Edinburgh South

[john07]

This is my first attempt at a profile.

Edinburgh South is a constituency with some stark contrasts. It includes the grandeur of Grange with large detached houses, upmarket tenements in the likes of Marchmont and Morningside, areas mixing large detached villas and tenements such as Merchiston. There are also swathes of bungalows combined with modern semi-detached housing in Fairmilehead and very mixed areas such as Newington.

Edinburgh South also includes some very different areas to the south-east of the city. Those who have watched the adaptions of the Rebus novels on television will be familiar with some of the grim council house estates including the likes of Alnwickhill, Gilmerton. Kaimes and Moredun.
The Constituency was for many years a solid Conservative seat. The seat was gained from the Liberals in the 1918 General Election by a Unionist. This Unionist win was repeated at every election until 1987 although the nomenclature was changed to Conservative from 1966. Labour made little headway despite the construction of council housing although Gordon Brown came within two and a half thousand votes of winning in 1979. Labour even slipped to third place in 1983 due to an SDP surge.

Labour finally won the seat in 1987 with Nigel Griffiths coming through from third to win the seat by under 2,000 votes. Griffiths increased his majority to over 4,000 in 1992 and nearly 11,500 in 1997. A Liberal Democratic revival cut the majority to 405 in 2005. Griffiths got somewhat embroiled in the expenses scandal and stood down in 2010. Griffiths's stance as a EU leaver will not have gone down well in a constituency which voted remain by 77.8%. Ian Murray replaced him and held on by 316 votes over the Lib Dem candidate Fred Mackintosh.

The coalition Government scuppered any chance for the Lib Dems and the SNP now emerged as the challengers without making much headway. Murray built up his wafer-thin majority to 2,500 in 2015 and then up to 15,514 in 2015 and 11,095 in 2017. The Lib Dem vote share dropped from 34% in 2010 to 3.7% in 2015!

The seat has displayed a lot of volatility since 1987 apart from Labour winning every election. The Conservatives were supplanted by the Lib Dems from 2001. Then the SNP took over the challenge from 2015.

I suspect that demographic change accounted for the Labour vote increase from 1987. Morningside, for example, was heavily populated by elderly ‘Morningside Ladies’ as eponymized by Mrs McKitty in the Maisie Comes to Morningside childrens’ book series by Aileen Paterson. They would never miss a concert at the Usher Hall and every tenement would have a piano in the main room. And they voted solidly Conservative. The loss of the seat by the Conservatives was not so much down to abandonment by the voters but through their majority dying off. As the Morningside Ladies went, they were replaced by young professionals, NHS employees, and students. These trends were repeated in other areas.

In local elections, Wards such as Merchiston, North Morningside & Grange, Marchmont, Newington and Sciennes were electing Lib Dem Councillors. Subsequently the Green Party came into contention. The change to STV from the 2007 local elections makes it more difficult to track vote changes and the divisions often span more than one Constituency.

I suspect that the SNP surge from 2010 has pushed many who vote Conservative, Lib Dem and Green at local level into backing Labour at Westminster elections. This tactical voting is likely to continue as long as the SNP are seen to be a threat. While Labour were initially elected in Edinburgh South from the votes in the estates, I suspect that those areas have shifted more to the SNP while Labour, in Parliamentary elections at least, is gaining more votes in the middle class areas.

[Deleted]

The Morningside accent was of course made famous by Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

[The Bishop]

It is likely that Murray only won in 2015 because the SNP candidate rather spectacularly self-destructed, this should perhaps be mentioned.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

That helped, but "only won because" is a bit of a stretch. The demographics of this constituency do make it relatively resistant to the SNP.

[Andrew_S]

I had no idea Nigel Griffiths was a Leave supporter.

[heslingtonian]

It is somewhat remarkable that Morningside is about the strongest location for Scottish Labour these days.

[john07]

Feb 16, 2021 9:07:50 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

The Morningside accent was of course made famous by Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was set in James Gillespie's School which was in the Bruntsfield/Marchmont area rather than Morningside. Spark herself was born in Bruntsfield and attended James Gillespie and Heriot-Watt College.

Gillesie's School seema to win a lot of awards for best state school in Scotland. I cannot see why from my experience. My eldest daughter attended there in the early to mid-1990s and we felt, at the time, that it was a bloody awful school with smugness in every pore. They got good results largely through their favourable catchment area.

