Post by Robert Waller on Sept 12, 2023 13:49:52 GMT
Angus is a distinguished name in Scotland. Not just for people, but Angus has been known as a regional identifier since at least 937, when it was mentioned in the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba. Angus is a historic county and following the 1995 reforms a unitary authority. Since 1950 it has also appeared in constituency names, with compass points at various times of East, South and North & Mearns. Since 1997 there has been a Westminster division of just plain Angus. Yet, for the time being at least, due to proposed boundary changes confirmed in the revised and final proposals, its 2019 contest will be its last in its present form; and due to the removal of its largest town, Arbroath, most of its terrain will also be separated from what is one of the iconic locations of Scottish nationalism because of its 1320 Declaration of defiance against English subjugation.
Nevertheless, the Nationalist cause in this area and its successor seats is likely to remain competitive though not without a strong challenge on the part of the Conservative and Unionist party. Angus South had been an ‘early adopter’ of the SNP, electing Andrew Welsh for a term back in October 1974; he returned to win East Angus in 1987 and 1992, then the unified Angus seat in 1997. When Welsh moved to the newly established Holyrood Parliament in 2001 he was seamlessly replaced by Mike Weir, who won Angus for the SNP four more times before being defeated by Kirstene Hair of the Conservatives in their ‘slight hiccup’ (actually a 16% negative swing) of 2017. But Dave Doogan recovered the seat with a 3,795 majority in December 2019. Though not as rock solid for Nationalism as the ‘big city’ in this sub-region, Dundee, it can be said that over many decades now the SNP has been the ‘natural party of government’ in the county of Angus.
That certainly applies to elections in the local authority. The majority of the electorate of the current constituency is to be found in a group of towns familiar to all connoisseurs of the lower division of the Scottish Football league: Arbroath, Forfar, Montrose and Brechin – though the grandly named club of the last, Brechin City, lost their place in even the Second Division (actually the lowest of the four) in 2021. The largest of the towns Arbroath (population around 24,000 in 2022) will be removed in the boundary changes to join the communities to its west along the coast and some north eastern wards of Dundee in the new Arbroarth and Broughty Fery constituency (q.v.).
Of the remaining Angus towns, in Forfar, Montrose and Brechin the SNP took the most preferences in May 2022, with between 34% and 39% shares, usually with Independents in second place, though in Brechin (with Edzell) the Conservatives did well, runners up only two per cent behind the Nationalists. It may not be coincidental that the Brechin ward also has the lowest proportion of social rented housing of these mainly urban wards, the only one below 20%. In no case did Labour or the Liberal Democrats even reach 10%, just as in the December 2019 general election in Angus. There is clearly a Conservative base, which is linked to the 2014 independence referendum, when Angus voted 56.3% to remain in the United Kingdom and only 43.7% to leave, not far off the Scotland-wide average and very different indeed from Dundee, an enclave within the county, that returned the strongest ‘Yes’ vote anywhere. There also exists a culture less hostile to English traditions. For example there are cricket clubs (and strong ones, too) at Montrose and Forfar – where it is called Strathmore: the distinguished Forfarshire cricket club is actually in Broughty Ferry.
As that name implies, Angus was known alternatively as Forfarshire until 1928, and Forfar, situated inland, is not only the second largest town in the county, and the largest in the seat now under discussion (population 16,000), but still the administrative centre of the county, as well as the acting as the market town of Strathmore. Montrose (12,000) is a coastal port and has a large Glaxo plant at its southern end near the mouth of the South Esk, as well as an industrial estate at its north end. Brechin (10,000) may not be widely recognized as a city despite the name of its football club, but the genteel ambience around the cathedral is not untypical of the town as a whole, which is decidedly less industrial than the others. The Angus seat does include one other ward, which is predominantly rural, Kirriemuir & Dean. This saw the highest Tory share in the county in 2022, over 38%, though yet again the SNP topped that with 42%. Overall, though, the demographic statistics of Angus may surprise some as they are decidedly less typified by elite indicators.
