The Scottish Tory
The poor wee Tory lad or lassie is really starting to look like an endangered species in my home country of Scotland. This article looks at the ups and downs of support for the Conservative party in bonnie Scotland over the last 150 years.
Have a look at the graph below folks. You can see as well as a very steep decline in the votes share that the Conservative party has had in Scotland ( the blue line) there was a period in the 1950s when their share was very high. Though, it seems as if the high Tory vote from the mid 20s to the early 60s may be seen as something of a historical aberration, or unusual anyway. Something lasting only about 40 years, that was not seen before and probably never will again.
I say that because throughout the whole of 19thC until, right the way until the mid 1920s the old liberal party had the largest share of the vote in Scotland. In the election of 1865 the % of the vote that went to the liberals in Scotland was 85.4% - which seems an astonishing figure now, impossible for any party to get. According to an article on IPR there were ZERO Tory MPs in Scotland at 3 points in the 19thC, in the elections of the 1850s and 1860s (though I have seen other info saying that they did have a few seats then. I will check that further). So we have already had a period in Scottish history when support for the Tories was small (around 20%). To be fair to them they had a much higher level of support from the 1880s onwards (about 40% on average). But the liberals always took the majority of votes in Scotland, every single time, from the early 19thC right up until the first world war period, at an average of around 60%.
The poor wee Tory lad or lassie is really starting to look like an endangered species in my home country of Scotland. This article looks at the ups and downs of support for the Conservative party in bonnie Scotland over the last 150 years.
Have a look at the graph below folks. You can see as well as a very steep decline in the votes share that the Conservative party has had in Scotland ( the blue line) there was a period in the 1950s when their share was very high. Though, it seems as if the high Tory vote from the mid 20s to the early 60s may be seen as something of a historical aberration, or unusual anyway. Something lasting only about 40 years, that was not seen before and probably never will again.
I say that because throughout the whole of 19thC until, right the way until the mid 1920s the old liberal party had the largest share of the vote in Scotland. In the election of 1865 the % of the vote that went to the liberals in Scotland was 85.4% - which seems an astonishing figure now, impossible for any party to get. According to an article on IPR there were ZERO Tory MPs in Scotland at 3 points in the 19thC, in the elections of the 1850s and 1860s (though I have seen other info saying that they did have a few seats then. I will check that further). So we have already had a period in Scottish history when support for the Tories was small (around 20%). To be fair to them they had a much higher level of support from the 1880s onwards (about 40% on average). But the liberals always took the majority of votes in Scotland, every single time, from the early 19thC right up until the first world war period, at an average of around 60%.
Of course, the poor wee liberals imploded in the 1924 election, to just 40 MPs (from having 270 just before the war). Until that time, according to a BBC web site article on the subject: “the majority of the skilled working-class voters (in Scotland) remained loyal to the Liberal Party.” , and then it was the rise of Labour rather than the Tories which replaced them: “The rise of Red Clydeside was apparent by the 1922 election when Labour became the biggest party in Scotland, gaining 29 MPs, who left Glasgow for Westminster amidst triumphant scenes and glorious speeches.” Since that time the average labour vote in Scotland has been about 43% (roughly!).
By contrast, the Conservative party has only ever had a majority of the vote in Scotland two times in all of modern election history. They got 54.4% in 1931 and just scrapped a majority of 50.1% in 1955. And to be fair, they did get the most seats in the 1900 election (38 seats to the Liberals 34), but they didn't win the popular vote - getting 49% to the Liberals 50.2%. Also, the 1931 result was actually connected to a 'national government' not purely the Conservative party, so some researchers don't count that one! Their average vote from the 1920s to the mid 1960s is about 40%. So, only slightly behind the labour vote in that period. Since the mid 60s of course its dropped a lot, to an rough average of 23% (and despite people talking about a bit of a revival in Tory vote, in the 2015 election their share was at the lowest level its been for 150 years in Scotland, at only 14.9%).
