Candidates and Constituency Assessments

'Scots drivers and consumers are paying the equivalent of 2.5 p more on the basic rate of income tax as a result of the Government's hike in fuel prices since coming to power.' Robbie Dinwoodie in the Herald, 25 th March 1999.

Ayr

	Jim Mather		Sandra Osborne MP
	Phil Gallie MSP		Stuart Ritchie
	James Stewart		Joseph Smith

In 1983 the Ayr seat saw a major boundary change with 20% of its electors being added from Central Ayrshire. In 1997, the Tory areas of Alloway, Forehill and Holmston in the south of Ayr were transferred to Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley. This boundary change made little difference to Carrick, but turned Ayr from a knife edge Tory-Labour marginal into a Labour seat.

Ayr has been something of a family seat for the Youngers with George Younger's grandfather, another George Younger, who later became Viscount Younger of Leckie winning the seat in 1918. He was Conservative Chief Whip and was instrumental in bringin down Lloyd George's Liberal-Tory coalition in 1922.

Between 1950 and 1997. In 1950, it was won by Sir T.C.R. Moore with 58.6 % of the vote and a 6,214 majority over Labour which he increased to 6,283 in 1951.

There was no boundary changes in Ayr in 1955 and the slight reduction in Sir T.C.R. Moore's majority to 6,140 was due to a reduction in the turnout from 86.5 % to 77.1 %, with the Tories taking 59.1 % of the vote.

In 1959 there was a 4.4 % swing to Labour with Sir T.C.R Moore's majority being reduced to 3,356. The Labour candidate was Alex Eadie who became MP for Midlothian in 1966.

In 1963, the Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan resigned and was replaced by the 14 th Earl of Home. As it was unthinkable for a 20 th century Prime Minister to lead the country from the House of Lords, Alec Douglas Home renounced his title and looked for a Commons seat. As a by-election was pending in Kinross & West Perthshire, the Conservative candidate stood aside to allow Home to contest and win the seat. The displaced candidate was the Honourable, George Younger, the son of Viscount Younger of Leckie, who as Tory Chief Whip, had brought down Lloyd-George's Tory-Liberal coalition in 1922. George Younger was rewarded with the safe Tory seat of Ayr at the 1964 General election when Sir T.C.R. Moore stepped down.

However, Ayr was no longer quite as safe as it had been in 1955 when Sir T.C.R Moore had taken 59.1 % of the vote. In 1964, George Younger took 52.2 % and was elected with a majority of 1,701 over Alex Eadie. In 1966, there was a further swing of 1.6 % to Labour in Ayr and this reduced George Younger's majority still further to just 484 with him taking 50.6 % of the vote to 49.4 % for Labour's C.E. O'Halloran.

In 1970, George Younger increased his vote to 52.7 % giving Mr Younger a much more healthy majority of 4,450. The Labour vote fell to 42.1 % with the SNP, contesting the seat for the first time, taking 5.2 %. The Labour candidate was Jim Craigen, who represented Glasgow February 1974 until 1987.

In February 1974 the SNP doubled their vote to 11.0 % at the expense of both Labour and the Tories. George Younger took 50.5 %, giving him a 5,098 majority over Jean McFadden, who later became the Labour leader of the strife-ridden Glasgow Council.

In October 1974, the Liberals contested Ayr, taking 6.3 %, while the SNP increased their vote to 16.7 %. This left George Younger with 42.4 % of the vote and a 3,219 majority over Labour's R.S. Stewart with 34.6 %.

In 1979, the Tories swept to power, but Mr Younger's vote only rose by 0.9 % to 43.3 %, giving him a 2,768 majority over Labour's Keith MacDonald with 36.9 %.

In 1983, the rise of the Alliance split the opposition to the Tories, and Ayr became once more what it had not been since 1955 - a safe Tory seat. George Younger poled 42.8 % of the vote was elected with a 7,987 majority over Labour's Keith MacDonald who took 26.8 %. Just 598 votes behind Labour was Liberal Chic Brodie with 25.6 %. Mr Brodie had been the Liberal candidate in Hillhead in 1982 but had stood down in favour of Roy Jenkins.