[john07]

Feb 16, 2021 13:10:00 GMT The Bishop said:

It is likely that Murray only won in 2015 because the SNP candidate rather spectacularly self-destructed, this should perhaps be mentioned.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. The case was hardly high profile. I didn't notice it at the time.

Those in the political bubble overestimate how much the electorate know or even care about such incidents. The SNP gained a considerable number of votes up from 3,354 in 2010 to 16,656 in 2015.

[timrollpickering]

Feb 16, 2021 13:24:58 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

That helped, but "only won because" is a bit of a stretch. The demographics of this constituency do make it relatively resistant to the SNP.

Also having been a close marginal in the previous two elections suggests that the Labour machine was in a better condition here than in the average Scottish held seat.

Feb 16, 2021 13:34:31 GMT Andrew_S said:

I had no idea Nigel Griffiths was a Leave supporter.

I vaguely recall him on a list of Labour Eurosceptics but I question whether it gave him much trouble at general elections. Most MPs who take distinctive positions on an issue seem to suffer little for it at the polls so long as they're looking after day to day issues.

My grandparents lived for many decades in Fairmilehead although it was then part of the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency. I have many happy memories of here.

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 15.4% 426/650
Very good health 60.4% 1/650
Owner-occupied 66.3% 349/650
Private rented 20.0% 123/650
Social rented 12.1% 490/650
White 91.2% 411/650
Black 0.8% 302/650
Asian 6.1% 184/650
Born in Scotland 68.0% 56/59
Professional occupations 32.3% 5/650
Managerial & professional 40.5%
Routine & Semi-routine 15.3%
Degree level 46.9% 21/650
No qualifications 14.7% 611/650
Students 19.7% 36/650



General Election 2019: Edinburgh South

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Labour Ian Murray 23,745 47.7 -7.2
SNP Catriona MacDonald 12,650 25.4 +2.9
Conservative Nick Cook 8,161 16.4 -3.3
Liberal Democrats Alan Beal 3,819 7.7 +4.8
Scottish Green Kate Nevens 1,357 2.7

Lab Majority 11,095 22.3 -10.1

Turnout 49,732 75.1 +1.0

Labour hold

Swing 5.1 Lab to SNP

[The Bishop]

Feb 16, 2021 13:24:58 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

That helped, but "only won because" is a bit of a stretch. The demographics of this constituency do make it relatively resistant to the SNP.

Your latter point is of course completely true, but we are talking about the 2015 election here - when the SNP were a few thousand votes from sweeping every single seat.

Neil Hay's stupidity and unpleasantness certainly got noticed here at the time, so I think its fair to say it also was locally. Not only might this have suppressed the SNP total somewhat, but there is surely a good chance it gained a few tactical votes for Labour.

Of course even had the Nats won this then, they would almost certainly have lost it two years later - one might wonder if Labour would have stuck with Murray in that event.

[DrW]

A very interesting series of posts on Edinburgh constituencies. The point about the ladies of Morningside being replaced by younger professionals and public sector workers who are significantly less likely to vote Conservative rings true and can be seen across the south of Edinburgh, as well as other cities. Southern Edinburgh was one place where the Scottish Conservative surge failed to materialise in 2016/17 - see the failure to take Edinburgh Pentlands in 2016 (pre-Brexit referendum), Edinburgh South West in 2017 and the rather smaller increase in the Tory vote in the city in the 2017 local elections, compared to elsewhere in Scotland. Indeed I think the Fairmilehead ward was one of the few that year in the entire country to show a decline in the Tory vote.

[maxque]

Feb 20, 2021 13:13:32 GMT DrW said:

A very interesting series of posts on Edinburgh constituencies. The point about the ladies of Morningside being replaced by younger professionals and public sector workers who are significantly less likely to vote Conservative rings true and can be seen across the south of Edinburgh, as well as other cities. Southern Edinburgh was one place where the Scottish Conservative surge failed to materialise in 2016/17 - see the failure to take Edinburgh Pentlands in 2016 (pre-Brexit referendum), Edinburgh South West in 2017 and the rather smaller increase in the Tory vote in the city in the 2017 local elections, compared to elsewhere in Scotland. Indeed I think the Fairmilehead ward was one of the few that year in the entire country to show a decline in the Tory vote.

