Glenrothes

[john07]

The background to this constituency goes back a long way further then its creation for the 2005 General Election. It can be traced back to the former New Town of Glenrothes designated in 1948 as part of the first phase of New Town construction following the Reith Commission and the New Towns Act of 1946 that led to the London Ring including Harlow, Basildon and Crawley.

The New Town was recommended by the 1947 Mears Plan for Central and South-East Scotland. Its prime purpose was to help with the development of the East Fife Coalfield to compensate for the rundown of the Lanarkshire Coalfield. As it happened the Rothes Colliery failed and instead the New Town was re-purposed for Regional Development along with Overspill from Glasgow.



The current constituency replaced Central Fife along with parts of Kirkaldy and Dunfermline East. It covers the area of the former New Town plus Cardenden, Leslie, Markinch, Leven and Methil along with parts of Kirkaldy.

In electoral terms, the seat followed the same pattern as many other seats in that area being held by Labour until 2015 before swinging to the SNP. Equally Labour came back strongly in 2017 only to fall back in 2019.

[John Chanin]

Robert Waller said he would do a profile for this seat, and I would ask him to do so.  john07 produces nice maps but his profiles are very short, and don’t give any demographics or political breakdowns of the seats

[john07]

Aug 11, 2022 19:09:46 GMT John Chanin said:

Robert Waller said he would do a profile for this seat, and I would ask him to do so.  john07 produces nice maps but his profiles are very short, and don’t give any demographics or political breakdowns of the seats

Robert always adds the full statistical data for the profiles whoever starts things off.

This thread has been running for two and a half years now and there are still 25 Scottish constituencies without a profile. Do you want everyone to sit on their hands until Robert has the time to do them all?

[Robert Waller]

Aug 11, 2022 20:45:49 GMT john07 said:

Aug 11, 2022 19:09:46 GMT John Chanin said:

Robert Waller said he would do a profile for this seat, and I would ask him to do so.  john07 produces nice maps but his profiles are very short, and don’t give any demographics or political breakdowns of the seats

Robert always adds the full statistical data for the profiles whoever starts things off.

This thread has been running for two and a half years now and there are still 25 Scottish constituencies without a profile. Do you want everyone to sit on their hands until Robert has the time to do them all?

Not at all, I do appreciate everyone's efforts!

When I said this a couple of days ago ...

Aug 9, 2022 at 8:58pm QuoteEditlikePost OptionsPost by Robert Waller on Aug 9, 2022 at 8:58pm
In due course I intend to finish off the Central & Fife seats with a Glenrothes profile, as I've already done some of the work while preparing my other Fife efforts.

..I suppose I didn't really make it clear that Glenrothes would definitely have been my next Scottish profile.

It would help if others let me know if they are going to start a thread so I can coordinate, rather than spend several days doing a lot of work then find that it's a duplication.

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 17.0% 301/650
Owner-occupied 60.6% 465/650
Private rented 9.3% 602/650
Social rented 29.1% 57/650
White 98.2% 88/650
Black 0.2% 537/650
Asian 1.3% 449/650
No religion 50.3% 1/59
Managerial & professional 20.9%
Higher Managerial & professional 4.4% 636/650
Routine & Semi-routine 37.8%
Semi-routine 21.1% 3/650
Degree level 15.8% 615/650
No qualifications 31.9% 59/650
Students 6.4% 398/650



General Election 2019: Glenrothes

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

SNP Peter Grant 21,234 51.1 +8.3
Labour Pat Egan 9,477 22.8 -11.9
Conservative Amy Thomson 6,920 16.7 -2.8
Liberal Democrats Jane Ann Liston 2,639 6.4 +3.4
Brexit Party Victor Farrell 1,276 3.1 New

SNP Majority 11,757 28.3 +20.2

2019 electorate 65,762

Turnout 41,546 63.2 +2.3

SNP hold

Swing 10.1 Lab to SNP



The Brexit Party withdrew support for Victor Farrell over homophobic remarks.

