Post by Robert Waller on Jul 5, 2023 15:32:41 GMT
When I was preparing the first edition of the Almanac in the early 1980s I stayed for some time at Baird Hall on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, then associated with Strathclyde University, as a base for local ‘fieldwork’; I still remember my first visit to the infamous Gorbals as dawn broke one morning (this was December). I had arranged the accommodation through William (Bill) Miller, then a lecturer at Strathclyde, as his psephological appearances on TV gave him the air of a Scottish David Butler. He was kind enough to recommend various places to visit, and when I asked him where the Glaswegian middle classes lived, along with other advice he strongly suggested an extensive area actually just outside the city boundaries. At that time it was situated in a constituency called East Renfrewshire which was about to be renamed Eastwood in time for the 1983 general election. 22 years later that name change was reversed, though without any accompanying boundary changes. Sadly Professor Miller passed away in 2020 but his recommendation still holds; even he, however, may have been surprised by some of the transformations in the fortunes of several political parties over recent decades.
www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/18487344.obituary-professor-bill-miller-peerless-analyst-won-respect-across-political-spectrum/
Prior to the Eastwood interlude, East Renfrewshire had been a solidly Conservative (or Unionist) held seat since the 1920s, and in particular since major boundary changes reduced its electorate in 1950; even in 1966 Betty Harvie Anderson retained a majority of over 10,000 over Labour. In 1992 her successor as Tory MP, Allan Stewart, still had a lead of nearly 12,000. However Eastwood was gained by New Labour’s Jim Murphy in the 1997 Blair landslide and by 2010 he himself had a five figure majority, as the seat had reverted to its former name. But in one of their most remarkable performance in their annus mirabilis of 2015,the SNP rose from fourth to first place, their share more than quadrupling from less than 9% to over 40%. Jim Murphy’s share dropped by 17%. Nor was this the end of the story, not by any means. In the 2017 general election it was the turn of the Conservatives to provide the shock, as their share leapt from 22% to 40% and Paul Masterton ousted Kirsten Oswald to become the third different MP from the third different party to win East Renfrewshire in successive elections. Then in December 2019, at the time of Boris Johnson’s national triumph, the result here was reversed and Kirsten Oswald was sent back to Westminster. Labour collapsed to scarcely over 12%. The SNP did even better than in 2015, with a 44.9% share compared with 40.9%. This is one of the most volatile of all Westminster constituencies – and none of the above surges and dips in fortune are due to boundary changes, as the lines have remained in essence unaltered since 1983 and will do so again, as confirmed by the Scottish Commission's final report in June 2023.
Recent years have been dominated in Scottish politics by the issue of independence, of course, and we know, as this constituency is coterminous with the East Renfrewshire unitary local government district, that in 2014 it voted heavily to remain in the Union, by 63.2% to 36.8%. This may largely account for why the SNP’s grip was loosened in 2017 and may well be again. The travails of the Scottish Labour party in the years since 2010, together with the affluence of the seat and its historic Tory loyalties, helps explain why it is the Conservatives that have come to take the lion’s share of the ‘unionist’ vote. However, the sheer scale of the swings may well also be due to the seat’s overall demographic characteristics.
East Renfrewshire is indeed, as Bill Miller suggested, very upmarket, especially by Scottish standards. In the most recent available census figures, it ranks in the top ten for most owner occupied housing in the UK , at 82%, which is second in Scotland only to East Dunbartonshire, which shares many of its social and economic characteristics as a suburban Glasgow constituency, except on the north-western rather than south-western edge of the conurbation. It also has a higher proportion of professional and managerial workers than any north of the border except for that seat and a couple in Edinburgh, which as a capital city has a plethora of such types. It is also relatively highly educated; and finally East Renfrewshire is by some way the most Jewish seat in Scotland, although the percentages are in absolute terms too low to affect its voting behaviour significantly – indeed, there are more Muslims. Overall, East Renfrewshire is in the main a suburban destination for those successful and affluent enough to secure a ‘good job’ and own property. It ranked 650th out of 650 for the privately rented housing sector in the 2011 Census - as Scotland delayed the most recent from 2021 to 2022, we do not yet have updated figures on a constituency basis, even for unchanged seats.
