Sunday, 11 June 2017

General Election 2017: The Scottish Constituencies

A quick crunch of the figures and some throwaway observations:
  • The "unionist" parties (Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems) had a 62.4 % overall vote share and greater than a 50% vote share in every constituency in Scotland

  • The SNP's 36.9% share in Scotland was lower than Labour's 40.0% vote share across the UK -- but won them 59% of seats

  • With 27% of the vote, Labour won just 12% of seats; the Conservatives with 29% of the vote won 22% of seats, the Lib Dems with 7% of vote won 7% of seats

  • The Scottish Conservatives received just a 1.5% higher vote share than Scottish Labour by dint of getting 5.7% more votes [757k vs 717k]

  • Scottish Labour were second in 24 constituencies, Conservatives in 10 and Lib Dems in 1 (by just 2 votes)

  • The SNP came second in every seat they lost

  • There were four constituencies with winning margins of less than 100 votes -- these were all won by the SNP

  • Across the 6 constituencies which the SNP won with the lowest margin of victory, they cumulatively won by just 619 votes (or an average of 102 votes per constituency) -- a swing of just 310 votes nationwide would have seen the SNP lose their claim to a majority of Scottish seats at Westminster

  • The lowest winning constituency vote share was the SNP's 32.6% in Lanark & Hamilton East where the Tories polled 32.1%, Labour 31.9%

  • The largest winning margin was comfortably Labour's Ian Murray's 15,514 majority in Edinburgh South; with a 54.9% vote share he was 32.4% ahead of  the SNP who polled just 22.5%

  • The only other constituency won with a majority vote share was the Scottish Conservative's John Lamont who won Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk with 53.9% of the vote, a majority of 11,060 over the SNP who polled 32.8%

  • The SNP's Vote share dropped from 50.0% in 2015 to 36.9% in 2017; their total votes dropped by a third [from 1,454,436 to 977,569]

Here's the raw data in tabular and graph format - if I've made any errors let me know and I will of course correct









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6 comments:

  1. George11 June 2017 at 09:33

    "the Conservatives with 29% of the vote won 12% of the seats" I think it should be 22% of the seats, that's what it says in your table. Really interesting analysis.

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  2. Unknown11 June 2017 at 11:53

    Thanks again Kevin. The most extraordinary numbers for me are the comparators between SNP and Conservatives in 2015 & 17. In the former the SNP attracted 1.02 Million votes more than the Conservatives. In 17 it dropped to just 220,000. Makes it more difficult to argue Scotland doesn't get the UK Government it wants.

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  3. Kevin Hague11 June 2017 at 15:32

    thanks George: corrected now

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  4. Dave R18 June 2017 at 14:41

    An interesting statistic is that the Tory share of the Scottish vote (28.6%) is higher than the SNP have achieved in any general election other than the two in the last couple of years (50% and 36.9%), and the 1974 election (30.4%).

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  5. Donald Mackay21 June 2017 at 11:45

    Lib Dems finally get PR. 7% from 7%

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  6. Drew26 June 2017 at 07:04

    The Unionists have a spring in their step for sure in Scotland and they deserve to celebrate their recent revival in fortunes and the sharp decline in fortunes of the SNP, after having to endure the SNP win 7 straight national Scottish elections in a row as the largest share of votes/seats counted (including councils, Holyrood, EU elections & 2 General elections).

    The power brokers the DUP are likely to ensure Unionism is given a pretty loud megaphone in UK politics too.

    The chief weapon Scottish Unionists have is of course the Barnett formula and the fiscal transfer Scotland enjoys from the UK Government.

    But how strong a basis is that for sustainable economic development in the long term?

    Belfast used to be the main economic powerhouse of the whole of the island of Ireland at the time of Irish independence in the 1920s, with 80% of the industrial output centred around Belfast.

    However the Irish Republic now comfortably outstrips Northern Ireland's overall economic output ten times with 15 times more exports than the North thanks to the ability to pursue their own fiscal and economic development, while the North is heavily reliant on subsidies from London.

    While the North's economic problems are very much a product of The Troubles, there is no doubt Irish independence has been an economic success story, despite the usual ups and downs experencied by most other European countries in the last decade.

    The North's economic prosperity looks even more uncertain after Brexit, so much so that a border poll may become economically more attractive.

    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/demographics-are-shifting-towards-a-united-ireland-we-must-have-a-plan-35865222.html

    Scotland too awaits the same fate as Northern Ireland, a future ever more increasingly reliant on Barnett and fiscal handouts from London, with an ageing population lacking the opportunities, skills and population boost EU migration brings.

    Scotland is the second most subsidised region of the UK after Northern Ireland and the problem is getting worse not better. Politicians of all colours need to have a radical rethink about our economic policy because hand outs don't work.

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