-high fifties, and in 2016 it had an estimated Remain vote of 59%, a few points lower than the Scottish national average. On the party political level, there are not any particular areas of strength for any party – the SNP and Labour run each other close everywhere, with no other parties getting a look-in.
We begin our tour of this seat in its northwestern-most corner, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal. North of the canal lies an expanse of agricultural ground – among the only such land in Glasgow – but to the south lie the interlinked communities of Lambhill, Milton, Possilpark and Ruchill. Once an industrial powerhouse centred around the Saracen Foundry, these communities are today collectively the most deprived in Glasgow, with a high crime rate and a high incidence of health problems. Unemployment is also remarkably high, Possilpark has the lowest life expectancy of anywhere in the city, and the legacy of a heroin epidemic in the 80s and 90s is still very present in this area. Sadly, this is by some distance modern Glasgow’s worst area, although Ruchill is starting to develop a better reputation among younger people for its cheap rented accommodation and proximity to the West End.
Just to the east lies Springburn, probably the most prominent area in this seat and itself a formerly renowned area for its chemical and locomotive industries. Whilst not quite as deprived as the communities to its west, Springburn has its share of social problems as well, including high unemployment and plenty of derelict land and buildings. Springburn is located right on the county line with East Dunbartonshire, adjacent to leafy Bishopbriggs, and this juxtaposition does it no favours as it makes it look rougher than it is in reality. Springburn rather surprisingly has quite a large black population in what is otherwise an overwhelmingly white part of Glasgow. Stobhill Hospital is located here, and is one of the constituency's largest employers.
Next to Springburn are the twin neighbourhoods of Balornock and Barmulloch. Glasgow North East still has a high concentration of high-rise flats, and it was here that up until 2015 the most infamous yet iconic of the lot could be found – the complex of eight towers at Red Road. The highest inhabitable tower blocks in the city, Red Road was briefly the highest scheme in Europe and upon their opening in 1966 generated a wave of optimism as they replaced the slums of Glasgow. However, within just two decades, they had acquired an awful reputation for crime and dreadful living conditions. By the time of their demolition, they stood as little more than a reminder of Glasgow’s post-war housing policy failures. It was absolutely the right decision for these flats to demolished, but it must be said that this part of Glasgow feels even more desolate and empty now that they are gone.
Heading south, past the rather hollowed-out communities of Sighthill, Roystonhill and Germiston, the constituency changes quite noticeably in character as we enter Dennistoun. Significantly younger and more diverse than the rest of the constituency, Dennistoun is essentially an eastern part of the city centre and thus the only part of the seat that has undergone any significant gentrification. Indeed, walking down Duke Street with its trendy bars and cafes, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were in the West End rather than the East. This transformation from a working-class area into yuppie central is quite recent, but it has been very rapid and Dennistoun has become renowned as one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world according to one write-up.
To the east, we come back the grittier side of the constituency as we pass through Haghill and Riddrie. We are now deep inside Glasgow’s East End, in the shadow of Barlinnie Prison, the largest and probably most notorious in Scotland. Further northeast, lying between Blackhill and Provanmill, are the massive Provan Gas Works, an iconic sight when driving into Glasgow from Edinburgh or the north. Going northeast further still, we come to the pleasant Hogganfield Loch and Ruchazie, a small community which is essentially part of Easterhouse and is best known for its role in the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars of the 1980s. This whole section of the seat is probably its most deprived after Possilpark and the surrounding areas.
Travelling north, we end our tour of this seat in Robroyston, easily the most affluent part of this seat. There is not much to Robroyston – it is a fairly nondescript suburb – but it does have historical significance in that it was the site of William Wallace’s capture in 1305 before he was sent to Westminster to be executed. Wallace’s name still lives on in this area as it is sometimes known as Wallacewell and there is a monument to him here as well. Finally, in the seat’s northeastern extremity, we come across the odd community of Millerston, of which only a small part is within the Glasgow city boundaries, the rest being within North Lanarkshire.
Even before its more recent swinginess, Glasgow North East had an interesting political backstory. Upon its creation in 2005, it was won by the Speaker seeking re-election, Michael Martin. Martin was a big beast of Scottish Labour, having first been elected to Glasgow Springburn in 1979. A social conservative on Labour’s right flank, Martin was elected Speaker in 2000, becoming the first Catholic Speaker since the Reformation, and one of the few (possibly the only?) from a working-class background. Going from a sheet metal worker to Speaker of the House was a huge personal triumph, but his speakership was a turbulent one, and he was ultimately forced to resign in 2009 by his perceived lethargic response to the expenses scandal. Martin died in 2018, and is widely seen as having been a poor speaker, although Labour’s arch-unionist Tam Dalyell has written an interesting counterpoint.