In Scotland, for declines for Tories (in %) I've found:
Mid and Upper Nithsdale (Dumfries and Galloway)
Almond (Edinburgh)
Colinton/Fairmilehead (Edinburgh)
Morningside (Edinburgh)
Lower Braes (Falkirk)

[john07]

Feb 17, 2021 12:56:59 GMT The Bishop said:

Feb 16, 2021 13:24:58 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

That helped, but "only won because" is a bit of a stretch. The demographics of this constituency do make it relatively resistant to the SNP.

Your latter point is of course completely true, but we are talking about the 2015 election here - when the SNP were a few thousand votes from sweeping every single seat.

Neil Hay's stupidity and unpleasantness certainly got noticed here at the time, so I think its fair to say it also was locally. Not only might this have suppressed the SNP total somewhat, but there is surely a good chance it gained a few tactical votes for Labour.

Of course even had the Nats won this then, they would almost certainly have lost it two years later - one might wonder if Labour would have stuck with Murray in that event.

The suggestions that 'it certainly got noticed at the time' surprises me. I certainly did not notice and I live in the Constituency. I stopped reading the Scotsman and the Edinburgh Evening News before this election and never listen to local radio so am unaware of how much of this was reported.
If Ian Murray was going to lose this Constituency it would have been in 2010. He was a local councillor at the time and taking over from Nigel Griffiths who had attracted some adverse publicity. He surprisingly held off the Liberal Democrat, Fred Mackintosh, by 316 votes.

By 2015, Murray had had five years to establish himself. He played a high profile role in the rescue of Heart of Midlothian Football Club from insolvency around 2013. The Morningside, Merchiston, Marchmont, Sciennes side of the Constituency was always going to be relatively resistent to the SNP, so it is surprising that they came as close as they did in 2015. The SNP have failed to get a councillor elected in the four-seat Morningside Division in all elections bar one since STV came in. The margin of 2,637 in 2015 came in the wake of the Lib Dem meltdown with decent gains for Labour, the Greens and massive gains by the SNP. The Lib Dems vote want from 14,899 down to 1,823 as Edinburgh South gave their verdict on the Coalition. The Conservatives also lost 837 votes as compared to 2010.

[Merseymike]

This appears to have turned into the Brighton Pavilion of Scotland.

[The Bishop]

Kingston and Surbiton might actually be a better parallel (in more ways than one)

[john07]

Constituency Map: Edinburgh South

[ntyuk1707]

Edinburgh South is a burgh constituency covering the upmarket neighbourhoods of Marchmont, Burntisfield, Morningside, Newington and Merchiston on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh City Centre down to the suburbs of Winton, Fairmilehead and Mortonhall and ex-council estates of Gilcolmston and Burdiehouse verging onto the Edinburgh City Bypass in the very south of the city.

The constituency first emerged as a safe Unionist seat at the 1918 general election, and stuck with the Conservative & Unionists until the election of Labour's Nigel Griffiths at the 1987 general election, from which point onwards the seat was represented by Labour MPs. In 2001, the Liberal Democrats overtook the Conservatives as the primary challengers to Labour here, and they were able to win the overlapping Edinburgh South seat in the Scottish Parliament at the 2003 and 2007  Scottish Parliamentary elections, before the SNP narrowly surpassed both Labour and the Liberal Democrats to win the Scottish Parliamentary seat in 2011, with Labour's Daniel Johnson then going on to regain the seat for Labour at the 2016 Scottish election and retain the constituency with an increased majority in 2021.

In UK Parliamentary elections, Edinburgh South returned Labour's only Scottish Member of Parliament at both the 2015 and 2019 general elections, and it was the safest seat in Scotland at the 2017 general election, with Labour's Ian Murray winning the seat with a majority of 15,514 votes in that election, the largest majority ever recorded here. It is also one of only three Westminster seats in Scotland which has never been represented by an SNP MP.

