Post by Robert Waller on Aug 14, 2023 20:04:34 GMT
Inver is an Anglicised spelling of the Scottish Gaelic word for the mouth of a river, and this constituency does indeed cover the south bank of the Clyde until past Gourock the coast turns south at Cloch Point, reaching all the way to Wemyss Bay. This is a pleasant and desirable location in which to live, as the former fishing villages have become holiday resorts and commuting bases. However the bulk of the population and electorate are to be found in the much larger communities of Greenock and Port Glasgow, which have a very different background and nature, and give the predominant political tone to the Inverclyde seat.
Port Glasgow’s origins lie in the fact that in the 17th century due to the shoals and shallows it was the point after which the Clyde became unnavigable to seagoing ships. When a century or so later the Clyde was dredged and deepened, it developed into a shipbuilding town, its yards clustered around the ancient Newark castle, and although not as well known as the builders up the river at Dumbarton, Clydebank and within Glasgow’s city boundaries, Port Glasgow has in a way outlasted all of these. In 1955 the Clyde had 22 shipyards, but the only ones left are at Govan, where the defence contractor BAE Systems makes warships for the Royal Navy on the site of the old Fairfield yard, and Ferguson’s in Port Glasgow - the only remaining merchant shipbuilder in Scotland. It is currently, and controversially, long overdue in the process of building two ferries for CalMac (Caledonian MacBrayne), who connect Scottish islands to the mainland. The highly visible presence of the two hulls, rusting as work has often been suspended, is a link between the past traditions and the diminished present circumstances of skilled manufacture on the banks of the lower Clyde.
Greenock is much larger than Port Glasgow, with a population of 44,000 in the 2011 census compared with 15,000. Indeed it used to command recognition in its constituency’s name, either on its own (1832-1974) or in tandem with Port Glasgow (1974-97) or Inverclyde (1997-2005). Its disappearance in this regard may be symbolic, however. In the years between the Censuses of 2011 and 2021 Inverclyde as a whole has been estimated to have experienced the largest fall in population of any local authority in the UK, down from 81,500 to 77,000. Taking just the contiguous towns of Greenock and Port Glasgow, the decline is more spectacular: from 97,000 in 1961 to around 56,000 in 2022. This can be seen in the thinning out of both residential and commercial premises in the dramatic townscapes rising up the hills from the south bank of the great river. It is actually not as easy to find whole abandoned estates and neighbourhoods in Britain as it was in the 1970s, say, but an exception can be found in the Clune Park estate in Port Glasgow, tenements built by the former Lithgow company for its workers between the world wars.
www.google.co.uk/search?q=clune+park+estate&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3h73Xuqj6AhUKWsAKHSSqBYsQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1093&bih=500&dpr=1.25
There are still massive sandstone tenements in inner Greenock too, along with bleak social housing estates further up the hills. In 2021 the district of Inverclyde (which including the more affluent parts) overall registered the highest rate of alcohol related deaths in Scotland, and among the highest rate of drug related mortality (and Scotland heads the European league table in that regard). According to the 2020 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, no area of the country is worse off than central Greenock. Whereas when I was compiling the earliest edition of the Almanac I might have suggested an enlightening visit to the peripheral estates of Glasgow such as Easterhouse, now a tour of visible poverty might well centre on the core of the Inverclyde constituency.
The overall Inverclyde mortality rate is all the more surprising given that there are some well-off parts of the seat. As well as the Gourock to Wemyss Bay section mentioned in the first paragraph, since 2005 the constituency has also included Kilmacolm, a very affluent large village much in demand by commuters to Glasgow and Paisley. Like the rest of the seat it is situated in Renfrewshire, but is located well inland in the Gryffe valley.
Due to the population decline noted above, the current Inverclyde seat is under-sized and in the present Scottish Boundary review it has been finally recommended that the area nearest to Kilmacolm should be expanded by the addition of parts of the Bishopton, Bridge of Weir & Langbank and Houston, Crosslee and Linwood wards of the Renfrewshire authority, thus increasing the electorate by 12,000. The largest communities to be added are Bridge of Weir and Houston. It is difficult to assess the impact of the boundary changes as only parts of the unitary council wards have been included, but back in the days of Scottish districts with small wards at the end of the last century both Bridge of Weir and Houston were strongly Conservative in 1992, for example. Initially it was suggested that the new seat be named Inverclyde and Bridge of Weir, which was decidedly odd (even though the logic is based on the fact that a part of the Renfrew district has been added to the whole district of Inverclyde), as the latter’s population is just under 5,000, and Greenock is still not named despite being around nine times larger. After the inquiry process the Scottish Boundary Commission changed the recommended name to Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West, but otherwise confirmed their original proposals, apart from shifting 58 electors in the Dargavel new housing development to Paisley and Renfrewshire North. The changes are, however, unlikely to transform the overall predilections of the constituency.
