ABERDEEN CENTRAL
Winner in 2016: Kevin Stewart (SNP)
THE north of Aberdeen wasn’t the only part of the city where the SNP surged to unprecedented heights in the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999.
The phenomenon was also witnessed in the Aberdeen Central constituency, where the SNP candidate Richard Lochhead took an impressive 29% of the vote, moving his party to within a 5% swing of gaining the seat from Labour’s Lewis Macdonald. However, the swing to the SNP at the following election in 2003 was a mere 2%, and there was huge disappointment in 2007 when Macdonald narrowly held on for Labour against the national tide that swept Alex Salmond into Bute House.
It might seem inevitable that Macdonald’s luck would have finally run out when Labour’s national vote slumped in 2011, and indeed Kevin Stewart did finally capture the seat for the SNP.
But Macdonald came astonishingly close to winning yet again. He ended up just 2.5% behind Stewart, and the SNP’s majority was a modest 617 votes.
He tried his luck for a fifth time in even less favourable circumstances for Labour in 2016, and on that occasion the SNP finally managed to open up some clear water, with the majority increasing to a substantial 4349 votes.
Nevertheless, Macdonald’s 27% of the vote was arguably still reasonably creditable given how completely the political climate had changed since his slim victory in 2003.
For that reason, the SNP will be heartily relieved that, for the first time since devolution, the Labour candidate in Aberdeen Central this year is someone other than Lewis Macdonald.
In the absence of his personal vote, Labour may have to concern themselves primarily with what’s in their rear-view mirror – they had just a 5% advantage over the third-placed Tories last time, and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if the two main unionist parties swap places.
Meanwhile, the SNP and Kevin Stewart can expect to put the struggles of the past behind them with a relatively straightforward win.
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