In broad terms, Edinburgh South can be understood as a highly affluent area which is on the whole quite strongly opposed to Scottish independence. Arguably, it was the 2010 general election that determined this seat's fate as a safely Labour constituency in a sea of SNP yellow, as Labour's Ian Murray won the seat by just 316 votes ahead of the Liberal Democrats, placing Mr Murray as the best-placed candidate to prevent the SNP from gaining the seat in 2015 when the SNP won seats right across Scotland at the expense of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum. But despite being a relative stronghold for Labour in recent years, at the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary election it was the Conservatives who topped the poll here on the regional list vote, and the Conservatives also polled ahead of Labour and the SNP here at the 2017 City of Edinburgh Council elections, underlining the very tactical nature of voting in this constituency.   

Morningside ward, located in the north-west of the constituency, incorporates the attractive Georgian sandstone tenements and townhouses of Burntisfield, Marchmont, Merchiston, Morningside and Greenhill, in addition to the large detached bungalows and manors of the Braids and Greenbank further south. There are mansions throughout this ward, including in parts of Morningside, Greenhill, Greenbank and the Braids, with a higher proportion of younger residents and students in northern areas towards the city centre, and more elderly residents further south. Morningside has become a popular area for Edinburgh's aspirational middle-class, and it is one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the city with several upmarket cafés and restaurants lining Morningside Road. The demographic profile of the ward is mapped out in the ward's electoral geography, with a stronger vote for the Scottish Greens in northern parts of the ward contrasting a higher vote for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in southern segments, and Labour coming marginally ahead overall at last year's council elections. The split last year was 23% Labour, 21% Liberal Democrat, 21% Green, 18% Conservative and 16% SNP, with the ward having an estimated 69% No, 31% Yes vote at the 2014 independence referendum, ranging from a 62% No vote in Marchmont on the outskirts of the City Centre to an 81% No vote in the Braids. Northern Bruntsfield was the best part of the ward for the Yes campaign at 55% No to 45% Yes, however this polling district is part of the Edinburgh South West constituency.

Moving south of Greenbank and the Braids is the detached bungalows of Buckstone, Fairmilehead and Winton. This area was previously a safely Conservative part of the city, with the overlapping Colinton & Fairmilehead ward having voted 52% Conservative at the 2012 council elections and 50% Conservative in 2017, however Labour's advance here at Westminster as the main Unionist party in opposition to the SNP has contributed to this area dramatically turning its support away from the Conservatives and over towards Labour, with Buckstone having voted 50% Labour, 20% Conservative and just 14% SNP at last year's council elections and Fairmilehead & Winton having voted 38% Labour, 34% Conservative, 12% Lib Dem and 10% SNP. The Conservatives drastic fall-from-grace in these leafy suburbs in the very southern edge of the city echoes the changes felt across the constituency over the last 10 years as an increasingly strong seat for the Labour Party. This part of the constituency also returned one of Edinburgh's most empathetic results against Scottish independence at the 2014 independence referendum, with an estimated 81% No vote.

The Morningside ward alongside Fairmilehead, Buckstone and Winton form part of the EH10 postal area, which is Scotland's most expensive postal sector in which the vast majority of areas rank among the 10% least deprived in the country. 

In the north-east of the constituency and mirroring the Morningside area are the communities of Scinnes, Newington, Nether Liberton, Blackford, Mayfield and the Grange within the Newington & Southside ward, nearing Edinburgh City Centre. The constituency boundary here cuts out areas of deprivation and student living in the northern and eastern segments of the ward which are covered by Edinburgh East, with the communities covered within Edinburgh South having a similar demographic profile to the Morningside area, with high rates of affluence and a mixture of fashionable apartments, Georgian tenements, spacious townhouses and manors, with some mansions in the Grange area. At the 2022 local election, polling districts within this area had Labour in first place, with a near five-way split in support between the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Scottish Greens. The Southside & Newington ward as a whole returned an approximate 67% No vote to independence at the 2014 referendum, with the parts of the ward within Edinburgh South having a more substantial 72% vote against independence. 