There was a time when the division based on Greenock was that rare creature in British politics, a Labour-Liberal marginal. Liberals never actually won after 1935, and that was a National Liberal, but they did finish second from 1959 right through till 1970, when, bizarrely, the Conservatives did not put up a candidate, then again in February 1974, 1979, 1983 and 1987. After the long serving Labour MP Dickson Mabon defected to the SDP in 1981, he even left the Greenock & Port Glasgow contest at the next election to the Liberals, moving himself to fight, and lose, the neighbouring Renfrew West. Those days are long past, though. In 2017 the Liberal Democrats polled fewer than 1,000 votes and in 2019 they just saved their deposit but finished a distant fourth. Now the Labour party has joined them in suffering an eclipse. As recently as 2011 Labour easily held the byelection caused by the premature death of David Cairns at the age of 44. Now however Inverclyde looks safe for the SNP.
The Nationalists have now won three times in a row, easily in 2015 and 2019 but only by 384 votes in the ‘Corbyn revival’ year of 2017. This raised false hopes though, as Scottish Labour has fallen back sharply since. Both in the most recent general election, and in the 2021 Scottish parliament contest in the slightly different Greenock & Inverclyde, they trailed by margins around 20%, that is, needing a 10% swing to effect a regain. The most recent electoral tests have been in the May 2022 local elections, conducted under STV in Scotland. Six wards were contested within the Inverclyde district (the seventh, Inverclyde East, which covers Kilmacolm, Quarrier Village and a lot of moorland) was uncontested with one seat each for SNP, Labour and Conservative). In four instances the SNP secured more first references and in only two Labour did (although subsequent transfers helped Labour to a narrow plurality when all the seats were allocated). Labour’s strongest ward, with nearly 48% first preferences, was Inverclyde Central (the east end of Greenock and the terrain between Greenock and Port Glasgow such as Cartsdyke, Ladyhill, Whinhill and Maukinhill, which is a mixture of social housing estates and some private new build). They also led more narrowly, by 36% to the SNP’s 32% in Inverclyde North, essentially the western and central portions of Greenock. Inverclyde West ward, mainly Gourock, saw an Independent top the poll, SNP second and Labour third. But the SNP were well ahead in Inverclyde SW (Wemyss Bay, Bridgend), South (the Fancy Farm, Gateside and Cornhaddock inland suburbs of Greenock) and East Central (essentially Port Glasgow).
Labour is still clearly the main ‘unionist’ challenger to the SNP in Inverclyde, unlike, for example, in several nearby Ayrshire seats where it has fallen to third place behind the Conservatives. This is a very ‘Scottish’ seat: it currently ranks 3rd of the 58 in terms of residents born in Scotland. But it also has an ‘Irish’ background, like many others in the former Strathclyde region, and this may be apparent in the religious figures from the most recent census, when Inverclyde was ranked first among the constituencies in Scotland for self-ascribed Christians and last for ‘no religion’. This is often a surrogate for Roman Catholicism, and that is indeed the case here. The Census in Scotland was delayed for a year till 2022 because of Covid, so updated details are not yet fully available, but in 2011 in the Inverclyde district, 30,156 residents were classed as Catholic out of the total of 81,485, which represents 37% of the whole – or 49.5% of those allocating themselves to a religion. By comparison, the Church of Scotland total was only 26,852. This factor may have suppressed the Conservative share of the vote in this constituency to some extent, even if traditional loyalties to Labour have faded in favour of Nationalism. It may be expected that given the current SNP problems and Labour party revival that the result will be closer in a 2024 general election, but this will not be one of the latter's top targets. In the 2021 Scottish Parliament election the SNP won the similar Greenock & Inverclyde division by an even larger margin than in the 2019 general election in Inverclyde - by 54.2% to 31.7%.