The percentage working in routine and semi-routine occupations is clearly higher than that in the professional and managerial sectors; in fact at the time of the most recent published census figures, the seat ranked 541st out of 650 for higher professional and managerial workers, and 112th for those in routine jobs. It is also only just outside the top 100 for those with no educational qualifications. It has exceptionally high numbers in lower supervisory and technical positions and those in mineral extractive industry (though as everywhere in Britain this is still a low percentage). As mentioned above it also has a lower than average proportion of owner occupiers. Its age profile is older than most and there are very few ethnic minority residents indeed.
The forthcoming boundary changes remove nearly 37% of Angus’s electorate. The remaining 63% is to form the core of a new constituency with the rather romantic name of Angus and Perthshire Glens. In the earlier editions of the Boundary Commission recommendations, it was to be North Tayside – a seat name that previously existed between 1983 and 2005. That seat was initially Conservative but gained by the SNP in 1997 and retained thereafter. The remainder of the new Angus and Perthshire Glens comes from Perth & North Perthshire, and comprises the small towns of Aberfeldy and Pitlochry (both heavily devoted to tourism), Blairgowrie and Coupar Angus, as well as a wide swathe of glens, mountains and lochs such as the giant Tay and the more remote Tummel and Rannoch (see map here and below).
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Angus_and_Perthshire_Glens.pdf
The acreage will be well over twice that of the present Angus division. The single Perth & Kinross ward of Highland is not far off as large as the whole of the current Angus seat. The four wards to be included in Angus and Perthshire Glens are all SNP–Conservative contests. In May 2022 the Nationalists received the most first preferences in Highland, Strathmore (Blairgowrie/Rattray) and Strathtay (Coupar Angus/Alyth), the Tories in Blairgowrie & Glens.
The birthplace of J. M. Barrie, Kirriemuir, is in the geographical centre of the current Angus, though not of the new Angus and Perthshire Glens. The SNP may display the confidence of Peter Pan that their dominance in this substantial part of Scotland may never end, and apart from the Tories’ remarkable (but solitary in recent times) victory in Angus in 2017 they have some reason. However given the difficulties and reverses of their government in recent months, it must be regarded as a tight two party marginal with the Conservatives. It may not be widely remembered that Peter Pan had the character of a boastful and careless boy; and in any case, living forever is strictly for fantasy. Electoral politics, in Angus, Perthshire Glens and elsewhere, is indeed an awfully big adventure.
2011 Census, Angus, old boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 146/650
Owner-occupied 59.8% 479/650
Private rented 12.7% 410/650
Social rented 25.3% 103/650
White 98.9% 18/650
Black 0.2% 571/650
Asian 0.7% 598/650
Managerial & professional 26.3%
Routine & Semi-routine 32.2%
Lower supervisory and technical 10.1% 14/650
Employed in mining and quarrying 2.7% 7/650
Skilled trades occupations 17.0% 30/650
Degree level 21.0% 471/650
Level 1 qualifications 25.6% 12/650
No qualifications 29.8% 101/650
Students 6.3% 423/650
2022 Census, new boundaries
Not yet available
General Election 2019: Angus
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SNP Dave Doogan 21,216 49.1 +10.5
Conservative Kirstene Hair 17,421 40.4 −4.8
Liberal Democrats Ben Lawrie 2,482 5.7 +2.4
Labour Monique Miller 2,051 4.8 −8.2
SNP Majority 3,795 8.8
2019 electorate 63,952
Turnout 43,170 67.5 +4.5
SNP gain from Conservative
Swing 7.7 C to SNP
Boundary Changes
The new Angus and Perthshire Glens will consist of
63.3% of Angus
38.3% of Perth & North Perthshire
3.8% of Ochil & South Perthshire
0.7% of Dundee East
Map
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Angus_and_Perthshire_Glens.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Denver for Rallings and Thrasher)
I should also like to reproduce ntyuk1707's comments on the Angus entry in the previous Vote UK Almanac, though he may wish to update ...