The final ward in Edinburgh South is Liberton & Gilmerton, which stretches from the suburban bungalows and semi-detached houses of Liberton and the moderately deprived ex-council estate of the Inch in the north of the ward bordering Nether Liberton, down to the highly deprived Moredun, Gilmerton, Burdiehouse and Gracemount estates in the south, as well as substantial newbuild developments on the periphery of these estates and out towards the city bypass, and the suburbs of Mortonhall and Alnwickhill in the south-west. This ward feels a bit cut off from the rest of the seat, being separated from Greenbank and the Braids by the Braid Hills, from Fairmilehead by fertile farmlands just north of the city bypass, and from Newington by the Braid Burn. The ward's social profile too is very different from the rest of the seat, being a mixture of affluent suburbs and deprived ex-council estates, with a growing population from new build development, and this has also resulted in a more mixed political profile, with Labour topping the poll in suburban areas and the SNP being the largest party in more deprived areas of the ward at last year's council elections. Across the ward, Labour narrowly beat the SNP into first place last year with 33% of the vote to the SNP's 31%, and the Conservatives in third-place on 18% of the vote. Broadly speaking, Labour's vote share remained reasonably consistent throughout the ward, with the SNP performing stronger in ex-council estates like Moredun (38% vote share), the Inch (35% vote share), Gilmerton (34% vote share) and Burdiehouse (34% vote share), and performing poorly in affluent areas including Liberton (19% vote share) and Alnwick (21% vote share). At the 2014 independence referendum, the ward returned an estimated 58% No vote to independence, ranging quite substantially from a 70% No vote in Liberton to a 51% No vote in Moredun. 

Overall, Edinburgh South can be understood as an affluent constituency whose politics have become increasingly defined by its opposition towards the SNP, and this has culminated in the area becoming Labour's only safe and reliable seat in the whole of Scotland. Had Labour MP Ian Murray lost the seat in 2010 to the Liberal Democrats, the seat's politics today may have instead mirrored Edinburgh West, which shares very similar demographics to the Edinburgh South seat, but is a solid area for the Liberal Democrats instead of the Labour Party.

A large chunk of the Edinburgh South seat including Fairmilehead, Greenbank, the Braids and Morningside was contained within the old Edinburgh Pentlands seat which senior ex-Conservative MP Malcolm Rifkind had represented until 1997. At the 2001 UK general election, Mr Rifkind was almost re-elected to Westminster thanks to the voters of these communities, coming within 1,742 votes of Labour from winning the seat. And in the Scottish Parliament, these areas helped former Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie win the seat in the 2003 and 2007 elections. 

This underlines heterogenous nature of the Edinburgh South seat, where many of the communities which Mr Murray now relies on to be returned as an MP not long ago supported the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, but these communities have ultimately turned to Labour as the best-placed party to stop the SNP here, helped by a changing demography towards young people studying around the City Centre and a growing aspirational middle-class.

Boundary changes here will slightly benefit the SNP by bringing in the more SNP-leaning polling district of Prestonfield east of Newington, which contains some areas of high deprivation relative to the rest of the constituency, but will not substantively change the nature of the seat.

While the seat contains some deprived council estates to the south-east, it is nonetheless the fifth least deprived seat in Scotland after West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine, Gordon, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.

Edinburgh South is the epitome of modern Scottish politics, where constitutional politics have come to play an increasingly dominant role in the shaping the electoral landscape into a two-party contest between Unionist Labour  versus the pro-independence SNP. Given current polling figures, there is every possibility this will return to being Scotland's safest seat - perhaps aided by greater tactical voting as a result of Douglas Ross's recent call for Conservative voters to tactically support Labour in seats like this, and it is difficult to see a situation in which Labour come close to losing here. 

2014 independence referendum result:
NO: 38,298 (65.3%)
YES: 20,340 (34.7%)

2016 EU membership referendum result:
REMAIN: 37,069 (77.8%)
LEAVE: 10,549 (22.2%)

2017 general election result:
LAB: 26,269 (54.9%)
SNP: 10,755 (22.5%)
CON: 9,428 (19.7%)
LIB: 1,388 (2.9%)

2019 general election result:
LAB: 23,745 (47.7%)
SNP: 12,650 (25.4%)
CON: 8,161 (16.4%)
LIB: 3,819 (7.7%)
GRN: 1,357 (2.7%)



 

[iain]

It is interesting to think that a couple of hundred people in 2010 probably saved Labour from a total wipeout in Scotland.

[johnloony]

Apr 14, 2023 23:54:51 GMT iain said:

It is interesting to think that a couple of hundred people in 2010 probably saved Labour from a total wipeout in Scotland.

I think you mean 2015