By contrast, the Conservative party has only ever had a majority of the vote in Scotland two times in all of modern election history. They got 54.4% in 1931 and just scrapped a majority of 50.1% in 1955. And to be fair, they did get the most seats in the 1900 election (38 seats to the Liberals 34), but they didn't win the popular vote - getting 49% to the Liberals 50.2%. Also, the 1931 result was actually connected to a 'national government' not purely the Conservative party, so some researchers don't count that one! Their average vote from the 1920s to the mid 1960s is about 40%. So, only slightly behind the labour vote in that period. Since the mid 60s of course its dropped a lot, to an rough average of 23% (and despite people talking about a bit of a revival in Tory vote, in the 2015 election their share was at the lowest level its been for 150 years in Scotland, at only 14.9%).
So, the Tories had a relatively brief period of strong popularity in Scotland, from the mid 20s to mid 60s. It seems that a key reason why the conservatives had a large vote in Scotland in that period, and then lost it, is religion. That may seem an odd reason to English people (though folk in Northern Ireland would immediately get it). At this period they were seen as the unionist party by protestant working classes. In 1964/65 the Tories dropped the ‘unionist’ bit (though I remember seeing it still on the doorway of the Tory head office in Edinburgh in the 90s), and as that religious aspect in Scottish culture became less important from the 1960s on (though it’s a factor even yet) the attractiveness of the Tories to the protestant working classes also declined. They moved more towards Labour and from the 1970s to the SNP. Catholic working classes had always been mostly Labour voters (and liberal before that - as were my own grandparents).
My English friend, who brought me to check out all the above, mentioned 'one nation paternal Toryism' and Thatcher as factors. I think if they had kept to a 'one nation paternal Toryism' in which various neo-liberal, and monetarist economic and social changes were not made then the Conservatives may have more support in Scotland than they do now. As we can see from the graph above the Tories were in decline a long time before Thatcher came to power, so the Thatcher years only accelerated that decline (though with a slight revival in the 1979 election).
Above: Seats won per party in Scotland, in 1924 (top left), 1950 (top right), oct 1974 (bottom left) and 2015 (bottom right). Conservative party seats in blue...oh look at how they disappear...till there's only one left!
So, what will happen in the election coming in June 2017? Will the Tories managed to claw back a few more seats? Or will they be wiped off the map of Scotland for good?
I know which I prefer!
Addition: what happened was that the Tories managed to get the most seats in Scotland since 1983. Which of course they were very pleased about. Labour also rose, and the SNP went down by quite a bit. I think its not so surprising. The SNP got a huge number of seats last time - 56 seats out of 59. this was never seen before by any party in Scotland (Labour won 56 seats before there, but when the total seats number was higher, at 72 - so its not as all conquering as 56 out of 59). Where else can you go from such a massive position but down?...the only thing is that the loses are more than they feared, i think. Some reaction against a 2nd referendum seems to be a key point.
On the one hand, we might say that this is Scotland returning to its 'natural level' of tory vote, since the mid 70s the average % vote for the Tories there is around 23%-25%... it looks like they will get about 28 or 29% this time, only slightly above that. Much better than they expected but hardly a lot. Even on 29% they would never be able to form the majority party in the Scottish Government.
Good.
So, what will happen in the election coming in June 2017? Will the Tories managed to claw back a few more seats? Or will they be wiped off the map of Scotland for good?
I know which I prefer!
Addition: what happened was that the Tories managed to get the most seats in Scotland since 1983. Which of course they were very pleased about. Labour also rose, and the SNP went down by quite a bit. I think its not so surprising. The SNP got a huge number of seats last time - 56 seats out of 59. this was never seen before by any party in Scotland (Labour won 56 seats before there, but when the total seats number was higher, at 72 - so its not as all conquering as 56 out of 59). Where else can you go from such a massive position but down?...the only thing is that the loses are more than they feared, i think. Some reaction against a 2nd referendum seems to be a key point.
On the one hand, we might say that this is Scotland returning to its 'natural level' of tory vote, since the mid 70s the average % vote for the Tories there is around 23%-25%... it looks like they will get about 28 or 29% this time, only slightly above that. Much better than they expected but hardly a lot. Even on 29% they would never be able to form the majority party in the Scottish Government.
Good.
Further reading:
www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2016/05/lewis-baston-the-scottish-conservatives-fragile-but-enduring-and-adaptable-a-history.html
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/14/history-turned-on-tory-voting-scotland-thatcher-1980s
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/38349/1/blogs_lse_ac_uk-The_decline_of_the_Conservative_party_in_Scotland_has_more_do_to_with_its_own_failings_than_the_rise_.pdf