[Pete Whitehead]

Aug 11, 2022 19:09:46 GMT John Chanin said:

Robert Waller said he would do a profile for this seat, and I would ask him to do so. www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/election-maps produces nice maps but john07 's profiles are very short, and don’t give any demographics or political breakdowns of the seats

FTFY
Apart from that I agree with every word

[stb12]

The Glenrothes by-election in 2008 was quite notable as it was pretty much seen as a given that the SNP would gain, but Labour held pretty comfortably

[The Bishop]

The sizeable swings in the 2015-19 period indicate Glenrothes isn't immune to the political volatility also seen in New Towns south of the border.

[batman]

Aug 12, 2022 9:27:43 GMT stb12 said:

The Glenrothes by-election in 2008 was quite notable as it was pretty much seen as a given that the SNP would gain, but Labour held pretty comfortably

it seems that Lindsay Roy was a strong local candidate and although the SNP would probably have beaten him in 2015 he has certainly been missed as a Labour candidate since his rather early retirement.

[Robert Waller]

May 2022 Fife Council election results within Glenrothes constituency

First preferences

Glenrothes West and Kinglassie
SNP 49.5%
Labour 32.5
C 11.6
LD 3.8
Ind 2.6

Glenrothes North, Leslie and Markinch
SNP 44.6
Lab 26.4
C 18.6
LD 5.1
Green 3.6
Scottish Family 1.7

Glenrothes Central and Thornton
SNP 48.7
Lab 27.9
C 12.1
LD 3.9
G 3.7
Alba 2.2
Scottish F 1.5


Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages
SNP 47.4
Lab 40.2
C 6.5
LD 2.3
G 2.2
Alba 1.3


Leven, Kennoway and Largo (part in this seat)
SNP 42.5
Lab 24.7
LD 19.3
C 10.4
G 2.4
Scottish F 0.7

[ntyuk1707]

Glenrothes is one of four constituencies in Fife located in the south-east of the county, following the courses of the Rivers Ore and Leven from Cardenden and Glenrothes in the west towards their meeting point outside of Methil and then on to the Firth of Forth between Leven and Methil in the east. The seat also covers coastal communities of Fife south-west of Methil and towards the outskirts of Kirkcaldy.

The coastal section of this constituency incorporates Methil, Buckhaven, Wemyss and western parts of Leven, in addition to villages adjoining Methil including Windygates and Kennoway to the north. These former mining communities collectively make up around 40% of the seat's electorate and represent some of Scotland's most deprived areas, with most parts of Methil being amongst the 5% most deprived parts of Scotland. The towns and villages which sit closely together in this area are almost entirely made up of deprived ex-council estates and tenements, with small pockets of affluence in the suburbs of the village of Windygates and very outskirts of the town of Leven, which are still very much out-weighted by working-class areas.

Accompanying Labour's initial breakthrough in the 1910 UK general elections, this area was solidly supportive of the Labour Party from 1910 until the SNP's Scotland-wide breakthrough over 100 years later in the 2011 Scottish election, from which point onwards it has voted SNP. In the 1990 local elections, the SNP made a breakthrough in Kennoway and Windygates - a ward which they gained in that election and have held in elections since, with other wards sticking with Labour until switching to the SNP in 2012.

The deprived, disenfranchised demographic of this area was prime territory for the pro-independence Yes campaign in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, with an approximate 54% Yes vote, however it also likely had a higher Leave vote in the 2016 EU membership referendum, perhaps even being the only part of Fife to have voted to Leave the EU.

North-west of here sits the new town of Glenrothes. Of the four Fife constituencies, the neighbouring North East Fife seat to the east is significantly more rural, remote, affluent and touristic in nature, having more in common with rural parts of Perth and Kinross in its demography than the more urban, industrious and working-class southern Fife. And Glenrothes does feel in many respects like the edge of the industrial Scottish Central Belt, as driving beyond the town on the A916 feels like entering a completely different part of Scotland - elderly, rural, affluent: very much out-on-a-limb from the rest of Fife.