In the main, though. The reason why the professional/managerial, degree-holding, and owner occupation figures are not quite as high as those for East Dunbartonshire lies in the element of heterogeneity introduced by the presence of a very different community from the majority here. In general, East Renfrewshire consists of neighbourhoods just outside the boundaries of the Glasgow South and South West seats: Newton Mearns and Clarkston, Giffnock and Stamperland and Broom. Detached houses of varying vintages, semis, bungalows – a lot of bungalows; but remorselessly owner occupied and middle class. However, one of East Renfrewshire’s five wards is of very distinct character. Over to the west it is based in the separate town of Barrhead. Here the social housing proportion reaches 30% - which says much about what it is in the rest of East Renfrewshire. If the name Barrhead seems familiar, consider whether you’ve seen it in a toilet bowl – it was the centre of the Armitage-Shanks porcelain factory, as well as having a background in textiles and even coal mining. These industries are long gone, but it still has four industrial estates. The Conservatives only achieved 18% first preferences in the Barrhead, Liboside & Uplawmoor ward in 2017 – their figure of less than 11% in 2022 should perhaps be discounted as they had disowned their single candidate for making online comments about Catholics. The contrast with the other four wards is marked.
In May 2022 the Conservatives totalled 34% in Newton Mearns North & Neilston to 32% for the SNP and 25% for Labour. The pattern was very similar in Giffnock & Thornliebank: 34.5% Conservative, 32% SNP, 26% Labour (whose strength is in Thornliebank, nearest to the Glasgow boundary, which they could win in the pre-STV and pre-unitary days of smaller wards). The Clarkston, Netherlee & Williamwood figures were affected by an incumbent Independent, but the SNP did best among the main parties, followed by the Conservatives with Labour again in third place. Finally the Tory stronghold was the ward furthest out from the centre of Glasgow, nearest to the countryside at the edge of the conurbation: Newton Mearns South & Eaglesham, whether they put up three candidates for four places and elected two of them with a combined first preference share of 49%. The SNP trailed with 24% and Labour were once again third with 19%. In none of the wards did other parties make an impact. Interestingly, compared with East Dunbartonshire, which was Jo Swinson’s seat of course, the Liberal Democrats have never done well in East Renfrewshire as a whole. They have had some very weak performances recently (1.9% in 2015, 2.1% in 2017) and even in a strong Remain area (74%), in the Brexit election of 2019 they only reached 7.5%.
The East Renfrewshire council area is still of a very appropriate size for a Westminster constituency and again no boundary changes have been recommended, so the waters will not be muddied in that regard. What will happen at the next election is still hard to predict. There may be some evidence in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections. The constituency element of these are largely fought on pre-2005 constituency boundaries, but all that means here is that the same seat is called Eastwood; and the Conservative Jackson Carlaw, (briefly) a former leader of his party in Scotland, retained the seat with a majority over the SNP of 2,216. Labour plummeted again, to less than 16%. To suggest the result was not a personal vote for Carlaw, the Tories had a larger lead in the ‘top up’ regional votes within the seat – with 36% to the SNP’s 29% and 19% for Labour.