Since the 2019 general election in which Conservative MP Kirstene Hair was defeated by the SNP's Dave Doogan, the SNP have strongly recovered their support in the Angus area, significantly more so than in other parts of the north-east where the Conservatives remain competitive including Moray, Aberdeen South and Aberdeenshire.
Angus constituency more so than many other parts of Scotland has a clear divide in its voting behaviour, with rural communities being significantly more supportive of the Scottish Conservatives and all major towns having voted SNP to varying degrees at the 2022 local elections.
In 2014, Angus rejected independence by a slightly above average margin of 56%, widely considered to be a strong result for the BetterTogether campaign owing to the seat's history as an SNP-voting area dating back to 1974 and 1987.
Given the SNP's strong recovery here at the 2021 Scottish election and 2022 local election, this is an area which seems difficult for the Conservatives to re-gain under the current circumstances, in spite of ongoing political difficulties for the SNP, at least at surface-level. For example, in 2019, the Conservatives only lost Angus by 9% of the vote, however in the overlapping Scottish Parliament constituency this lead widened to 16% in 2021.
Boundary changes here would significantly benefit the Scottish Conservatives however - bringing two of the SNP's strongest wards from Perthshire into the same constituency as most of Angus constituency and therefore allowing the Conservatives with a better shot of gaining the newly formulated Perth seat which gains Tory-rich areas in southern Perthshire and Kinross, but the new North Tayside seat also leaves the door open for a Conservative gain by adding in the more Unionist areas of Blairgowrie and Strathmore in north-eastern Perthshire. This new North Tayside seat drops Arbroath and its surrounding communities which would join Dundee East if the proposals are approved, and the new North Tayside seat would have rejected independence by a slightly higher margin of 57% No in the 2014 referendum.
North Tayside as a seat is somewhere you would expect to be safely Conservative: covering a large expanse of rich farmlands and rural communities away from the central belt, and in 1992 it was their second safest seat in Scotland, but support for the party has whittled away to the SNP since Conservative peaks in 1992 and 2017.
Expect this seat to be a very straight fight between the Conservatives and the SNP!
More than elsewhere in Scotland, this is an area where voters will happily vote Conservative in one election and SNP in the next, so it could be open to some surprises and higher than average swings, but is nevertheless one of the very safest SNP seats in Scotland based on current polling figures for the Conservatives.
Nevertheless, the Nationalist cause in this area and its successor seats is likely to remain competitive though not without a strong challenge on the part of the Conservative and Unionist party. Angus South had been an ‘early adopter’ of the SNP, electing Andrew Welsh for a term back in October 1974; he returned to win East Angus in 1987 and 1992, then the unified Angus seat in 1997. When Welsh moved to the newly established Holyrood Parliament in 2001 he was seamlessly replaced by Mike Weir, who won Angus for the SNP four more times before being defeated by Kirstene Hair of the Conservatives in their ‘slight hiccup’ (actually a 16% negative swing) of 2017. But Dave Doogan recovered the seat with a 3,795 majority in December 2019. Though not as rock solid for Nationalism as the ‘big city’ in this sub-region, Dundee, it can be said that over many decades now the SNP has been the ‘natural party of government’ in the county of Angus.
That certainly applies to elections in the local authority. The majority of the electorate of the current constituency is to be found in a group of towns familiar to all connoisseurs of the lower division of the Scottish Football league: Arbroath, Forfar, Montrose and Brechin – though the grandly named club of the last, Brechin City, lost their place in even the Second Division (actually the lowest of the four) in 2021. The largest of the towns Arbroath (population around 24,000 in 2022) will be removed in the boundary changes to join the communities to its west along the coast and some north eastern wards of Dundee in the new Arbroarth and Broughty Fery constituency (q.v.).