In 1987, the Liberal vote collapsed in Ayr with ominous signs for George Younger. With the Tory vote down by 3.4 % to 39.4 % and the Labour vote up by 12.3 %, George Younger was elected with a tiny minority of just 182 over Keith MacDonald, who was contesting the seat for the third time. Had Keith Younger won, he would have been only the second person to defeat a Cabinet Minister in Scotland after Winnie Ewing had won Moray & Nairn from Tory Secretary of State Gordon Campbell in February 1974.

By 1992, George Younger had seen the writing on the wall for Tory hopes in Ayr and decided to retire. He had represented Ayr for 28 years and risen through the Tory ranks as Minister of State for Defence, Chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, Secretary of State for Scotland, and became Defence Secretary when Michael Heseltine resigned over the Westland affair. Although Younger was closely identified with 'that bloody woman' as Mrs Thatcher was known to many Scots, he had threatened to resign in the face of some of her more outrageous attacks on Scotland and it was, as happened in many seats, the collapse of the Alliance vote which allowed Labour to come so close to unseating him. Sir George retired in 1992 when he was raised to the peerage as Lord Younger of Prestwick and was appointed Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Tories chose Phil Gallie to succeed George Younger. Gallie's abrasive style was in direct contrast to Gentleman George's punctilious courtesy - the only time George Younger lost his temper was on Question Time when a member of the audience asked if he was English. Labour was expected to make many gains in the 1992 general election, and Ayr was seen as a lost cause for the Tories, especially with George Younger's retiral from politics. However, the Tories had got rid of the rabidly anti-Scottish Margaret Thatcher and replaced her with John Major. Although Labour's Alastair Osborne increased his party's vote from 39.1% to 40.6% and took 22,087 votes, Phil Gallie's vote also increased - from 39.4% to 40.8% - and with 22,172 votes, Mr Gallie was elected with a razor thin majority of 85 - the smallest in Scotland.

Phil Gallie was a working class Tory who became a Scottish Office Minister in John Major's beleaguered administration. A Thatcherite, he expressed populist opinions on such subjects as defence, hanging, flogging and taxation. He also voted against pay increases for MPs in 1993 and 1996 and against VAT on fuel.

The boundary changes for the 1997 general election moved the rock solid Tory area of Alloway to Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley. This did not worry George Foulkes but was disastrous for Phil Gallie as Labour would have won Ayr with a majority of almost 2,000 on the new boundaries. With the collapse of the Conservative vote in the Regional, European and Unitary elections, it was always difficult to see how Phil Gallie could hold on to the seat he inherited from George Younger. Labour selected Sandra Osborne from an all woman list. The wife of Alistair Osborne who contested this seat last time around, she became Ayr's first non-Conservative MP in almost 50 years with a majority of 6,543.

None of the Osborne family were interested in contesting Ayr for the Scottish election, so Labour chose Cllr Ian Welsh, a former teacher and chief executive of Kilmarnock FC, the premier league team who had been leader of South Ayrshire Council since May. Phil Gallie stood again for Ayr. He was narrowly beaten for the leadership of the Scottish Tory party by Mr David McLetchie.

In 1999 we wrote 'As the new Ayr seat would have been Labour even in 1992 and 1987, Welsh is seen as most likely MSP for Ayr unless there is a major swing against Labour.' In fact, Welsh did indeed become MP for Ayr but as there was also a major swing to Labour he was returned with a majority of just 25. Ayr once more provided Scotland with its smallest majority. Ian Welsh took 14,263 votes (38.1 %) compared to 14,238 for Phil Gallie (38.0 %). Labour's vote was down by 10.4 % on 1997 with the Tory vote up by 4.2 %.

Then, in December 1999, Ian Welsh announced that he was going to stand down. He claimed to want to spend more time with his family but it was believed that he was bored on the mound. Despite being the leader of South Ayrshire Council, he had been passed over for ministerial office and found himself on the backbenches, with little do after being in the centre of the decision making.

Labour selected Cllr Rita Miller as their by-election the candidate. She had Prestwick St Nicholas ward on South Ayrshire Council since May 1999 and was Councillor for St Cuthbert's between 1995 and 1999. The SNP selected Jim Mather who had contested Ross, Skye & Inverness West in the Holyrood election, where the SNP were the only one of the four main parties to increase their vote and they also came 'won' the seat in the regional list vote in the constituency.