It is not all grim in Greenock: take for example a trip along the Esplanade, or through the solid mansions of the west end around the cricket club, memorials of the prosperity that once elevated the town to be one of the six most populous in Scotland. It does seem unfair that its name does not always appear in the title of the constituency and has not done recently, rather as in the case of its now non-premiership football club, (Greenock) Morton. But the predominant air in the heart of the seat is of decline. In the 2014 referendum, Inverclyde as a whole voted only by a knife edge that its future should still be in the United Kingdom – by 50.1% to 49.9%. This was the fifth most pro-independence of any district in Scotland. It is not surprising therefore that it should look very like an SNP stronghold now even as the balance within the seat tilts gradually but inexorably away from the Greenock / Port Glasgow core as that area’s population plummets. Nevertheless, the suggestion that this constituency should be renamed Inverclyde and Bridge of Weir seems almost deliberately insulting to its two largest communities, for all that their glory seems to lie in the past.
2011 Census Inverclyde
Age 65+ 18.1% 230/650
Owner-occupied 61.9% 450/650
Private rented 10.5% 549/650
Social rented 27.0% 84/650
White 98.6% 37/650
Black 0.2% 573/650
Asian 0.9% 538/650
Country of birth Scotland 3/650
Country of birth European accession states 2001-11 0.2% 649/650
Religion Christian 74.1% 1/58
Religion Jewish 0.0% (8 persons) 58/58
No religion 19.2% 58/58
Managerial & professional 25.1%
Routine & Semi-routine 34.3%
Employed in human health or social work activities 18.8% 8/650
Degree level 19.7% 526/650
No qualifications 32.6% 49/650
Students 7.9% 228/650
2022 Census
Details not yet available
General election 2019: Inverclyde
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SNP Ronnie Cowan 19,295 48.4 +9.9
Labour Martin McCluskey 11,783 29.5 -8.0
Conservative Haroun Malik 6,265 15.7 -5.8
Liberal Democrats Jacci Stoyle 2,560 6.4 +3.9
SNP Majority 7,512 18.9 +17.9
2019 electorate 60,622
Turnout 39,903 65.8 -0.6
SNP hold
Swing 9.0 Lab to SNP
Boundary Changes
The new Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West will be composed of
100 % of Inverclyde
12.9% of Paisley and Renfrewshire North
Map
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/inverclyde_and_renfrewshire_west.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Professor David Denver for Rallings and Thrasher)
Port Glasgow’s origins lie in the fact that in the 17th century due to the shoals and shallows it was the point after which the Clyde became unnavigable to seagoing ships. When a century or so later the Clyde was dredged and deepened, it developed into a shipbuilding town, its yards clustered around the ancient Newark castle, and although not as well known as the builders up the river at Dumbarton, Clydebank and within Glasgow’s city boundaries, Port Glasgow has in a way outlasted all of these. In 1955 the Clyde had 22 shipyards, but the only ones left are at Govan, where the defence contractor BAE Systems makes warships for the Royal Navy on the site of the old Fairfield yard, and Ferguson’s in Port Glasgow - the only remaining merchant shipbuilder in Scotland. It is currently, and controversially, long overdue in the process of building two ferries for CalMac (Caledonian MacBrayne), who connect Scottish islands to the mainland. The highly visible presence of the two hulls, rusting as work has often been suspended, is a link between the past traditions and the diminished present circumstances of skilled manufacture on the banks of the lower Clyde.
Greenock is much larger than Port Glasgow, with a population of 44,000 in the 2011 census compared with 15,000. Indeed it used to command recognition in its constituency’s name, either on its own (1832-1974) or in tandem with Port Glasgow (1974-97) or Inverclyde (1997-2005). Its disappearance in this regard may be symbolic, however. In the years between the Censuses of 2011 and 2021 Inverclyde as a whole has been estimated to have experienced the largest fall in population of any local authority in the UK, down from 81,500 to 77,000. Taking just the contiguous towns of Greenock and Port Glasgow, the decline is more spectacular: from 97,000 in 1961 to around 56,000 in 2022. This can be seen in the thinning out of both residential and commercial premises in the dramatic townscapes rising up the hills from the south bank of the great river. It is actually not as easy to find whole abandoned estates and neighbourhoods in Britain as it was in the 1970s, say, but an exception can be found in the Clune Park estate in Port Glasgow, tenements built by the former Lithgow company for its workers between the world wars.