Of the remaining Angus towns, in Forfar, Montrose and Brechin the SNP took the most preferences in May 2022, with between 34% and 39% shares, usually with Independents in second place, though in Brechin (with Edzell) the Conservatives did well, runners up only two per cent behind the Nationalists. It may not be coincidental that the Brechin ward also has the lowest proportion of social rented housing of these mainly urban wards, the only one below 20%. In no case did Labour or the Liberal Democrats even reach 10%, just as in the December 2019 general election in Angus. There is clearly a Conservative base, which is linked to the 2014 independence referendum, when Angus voted 56.3% to remain in the United Kingdom and only 43.7% to leave, not far off the Scotland-wide average and very different indeed from Dundee, an enclave within the county, that returned the strongest ‘Yes’ vote anywhere. There also exists a culture less hostile to English traditions. For example there are cricket clubs (and strong ones, too) at Montrose and Forfar – where it is called Strathmore: the distinguished Forfarshire cricket club is actually in Broughty Ferry.
As that name implies, Angus was known alternatively as Forfarshire until 1928, and Forfar, situated inland, is not only the second largest town in the county, and the largest in the seat now under discussion (population 16,000), but still the administrative centre of the county, as well as the acting as the market town of Strathmore. Montrose (12,000) is a coastal port and has a large Glaxo plant at its southern end near the mouth of the South Esk, as well as an industrial estate at its north end. Brechin (10,000) may not be widely recognized as a city despite the name of its football club, but the genteel ambience around the cathedral is not untypical of the town as a whole, which is decidedly less industrial than the others. The Angus seat does include one other ward, which is predominantly rural, Kirriemuir & Dean. This saw the highest Tory share in the county in 2022, over 38%, though yet again the SNP topped that with 42%. Overall, though, the demographic statistics of Angus may surprise some as they are decidedly less typified by elite indicators.
The percentage working in routine and semi-routine occupations is clearly higher than that in the professional and managerial sectors; in fact at the time of the most recent published census figures, the seat ranked 541st out of 650 for higher professional and managerial workers, and 112th for those in routine jobs. It is also only just outside the top 100 for those with no educational qualifications. It has exceptionally high numbers in lower supervisory and technical positions and those in mineral extractive industry (though as everywhere in Britain this is still a low percentage). As mentioned above it also has a lower than average proportion of owner occupiers. Its age profile is older than most and there are very few ethnic minority residents indeed.
The forthcoming boundary changes remove nearly 37% of Angus’s electorate. The remaining 63% is to form the core of a new constituency with the rather romantic name of Angus and Perthshire Glens. In the earlier editions of the Boundary Commission recommendations, it was to be North Tayside – a seat name that previously existed between 1983 and 2005. That seat was initially Conservative but gained by the SNP in 1997 and retained thereafter. The remainder of the new Angus and Perthshire Glens comes from Perth & North Perthshire, and comprises the small towns of Aberfeldy and Pitlochry (both heavily devoted to tourism), Blairgowrie and Coupar Angus, as well as a wide swathe of glens, mountains and lochs such as the giant Tay and the more remote Tummel and Rannoch (see map here and below).
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Angus_and_Perthshire_Glens.pdf
The acreage will be well over twice that of the present Angus division. The single Perth & Kinross ward of Highland is not far off as large as the whole of the current Angus seat. The four wards to be included in Angus and Perthshire Glens are all SNP–Conservative contests. In May 2022 the Nationalists received the most first preferences in Highland, Strathmore (Blairgowrie/Rattray) and Strathtay (Coupar Angus/Alyth), the Tories in Blairgowrie & Glens.
The birthplace of J. M. Barrie, Kirriemuir, is in the geographical centre of the current Angus, though not of the new Angus and Perthshire Glens. The SNP may display the confidence of Peter Pan that their dominance in this substantial part of Scotland may never end, and apart from the Tories’ remarkable (but solitary in recent times) victory in Angus in 2017 they have some reason. However given the difficulties and reverses of their government in recent months, it must be regarded as a tight two party marginal with the Conservatives. It may not be widely remembered that Peter Pan had the character of a boastful and careless boy; and in any case, living forever is strictly for fantasy. Electoral politics, in Angus, Perthshire Glens and elsewhere, is indeed an awfully big adventure.