Upon Martin’s resignation, a by-election was called for November 2009. Coming just a year after their sensational victory in Glasgow East, the SNP had high hopes of snagging a second Glasgow seat. In the event, the by-election proved to be a dull affair, with the Labour and Co-operative candidate, Willie Bain, securing nearly 60% and the SNP a very distant second. Indeed, the by-election was more notable for having a pathetically low turnout of 33%, and for being the first political outing of one Ruth Davidson. As for Bain, he was a Springburn boy done good, having become a law lecturer at the University of Strathclyde. One of the more competent figures of Scottish Labour’s twilight years, he was seen as something of a rising star, and this reputation and his seat’s long Labour pedigree meant that even as the 2015 Labour apocalypse loomed, few expected him to lose his seat. In the event, he lost with a huge swing of 39% to the SNP, in what was both the biggest shock of the night and the perfect summation of Scottish Labour’s fate.
Bain’s vanquisher was Anne McLaughlin, a perennial SNP candidate who had briefly served as an MSP on the Glasgow regional list. McLaughlin quite justifiably took great pleasure in calling herself the biggest swinger in Scottish history, but rather ironically, she herself was brought down by an impressive swing of nearly 13% just two years later. Replacing her was Paul Sweeney, a young and well-credentialed Labour and Co-operative candidate. Despite his potential, Sweeney himself lost the seat two years later on a less crazy swing of only 4%, and McLaughlin took back her old seat for the SNP.
Why did Labour briefly regain this seat in 2017? Firstly, this is simply a seat where people like the Labour Party, and even the SNP landslide wasn’t enough to erase that. This remains Labour’s strongest seat in Glasgow, and even in 2015 they didn’t slip below 33%. Secondly, this has been identified as the most left-wing seat in the UK, and as a result Corbyn and his platform would have played well here. Many left-wing nationalists briefly abandoned the SNP in favour of what they saw as a resurgence of the “real” Labour Party. Thirdly, Sweeney ran a brilliant local campaign, and he took the SNP by surprise as they thought they had buried Labour. Of course, by 2019 the latter two of these factors had melted away – Corbyn’s popularity had cratered, and the SNP had learnt the right lessons from 2017. This seat is now #39 on Labour’s target list, and it is hard to see them becoming a serious Scottish party – or for that matter, winning a majority – without taking it back. It is, put simply, a must-win for the party.
This is not to say that the whole constituency is grim. In recent years, Dennistoun has become the yuppie capital of Glasgow, and Robroyston is one of the city’s most pleasant northern suburbs. Furthermore, over the last five years, the seat has made a name for itself because of its rapid metamorphosis from amongst the most blood-red of Labour strongholds into one of the most volatile and swingy seats in the UK. Indeed, the swing from Labour to the SNP in the 2015 general election holds the record for being the largest recorded in the post-war period. In terms of constitutional politics, this was one of the most pro-independence constituencies in 2014, with a Yes vote in the mid-to-high fifties, and in 2016 it had an estimated Remain vote of 59%, a few points lower than the Scottish national average. On the party political level, there are not any particular areas of strength for any party – the SNP and Labour run each other close everywhere, with no other parties getting a look-in.
We begin our tour of this seat in its northwestern-most corner, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal. North of the canal lies an expanse of agricultural ground – among the only such land in Glasgow – but to the south lie the interlinked communities of Lambhill, Milton, Possilpark and Ruchill. Once an industrial powerhouse centred around the Saracen Foundry, these communities are today collectively the most deprived in Glasgow, with a high crime rate and a high incidence of health problems. Unemployment is also remarkably high, Possilpark has the lowest life expectancy of anywhere in the city, and the legacy of a heroin epidemic in the 80s and 90s is still very present in this area. Sadly, this is by some distance modern Glasgow’s worst area, although Ruchill is starting to develop a better reputation among younger people for its cheap rented accommodation and proximity to the West End.
Just to the east lies Springburn, probably the most prominent area in this seat and itself a formerly renowned area for its chemical and locomotive industries. Whilst not quite as deprived as the communities to its west, Springburn has its share of social problems as well, including high unemployment and plenty of derelict land and buildings. Springburn is located right on the county line with East Dunbartonshire, adjacent to leafy Bishopbriggs, and this juxtaposition does it no favours as it makes it look rougher than it is in reality. Springburn rather surprisingly has quite a large black population in what is otherwise an overwhelmingly white part of Glasgow. Stobhill Hospital is located here, and is one of the constituency's largest employers.
Next to Springburn are the twin neighbourhoods of Balornock and Barmulloch. Glasgow North East still has a high concentration of high-rise flats, and it was here that up until 2015 the most infamous yet iconic of the lot could be found – the complex of eight towers at Red Road. The highest inhabitable tower blocks in the city, Red Road was briefly the highest scheme in Europe and upon their opening in 1966 generated a wave of optimism as they replaced the slums of Glasgow. However, within just two decades, they had acquired an awful reputation for crime and dreadful living conditions. By the time of their demolition, they stood as little more than a reminder of Glasgow’s post-war housing policy failures. It was absolutely the right decision for these flats to demolished, but it must be said that this part of Glasgow feels even more desolate and empty now that they are gone.
