Candidates and Constituency Assessments

'The Scottish Executive suffered its first defeat in a Holyrood vote yesterday when MSPs rejected the proposed £25m long-term decommissioning programme in favour of immediate financial support for fishermen through a tie-up scheme. It would be good to report that the reversal of the executive's policy followed powerful debate which, in the best traditions of a democratic assembly, swayed minds and votes by the vigour and depth of the arguments marshalled against it. Sadly, the collapse of decommissioning was brought about by a combination of rank incompetence on the part of the executive and its business managers, political opportunism by its opponents, and what can most kindly be called confused thinking by certain Liberal Democrat MSPs.' Herald, Editorial, 9 th March 2001.

Edinburgh West

6 th June 2001 Westminster Election

Turnout: 39,478 (63.78 %)
Logo	Party	Candidate	Votes	%	% change
	Liberal Democrat	Cllr John Barrett	16,719	42.35 %	- 0.85 %
	Labour	Elspeth Alexandra	9,130	23.13 %	+ 4.34 %
	Conservative	Cllr Iain Whyte	8,894	22.53 %	- 5.45 %
	Scottish National Party	Alyn Smith	4,047	10.25 %	+ 1.41 %
	Scottish Socialist Party	Bill Scott	688	1.74 %	(+ 1.74 %)
	Lib Dem hold	Lib Dem majority	7,589	19.22 %	+ 4.00 %

1 st May 1997 Westminster Election

Turnout: 47,631 (77.91 %)
Logo	Party	Candidate	Votes	%	% change
	Liberal Democrat	Cllr Donald Gorrie	20,578	43.20 %	+ 13.31 %
	Conservative	Lord James Douglas-Hamilton	13,325	27.98 %	- 10.22 %
	Labour	Lesley Hinds	8,948	18.79 %	+ 1.43 %
	Scottish National Party	Graham Sutherland	4,210	8.84 %	- 3.70 %
	Referendum	Stephen Elphick	277	0.58 %	(+ 0.58 %)
	Liberal	Paul Coombes	263	0.55 %	(+ 0.55 %)
	Anti Sleaze	Antony Jack	30	0.06 %	(+ 0.06 %)
	Lib Dem gain from Con	Lib Dem majority	7,253	15.22 %

Notional 1992 result

	Conservative	19,715	38.20 %
	Liberal Democrat	15,424	29.89 %
	Labour	8,961	17.36 %
	Scottish National Party	6,471	12.54 %
	Others	1,027	1.99 %
Con win	Con majority	4,291	8.32 %