2011 Census, Angus, old boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 146/650
Owner-occupied 59.8% 479/650
Private rented 12.7% 410/650
Social rented 25.3% 103/650
White 98.9% 18/650
Black 0.2% 571/650
Asian 0.7% 598/650
Managerial & professional 26.3%
Routine & Semi-routine 32.2%
Lower supervisory and technical 10.1% 14/650
Employed in mining and quarrying 2.7% 7/650
Skilled trades occupations 17.0% 30/650
Degree level 21.0% 471/650
Level 1 qualifications 25.6% 12/650
No qualifications 29.8% 101/650
Students 6.3% 423/650
2022 Census, new boundaries
Not yet available
General Election 2019: Angus
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SNP Dave Doogan 21,216 49.1 +10.5
Conservative Kirstene Hair 17,421 40.4 −4.8
Liberal Democrats Ben Lawrie 2,482 5.7 +2.4
Labour Monique Miller 2,051 4.8 −8.2
SNP Majority 3,795 8.8
2019 electorate 63,952
Turnout 43,170 67.5 +4.5
SNP gain from Conservative
Swing 7.7 C to SNP
Boundary Changes
The new Angus and Perthshire Glens will consist of
63.3% of Angus
38.3% of Perth & North Perthshire
3.8% of Ochil & South Perthshire
0.7% of Dundee East
Map
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Angus_and_Perthshire_Glens.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Denver for Rallings and Thrasher)
| SNP | 28509 | 50.4% |
| Con | 22504 | 39.8% |
| LD | 2803 | 5.0% |
| Lab | 2402 | 4.3% |
| Brexit | 329 | 0.6% |
| | ||
| Majority | 6005 | 10.6% |
I should also like to reproduce ntyuk1707's comments on the Angus entry in the previous Vote UK Almanac, though he may wish to update ...
Since the 2019 general election in which Conservative MP Kirstene Hair was defeated by the SNP's Dave Doogan, the SNP have strongly recovered their support in the Angus area, significantly more so than in other parts of the north-east where the Conservatives remain competitive including Moray, Aberdeen South and Aberdeenshire.
Angus constituency more so than many other parts of Scotland has a clear divide in its voting behaviour, with rural communities being significantly more supportive of the Scottish Conservatives and all major towns having voted SNP to varying degrees at the 2022 local elections.
In 2014, Angus rejected independence by a slightly above average margin of 56%, widely considered to be a strong result for the BetterTogether campaign owing to the seat's history as an SNP-voting area dating back to 1974 and 1987.
Given the SNP's strong recovery here at the 2021 Scottish election and 2022 local election, this is an area which seems difficult for the Conservatives to re-gain under the current circumstances, in spite of ongoing political difficulties for the SNP, at least at surface-level. For example, in 2019, the Conservatives only lost Angus by 9% of the vote, however in the overlapping Scottish Parliament constituency this lead widened to 16% in 2021.
Boundary changes here would significantly benefit the Scottish Conservatives however - bringing two of the SNP's strongest wards from Perthshire into the same constituency as most of Angus constituency and therefore allowing the Conservatives with a better shot of gaining the newly formulated Perth seat which gains Tory-rich areas in southern Perthshire and Kinross, but the new North Tayside seat also leaves the door open for a Conservative gain by adding in the more Unionist areas of Blairgowrie and Strathmore in north-eastern Perthshire. This new North Tayside seat drops Arbroath and its surrounding communities which would join Dundee East if the proposals are approved, and the new North Tayside seat would have rejected independence by a slightly higher margin of 57% No in the 2014 referendum.
North Tayside as a seat is somewhere you would expect to be safely Conservative: covering a large expanse of rich farmlands and rural communities away from the central belt, and in 1992 it was their second safest seat in Scotland, but support for the party has whittled away to the SNP since Conservative peaks in 1992 and 2017.
Expect this seat to be a very straight fight between the Conservatives and the SNP!
More than elsewhere in Scotland, this is an area where voters will happily vote Conservative in one election and SNP in the next, so it could be open to some surprises and higher than average swings, but is nevertheless one of the very safest SNP seats in Scotland based on current polling figures for the Conservatives.