Glenrothes was designated as a coal-mining new town in 1948, with its population growing substantially from the early 1950s. It is the dominant section of this constituency and home to 56% of electors.

As you might expect the town is predominantly made up of areas of mid-high deprivation, with patches of wealth in some areas. The town's Macedonia and Tanshall areas were the home of the SNP's first councillor in Fife, which the party gained in 1978 but lost in 1990, only to gain nearby Rimbleton, Fingassie and Leslie areas in the west of the town in 1994. In the 2007 Scottish election, the party topped the poll across the town for the first time, allowing them to gain Fife Central constituency in the Scottish Parliament and hold the reconfigured Glenrothes and Mid-Fife Scottish Parliament seat from 2011 onwards.

West of Glenrothes is yet more ex-mining villages including Cardenden, Dundonald, Bowhill and Kinglassie which were marginally contested between Labour and the SNP at last year's local elections, being Labour's strongest part of the constituency and the SNP's weakest. Unlike the rest of the constituency, these areas are estimated to have marginally rejected Scottish independence in 2014.

Glenrothes constituency as a whole is estimated to have voted Yes to Scottish independence in the 2014 independence referendum by an approximate margin of 53% Yes 47% No, in contrast to a wider 55% No across Fife, and 63% No vote in neighbouring North East Fife. It was estimated to have one of the highest Brexit votes in Scotland in the 2016 EU membership referendum with a 48% Leave vote and 52% Remain vote, with coastal areas likely having voted to Leave the EU. 

The Labour Party form the main opposition to the SNP in this seat, with the Conservatives doing better in some affluent suburbs on the outskirts of northern Glenrothes.

In its modern history like most of Scotland, Glenrothes constituency was a reliable seat for Labour until 2015, and has since voted SNP, who won the seat with a majority of 11,757 votes in 2019 - marking it as one of the SNP's safest seats in Scotland.

The pro-independence and more SNP-leaning tendencies of this seat compared to others in the Central Belt makes it a tough nut to crack for Labour, but given the seat's stronger history for the SNP and the general tendency for Scottish new towns to be better for the SNP than elsewhere, if Labour won this seat they would be in for many gains across the Central Belt of Scotland and would likely need to come in first place in Scotland ahead of the SNP.

More likely, given improved polling figures for Labour in Scotland lately and on the basis of the 2017 general election there is a possibly of this being the only SNP seat standing in the historical 'Kingdom of Fife', with Labour forming a strong challenge to the SNP in Dunfermline & West Fife and Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath and the Liberal Democrats holding North East Fife. SNP MP Peter Grant can certainly rest a bit easier than his colleagues in Fife who are notably more vulnerable to losing their Westminster seats, but should be mindful not take his constituents for granted or rest too easy!

Boundary changes are set to remove more the SNP leaning areas of Windygates, Leven and Kennoway from the seat, while adding in more ex-mining communities where Labour are competitive to the west including Lochgelly and Ballingry - home to Britain's last Communist Councillor who retired in 2017, slightly improving Labour's chances here. 

2017 general election result
SNP 17,291 (42.8%)
LAB 14,024 (34.7%)
CON 7,876 (19.5%)
LIB 1,208 (3.0%)

2019 general election result
SNP 21,234 (51.1%)
LAB 9,477 (22.8%)
CON 6,920 (16.7%)
LIB 2,639 (6.4%)
BXT 1,276 (3.1%)

[batman]

This constituency is often seen as a linear successor to Central Fife, which in turn is often seen as a linear predecessor to West Fife. That constituency was won by the Communist Willie Gallagher in 1945; however, it appears that only a minority of that former constituency, around Wemyss, is nowadays part of this constituency.