www.google.co.uk/search?q=clune+park+estate&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3h73Xuqj6AhUKWsAKHSSqBYsQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1093&bih=500&dpr=1.25
There are still massive sandstone tenements in inner Greenock too, along with bleak social housing estates further up the hills. In 2021 the district of Inverclyde (which including the more affluent parts) overall registered the highest rate of alcohol related deaths in Scotland, and among the highest rate of drug related mortality (and Scotland heads the European league table in that regard). According to the 2020 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, no area of the country is worse off than central Greenock. Whereas when I was compiling the earliest edition of the Almanac I might have suggested an enlightening visit to the peripheral estates of Glasgow such as Easterhouse, now a tour of visible poverty might well centre on the core of the Inverclyde constituency.
The overall Inverclyde mortality rate is all the more surprising given that there are some well-off parts of the seat. As well as the Gourock to Wemyss Bay section mentioned in the first paragraph, since 2005 the constituency has also included Kilmacolm, a very affluent large village much in demand by commuters to Glasgow and Paisley. Like the rest of the seat it is situated in Renfrewshire, but is located well inland in the Gryffe valley.
Due to the population decline noted above, the current Inverclyde seat is under-sized and in the present Scottish Boundary review it has been finally recommended that the area nearest to Kilmacolm should be expanded by the addition of parts of the Bishopton, Bridge of Weir & Langbank and Houston, Crosslee and Linwood wards of the Renfrewshire authority, thus increasing the electorate by 12,000. The largest communities to be added are Bridge of Weir and Houston. It is difficult to assess the impact of the boundary changes as only parts of the unitary council wards have been included, but back in the days of Scottish districts with small wards at the end of the last century both Bridge of Weir and Houston were strongly Conservative in 1992, for example. Initially it was suggested that the new seat be named Inverclyde and Bridge of Weir, which was decidedly odd (even though the logic is based on the fact that a part of the Renfrew district has been added to the whole district of Inverclyde), as the latter’s population is just under 5,000, and Greenock is still not named despite being around nine times larger. After the inquiry process the Scottish Boundary Commission changed the recommended name to Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West, but otherwise confirmed their original proposals, apart from shifting 58 electors in the Dargavel new housing development to Paisley and Renfrewshire North. The changes are, however, unlikely to transform the overall predilections of the constituency.
There was a time when the division based on Greenock was that rare creature in British politics, a Labour-Liberal marginal. Liberals never actually won after 1935, and that was a National Liberal, but they did finish second from 1959 right through till 1970, when, bizarrely, the Conservatives did not put up a candidate, then again in February 1974, 1979, 1983 and 1987. After the long serving Labour MP Dickson Mabon defected to the SDP in 1981, he even left the Greenock & Port Glasgow contest at the next election to the Liberals, moving himself to fight, and lose, the neighbouring Renfrew West. Those days are long past, though. In 2017 the Liberal Democrats polled fewer than 1,000 votes and in 2019 they just saved their deposit but finished a distant fourth. Now the Labour party has joined them in suffering an eclipse. As recently as 2011 Labour easily held the byelection caused by the premature death of David Cairns at the age of 44. Now however Inverclyde looks safe for the SNP.
The Nationalists have now won three times in a row, easily in 2015 and 2019 but only by 384 votes in the ‘Corbyn revival’ year of 2017. This raised false hopes though, as Scottish Labour has fallen back sharply since. Both in the most recent general election, and in the 2021 Scottish parliament contest in the slightly different Greenock & Inverclyde, they trailed by margins around 20%, that is, needing a 10% swing to effect a regain. The most recent electoral tests have been in the May 2022 local elections, conducted under STV in Scotland. Six wards were contested within the Inverclyde district (the seventh, Inverclyde East, which covers Kilmacolm, Quarrier Village and a lot of moorland) was uncontested with one seat each for SNP, Labour and Conservative). In four instances the SNP secured more first references and in only two Labour did (although subsequent transfers helped Labour to a narrow plurality when all the seats were allocated). Labour’s strongest ward, with nearly 48% first preferences, was Inverclyde Central (the east end of Greenock and the terrain between Greenock and Port Glasgow such as Cartsdyke, Ladyhill, Whinhill and Maukinhill, which is a mixture of social housing estates and some private new build). They also led more narrowly, by 36% to the SNP’s 32% in Inverclyde North, essentially the western and central portions of Greenock. Inverclyde West ward, mainly Gourock, saw an Independent top the poll, SNP second and Labour third. But the SNP were well ahead in Inverclyde SW (Wemyss Bay, Bridgend), South (the Fancy Farm, Gateside and Cornhaddock inland suburbs of Greenock) and East Central (essentially Port Glasgow).