That does also suggest that there is an element of unionist tactical voting which should help to keep the Conservatives as seen as the main challenger in the East Renfrewshire Westminster division. On the other hand, with the Conservative share in the national polls currently in free fall and having been in government at Westminster for over twelve years already, and the Labour leadership apparently moving back towards a more Blairite set of positions, maybe the memory of those four victories for Jim Murphy over a thirteen year period is not dead. The Nationalists suffered a series of blows relating to their leadership in 2023, which cannot be weaken their position, at least for a while.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 18.0% 236/650
Very good health 58.8% 4/650
Owner-occupied 82.0% 8/650
Private rented 5.6% 650/650
Social rented 11.6% 517/650
White 94.1% 343/650
Black 0.2% 550/650
Asian 5.0% 225/650
Jewish 2.6% 1/59, 20/650
Muslim 3.3% 6/59
Managerial & professional 40.7%
Routine & Semi-routine 17.8%
Degree level 35.2% 89/650
No qualifications 19.2% 489/650
Students 9.6% 156 /650
2022 Census
Details not yet available
General Election 2019: East Renfrewshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SNP Kirsten Oswald 24,877 44.9 +13.7
Conservative Paul Masterton 19,451 35.1 –4.9
Labour Carolann Davidson 6,855 12.4 –14.3
Liberal Democrats Andrew McGlynn 4,174 7.5 +5.4
SNP Majority 5,426 9.8
2019 electorate 72,232
Turnout 55,357 76.6 –0.2
SNP gain from Conservative
Swing 9.3 C to SNP
Boundary Changes and 2019 Notional Results
N/A, unchanged seat
www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/18487344.obituary-professor-bill-miller-peerless-analyst-won-respect-across-political-spectrum/
Prior to the Eastwood interlude, East Renfrewshire had been a solidly Conservative (or Unionist) held seat since the 1920s, and in particular since major boundary changes reduced its electorate in 1950; even in 1966 Betty Harvie Anderson retained a majority of over 10,000 over Labour. In 1992 her successor as Tory MP, Allan Stewart, still had a lead of nearly 12,000. However Eastwood was gained by New Labour’s Jim Murphy in the 1997 Blair landslide and by 2010 he himself had a five figure majority, as the seat had reverted to its former name. But in one of their most remarkable performance in their annus mirabilis of 2015,the SNP rose from fourth to first place, their share more than quadrupling from less than 9% to over 40%. Jim Murphy’s share dropped by 17%. Nor was this the end of the story, not by any means. In the 2017 general election it was the turn of the Conservatives to provide the shock, as their share leapt from 22% to 40% and Paul Masterton ousted Kirsten Oswald to become the third different MP from the third different party to win East Renfrewshire in successive elections. Then in December 2019, at the time of Boris Johnson’s national triumph, the result here was reversed and Kirsten Oswald was sent back to Westminster. Labour collapsed to scarcely over 12%. The SNP did even better than in 2015, with a 44.9% share compared with 40.9%. This is one of the most volatile of all Westminster constituencies – and none of the above surges and dips in fortune are due to boundary changes, as the lines have remained in essence unaltered since 1983 and will do so again, as confirmed by the Scottish Commission's final report in June 2023.
Recent years have been dominated in Scottish politics by the issue of independence, of course, and we know, as this constituency is coterminous with the East Renfrewshire unitary local government district, that in 2014 it voted heavily to remain in the Union, by 63.2% to 36.8%. This may largely account for why the SNP’s grip was loosened in 2017 and may well be again. The travails of the Scottish Labour party in the years since 2010, together with the affluence of the seat and its historic Tory loyalties, helps explain why it is the Conservatives that have come to take the lion’s share of the ‘unionist’ vote. However, the sheer scale of the swings may well also be due to the seat’s overall demographic characteristics.
East Renfrewshire is indeed, as Bill Miller suggested, very upmarket, especially by Scottish standards. In the most recent available census figures, it ranks in the top ten for most owner occupied housing in the UK , at 82%, which is second in Scotland only to East Dunbartonshire, which shares many of its social and economic characteristics as a suburban Glasgow constituency, except on the north-western rather than south-western edge of the conurbation. It also has a higher proportion of professional and managerial workers than any north of the border except for that seat and a couple in Edinburgh, which as a capital city has a plethora of such types. It is also relatively highly educated; and finally East Renfrewshire is by some way the most Jewish seat in Scotland, although the percentages are in absolute terms too low to affect its voting behaviour significantly – indeed, there are more Muslims. Overall, East Renfrewshire is in the main a suburban destination for those successful and affluent enough to secure a ‘good job’ and own property. It ranked 650th out of 650 for the privately rented housing sector in the 2011 Census - as Scotland delayed the most recent from 2021 to 2022, we do not yet have updated figures on a constituency basis, even for unchanged seats.