Heading south, past the rather hollowed-out communities of Sighthill, Roystonhill and Germiston, the constituency changes quite noticeably in character as we enter Dennistoun. Significantly younger and more diverse than the rest of the constituency, Dennistoun is essentially an eastern part of the city centre and thus the only part of the seat that has undergone any significant gentrification. Indeed, walking down Duke Street with its trendy bars and cafes, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were in the West End rather than the East. This transformation from a working-class area into yuppie central is quite recent, but it has been very rapid and Dennistoun has become renowned as one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world according to one write-up.
To the east, we come back the grittier side of the constituency as we pass through Haghill and Riddrie. We are now deep inside Glasgow’s East End, in the shadow of Barlinnie Prison, the largest and probably most notorious in Scotland. Further northeast, lying between Blackhill and Provanmill, are the massive Provan Gas Works, an iconic sight when driving into Glasgow from Edinburgh or the north. Going northeast further still, we come to the pleasant Hogganfield Loch and Ruchazie, a small community which is essentially part of Easterhouse and is best known for its role in the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars of the 1980s. This whole section of the seat is probably its most deprived after Possilpark and the surrounding areas.
Travelling north, we end our tour of this seat in Robroyston, easily the most affluent part of this seat. There is not much to Robroyston – it is a fairly nondescript suburb – but it does have historical significance in that it was the site of William Wallace’s capture in 1305 before he was sent to Westminster to be executed. Wallace’s name still lives on in this area as it is sometimes known as Wallacewell and there is a monument to him here as well. Finally, in the seat’s northeastern extremity, we come across the odd community of Millerston, of which only a small part is within the Glasgow city boundaries, the rest being within North Lanarkshire.
Even before its more recent swinginess, Glasgow North East had an interesting political backstory. Upon its creation in 2005, it was won by the Speaker seeking re-election, Michael Martin. Martin was a big beast of Scottish Labour, having first been elected to Glasgow Springburn in 1979. A social conservative on Labour’s right flank, Martin was elected Speaker in 2000, becoming the first Catholic Speaker since the Reformation, and one of the few (possibly the only?) from a working-class background. Going from a sheet metal worker to Speaker of the House was a huge personal triumph, but his speakership was a turbulent one, and he was ultimately forced to resign in 2009 by his perceived lethargic response to the expenses scandal. Martin died in 2018, and is widely seen as having been a poor speaker, although Labour’s arch-unionist Tam Dalyell has written an interesting counterpoint.
Upon Martin’s resignation, a by-election was called for November 2009. Coming just a year after their sensational victory in Glasgow East, the SNP had high hopes of snagging a second Glasgow seat. In the event, the by-election proved to be a dull affair, with the Labour and Co-operative candidate, Willie Bain, securing nearly 60% and the SNP a very distant second. Indeed, the by-election was more notable for having a pathetically low turnout of 33%, and for being the first political outing of one Ruth Davidson. As for Bain, he was a Springburn boy done good, having become a law lecturer at the University of Strathclyde. One of the more competent figures of Scottish Labour’s twilight years, he was seen as something of a rising star, and this reputation and his seat’s long Labour pedigree meant that even as the 2015 Labour apocalypse loomed, few expected him to lose his seat. In the event, he lost with a huge swing of 39% to the SNP, in what was both the biggest shock of the night and the perfect summation of Scottish Labour’s fate.
Bain’s vanquisher was Anne McLaughlin, a perennial SNP candidate who had briefly served as an MSP on the Glasgow regional list. McLaughlin quite justifiably took great pleasure in calling herself the biggest swinger in Scottish history, but rather ironically, she herself was brought down by an impressive swing of nearly 13% just two years later. Replacing her was Paul Sweeney, a young and well-credentialed Labour and Co-operative candidate. Despite his potential, Sweeney himself lost the seat two years later on a less crazy swing of only 4%, and McLaughlin took back her old seat for the SNP.
Why did Labour briefly regain this seat in 2017? Firstly, this is simply a seat where people like the Labour Party, and even the SNP landslide wasn’t enough to erase that. This remains Labour’s strongest seat in Glasgow, and even in 2015 they didn’t slip below 33%. Secondly, this has been identified as the most left-wing seat in the UK, and as a result Corbyn and his platform would have played well here. Many left-wing nationalists briefly abandoned the SNP in favour of what they saw as a resurgence of the “real” Labour Party. Thirdly, Sweeney ran a brilliant local campaign, and he took the SNP by surprise as they thought they had buried Labour. Of course, by 2019 the latter two of these factors had melted away – Corbyn’s popularity had cratered, and the SNP had learnt the right lessons from 2017. This seat is now #39 on Labour’s target list, and it is hard to see them becoming a serious Scottish party – or for that matter, winning a majority – without taking it back. It is, put simply, a must-win for the party.