Phil Gallie agonised about standing in the by-election but finally decided against it. The Tories selected John Scott, rural affairs commissioner on the Rifkind Policy Commission and the author of the rural affairs policy group report. John Scott's aim was 'to ensure that Ayr sends a very strong message to Donald Dewar's bumbling Executive in Edinburgh.'

The message came over loud and clear. When the votes were counted in Ayr, the Tory candidate John Scott had polled 12,580 votes and won with a majority of 3,344. The Scottish National Party came second with 9,236, beating Labour into third place with 7,054 votes. There was more bad move for the governing parties when the Scottish Socialist Party, fourth place on 1,345 votes, beating the Liberal Democrats into fifth place with just 800 votes.

For the Tories this was undoubtedly their best result in years. It was their first constituency seat in the Scottish Parliament, the first seat they had gained since they had retaken Aberdeen South from Labour and Kincardine & Deeside from the Lib Dems in 1992, and their first by-election gain since they had taken Glasgow Pollok from Labour back in 1967.

However, behind the headlines of the by-election gain, the Tories had not done all that well in Ayr, with their vote only increasing by 1.4 % to 39.4 %, the same as George Younger took in 1987 when he won by just 182 votes. It was a spectacular crash in the Labour vote which was the most significant result in Ayr, with them down by 16.0 % to 22.1 %. Meanwhile, the SNP's Jim Mather had increased their vote by 9.5 % to 29.0 % in what should have been, as in the previous three elections, a tight two-way marginal with the 'third parties' being mercilessly squeezed.

Alison Hardie in the Scotsman commented 'Experts said that third place for Labour and a failure by the Lib Dems to come fourth at Ayr would be seen as damning public criticism of the Scottish executive's performance. To add to Labour's humiliation, the SNP's polling showed that it had sharply increased its share of the vote. The SNP required a swing of more than nine percentage points to defeat the Tories. Ayr should have been a hopeless cause but, thanks to skilful co-ordination by John Swinney, the SNP deputy leader, its rating soared.'

The election results in Ayr in 1999 and 2000 must be extremely worrying for Ayr's Labour MP Sandra Osborne, who has seen her 6,543 Westminster majority in 1997 whittled down to 25 in the Scottish election 1999 and finally turned into a third place 5,526 votes behind the Tories and 2,182 behind the SNP in the by-election.

The SNP candidate is Jim Mather, who pushed Labour into a humiliating third place in the by-election. Jim Mather is a chartered accountant and a founder member of Business for Independence. He is one of those who were not previously involved in politics but who were encouraged by the SNP's recruitment of people from all walks of life, not just political activists.

The Tory candidate is once again Phil Gallie who will be heartened by John Scott's win here in 2000. Unlike Sandra Osborne, he had a high profile locally and is now even better known through the televising and reporting of the Scottish Parliament. The main problem for Mr Gallie may be that Tony Blair is pursuing Thatcherite policies with a fervour that was never seen from John Major. Many Conservatives might wonder if there is any point in voting for Phil Gallie when London Labour is around to find millions for opera when there is none for health and education, cut benefits to single parents and the disabled, close hospitals and schools, sabotage the exams system, and give massive pay increases and tax cuts to the stinking rich.

Assessment:

1 st May 1997 Westminster Election

Logo	Party	Candidate	Votes	%
	Labour	Sandra Osborne	21,679	48.44%
	Conservative	Phil Gallie	15,136	33.82%
	Scottish National Party	Ian Blackford	5,625	12.57%
	Liberal Democrat	Clare Hamblen	2,116	4.73%
	Referendum	John Enos	200	0.45%
	Lab gain from Con (Notional Lab hold)	Lab majority	6,543	14.62%

Links

• Ayr SNP

• Jim Mather (Scottish National Party)

• Ayr Constituency and Phil Gallie (Conservative)

• Vote Tory for Ayr (Tory by-election site)

• Ayr Constituency (Liberal Democrat)

• Ayr by-election 2000