Expert exposes the myth of Tory working-class revival
ONE of the UK’s leading political scientists has dismissed claims that the Scottish Tories are enjoying an upsurge in working-class support. The media has focused on Tory councillors elected to socially-deprived areas like Ferguslie Park, Ravenscraig, and Shettleston – although this was misleading as the first two locations are part of larger, more prosperous wards.
However, Professor John Curtice, right, said the gains in those areas were largely due to the single transferable voting system used in Scottish council elections.
Curtice said the system, where voters rank candidates in order of preference, meant there was a lower threshold for winning a seat in a ward that has a number of councillors. He pointed out the Tories finishing second overall in Scotland on 25 per cent of all votes meant the party picked up seats in areas in which it had traditionally been weaker.
He added that the overall Tory success was largely due to an upsurge in support in places such as Aberdeenshire and the Borders – once strongholds for the party. Curtice said: “The Tories didn’t win Shettleston in that sense. It was the threshold they reached. It was because of the proportional system. “The Tory vote went up mainly in areas like the Northeast, Aberdeenshire and the Borders – middle-class parts of these areas – where they used to win seats in the 1980s and in 1992,” he said. “Those are the places where the Tory vote went up the most – middle-class areas. It was here there was this bedrock of Tory support.”
Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, added: “People’s initial reaction was that the Tories are winning in working-class Scotland, but if the Tories win 25 per cent of the vote of course the electoral system is going to reflect that.
“So they are gaining traction, but not any particular traction. It was mainly in places in the Northeast and Borders, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire – all locations where the Tories have won support in the relatively recent past, but where their vote collapsed in the late 1990s.”