Labour is still clearly the main ‘unionist’ challenger to the SNP in Inverclyde, unlike, for example, in several nearby Ayrshire seats where it has fallen to third place behind the Conservatives. This is a very ‘Scottish’ seat: it currently ranks 3rd of the 58 in terms of residents born in Scotland. But it also has an ‘Irish’ background, like many others in the former Strathclyde region, and this may be apparent in the religious figures from the most recent census, when Inverclyde was ranked first among the constituencies in Scotland for self-ascribed Christians and last for ‘no religion’. This is often a surrogate for Roman Catholicism, and that is indeed the case here. The Census in Scotland was delayed for a year till 2022 because of Covid, so updated details are not yet fully available, but in 2011 in the Inverclyde district, 30,156 residents were classed as Catholic out of the total of 81,485, which represents 37% of the whole – or 49.5% of those allocating themselves to a religion. By comparison, the Church of Scotland total was only 26,852. This factor may have suppressed the Conservative share of the vote in this constituency to some extent, even if traditional loyalties to Labour have faded in favour of Nationalism. It may be expected that given the current SNP problems and Labour party revival that the result will be closer in a 2024 general election, but this will not be one of the latter's top targets. In the 2021 Scottish Parliament election the SNP won the similar Greenock & Inverclyde division by an even larger margin than in the 2019 general election in Inverclyde - by 54.2% to 31.7%.
It is not all grim in Greenock: take for example a trip along the Esplanade, or through the solid mansions of the west end around the cricket club, memorials of the prosperity that once elevated the town to be one of the six most populous in Scotland. It does seem unfair that its name does not always appear in the title of the constituency and has not done recently, rather as in the case of its now non-premiership football club, (Greenock) Morton. But the predominant air in the heart of the seat is of decline. In the 2014 referendum, Inverclyde as a whole voted only by a knife edge that its future should still be in the United Kingdom – by 50.1% to 49.9%. This was the fifth most pro-independence of any district in Scotland. It is not surprising therefore that it should look very like an SNP stronghold now even as the balance within the seat tilts gradually but inexorably away from the Greenock / Port Glasgow core as that area’s population plummets. Nevertheless, the suggestion that this constituency should be renamed Inverclyde and Bridge of Weir seems almost deliberately insulting to its two largest communities, for all that their glory seems to lie in the past.
2011 Census Inverclyde
Age 65+ 18.1% 230/650
Owner-occupied 61.9% 450/650
Private rented 10.5% 549/650
Social rented 27.0% 84/650
White 98.6% 37/650
Black 0.2% 573/650
Asian 0.9% 538/650
Country of birth Scotland 3/650
Country of birth European accession states 2001-11 0.2% 649/650
Religion Christian 74.1% 1/58
Religion Jewish 0.0% (8 persons) 58/58
No religion 19.2% 58/58
Managerial & professional 25.1%
Routine & Semi-routine 34.3%
Employed in human health or social work activities 18.8% 8/650
Degree level 19.7% 526/650
No qualifications 32.6% 49/650
Students 7.9% 228/650
2022 Census
Details not yet available
General election 2019: Inverclyde
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SNP Ronnie Cowan 19,295 48.4 +9.9
Labour Martin McCluskey 11,783 29.5 -8.0
Conservative Haroun Malik 6,265 15.7 -5.8
Liberal Democrats Jacci Stoyle 2,560 6.4 +3.9
SNP Majority 7,512 18.9 +17.9
2019 electorate 60,622
Turnout 39,903 65.8 -0.6
SNP hold
Swing 9.0 Lab to SNP
Boundary Changes
The new Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West will be composed of
100 % of Inverclyde
12.9% of Paisley and Renfrewshire North
Map
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/inverclyde_and_renfrewshire_west.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Professor David Denver for Rallings and Thrasher)
| SNP | 21995 | 47.5% |
| Lab | 13062 | 28.2% |
| Con | 8284 | 17.9% |
| LD | 2982 | 6.4% |
| | ||
| Majority | 8933 | 19.3% |