In the main, though. The reason why the professional/managerial, degree-holding, and owner occupation figures are not quite as high as those for East Dunbartonshire lies in the element of heterogeneity introduced by the presence of a very different community from the majority here. In general, East Renfrewshire consists of neighbourhoods just outside the boundaries of the Glasgow South and South West seats: Newton Mearns and Clarkston, Giffnock and Stamperland and Broom. Detached houses of varying vintages, semis, bungalows – a lot of bungalows; but remorselessly owner occupied and middle class. However, one of East Renfrewshire’s five wards is of very distinct character. Over to the west it is based in the separate town of Barrhead. Here the social housing proportion reaches 30% - which says much about what it is in the rest of East Renfrewshire. If the name Barrhead seems familiar, consider whether you’ve seen it in a toilet bowl – it was the centre of the Armitage-Shanks porcelain factory, as well as having a background in textiles and even coal mining. These industries are long gone, but it still has four industrial estates. The Conservatives only achieved 18% first preferences in the Barrhead, Liboside & Uplawmoor ward in 2017 – their figure of less than 11% in 2022 should perhaps be discounted as they had disowned their single candidate for making online comments about Catholics. The contrast with the other four wards is marked.
In May 2022 the Conservatives totalled 34% in Newton Mearns North & Neilston to 32% for the SNP and 25% for Labour. The pattern was very similar in Giffnock & Thornliebank: 34.5% Conservative, 32% SNP, 26% Labour (whose strength is in Thornliebank, nearest to the Glasgow boundary, which they could win in the pre-STV and pre-unitary days of smaller wards). The Clarkston, Netherlee & Williamwood figures were affected by an incumbent Independent, but the SNP did best among the main parties, followed by the Conservatives with Labour again in third place. Finally the Tory stronghold was the ward furthest out from the centre of Glasgow, nearest to the countryside at the edge of the conurbation: Newton Mearns South & Eaglesham, whether they put up three candidates for four places and elected two of them with a combined first preference share of 49%. The SNP trailed with 24% and Labour were once again third with 19%. In none of the wards did other parties make an impact. Interestingly, compared with East Dunbartonshire, which was Jo Swinson’s seat of course, the Liberal Democrats have never done well in East Renfrewshire as a whole. They have had some very weak performances recently (1.9% in 2015, 2.1% in 2017) and even in a strong Remain area (74%), in the Brexit election of 2019 they only reached 7.5%.
The East Renfrewshire council area is still of a very appropriate size for a Westminster constituency and again no boundary changes have been recommended, so the waters will not be muddied in that regard. What will happen at the next election is still hard to predict. There may be some evidence in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections. The constituency element of these are largely fought on pre-2005 constituency boundaries, but all that means here is that the same seat is called Eastwood; and the Conservative Jackson Carlaw, (briefly) a former leader of his party in Scotland, retained the seat with a majority over the SNP of 2,216. Labour plummeted again, to less than 16%. To suggest the result was not a personal vote for Carlaw, the Tories had a larger lead in the ‘top up’ regional votes within the seat – with 36% to the SNP’s 29% and 19% for Labour.
That does also suggest that there is an element of unionist tactical voting which should help to keep the Conservatives as seen as the main challenger in the East Renfrewshire Westminster division. On the other hand, with the Conservative share in the national polls currently in free fall and having been in government at Westminster for over twelve years already, and the Labour leadership apparently moving back towards a more Blairite set of positions, maybe the memory of those four victories for Jim Murphy over a thirteen year period is not dead. The Nationalists suffered a series of blows relating to their leadership in 2023, which cannot be weaken their position, at least for a while.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 18.0% 236/650
Very good health 58.8% 4/650
Owner-occupied 82.0% 8/650
Private rented 5.6% 650/650
Social rented 11.6% 517/650
White 94.1% 343/650
Black 0.2% 550/650
Asian 5.0% 225/650
Jewish 2.6% 1/59, 20/650
Muslim 3.3% 6/59
Managerial & professional 40.7%
Routine & Semi-routine 17.8%
Degree level 35.2% 89/650
No qualifications 19.2% 489/650
Students 9.6% 156 /650
2022 Census
Details not yet available
General Election 2019: East Renfrewshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SNP Kirsten Oswald 24,877 44.9 +13.7
Conservative Paul Masterton 19,451 35.1 –4.9
Labour Carolann Davidson 6,855 12.4 –14.3
Liberal Democrats Andrew McGlynn 4,174 7.5 +5.4
SNP Majority 5,426 9.8
2019 electorate 72,232
Turnout 55,357 76.6 –0.2
SNP gain from Conservative
Swing 9.3 C to SNP
Boundary Changes and 2019 Notional Results
N/A, unchanged seat
