Candidates and Constituency Assessments

'Glasgow Maryhill is one of those seats in which it is almost possible to imagine a sack of potatoes with a Labour label on it being duly returned to the Mother of Parliaments.' 1983 election assessment from the Scotsman.

Glasgow Maryhill

	Alex Dingwall		Ann McKechin
	Gawain Towler		Stuart Callison
	Gordon Scott

Boundary changes in Maryhill in 1997 were the least drastic in Glasgow with some 6,000 voters being added from Keppochhill in Springburn and 2,000 lost to Kelvin.

Labour has held Maryhill since 1935. From 1974 until 1987 it was held by James Craigen, a Labour -Co-op MP. In October 1974, he had a majority of 9,418 over the Scottish National Party, which he increased to 17,496 over the Tories in 1979.

The 1983 boundary changes meant that 71 % of votes came from the old Maryhill seats with 29 % coming from Kelvingrove which was abolished. Not very much changed in Maryhill, except that the runners up changed for the fourth election in a row. This time around James Craigen obtained a 11,203 majority over the Liberal Elspeth Attwooll, who since 1999 has been the Scottish Lib Dems first ever Member of the European Parliament.

Jim Craigen retired in 1987 at the age of 48 and was replaced by a Glasgow District Councillor of the same age, Maria Fyfe, who was a member of Labour's Scottish Executive. In the 1987 election, Maria Fyfe took 64.6 % of the vote and increased the Labour majority to 19,364. Liberal Elspeth Attwooll came second once more but her percentage of the vote had fallen from 22.1 % in 1983 to 11.7 % in 1987. The SNP moved back into third place with 11.0 % and the Tories came fourth with 9.4 %. Also standing was David Spaven for the Greens who took 1.5 %.

In 1992 there was a 6.5% swing from Labour to the SNP's Cliff Williamson who regained second place with 19.1 % of the vote. However, Maria Fyfe's 61.6 % of the vote and 13,412 majority still made Maryhill one of Scotland's safest seats. In third place with 10.3 % was Tory John Godfrey who would lose Perth & Kinross to the SNP's Roseanna Cunningham in the 1995 by-election when he came third behind Douglas Alexander, now MP for Paisley South. In fourth place was Lib Dem Jim Alexander with 7.0 % with Phil O'Brien taking 1.6 % for the Greens.

The boundary changes for the 1997 election increased Maria Fyfe's majority from 13,412 to a notional 14,512. In 1997, Maria Fyfe was elected as MP for Glasgow Maryhill for the third time with 64.9 % of the vote and a 14,264 majority over the SNP's Cllr John Wailes who took 17.0 %. Elspeth Attwooll stood for the third time for the Lib Dems taking 7.1 % while Tory Stuart Baldwin took 5.9 %.

Maria Fyfe did not standing for the Scottish parliament and Labour selected Patricia Ferguson, a previous full time NHS administrator and STUC employee and a member of the Labour party staff. The SNP candidate was Dr Bill Wilson who works at the Zoology department at Glasgow University. He contested Glasgow Anniesland in 1997, coming second behind Donald Dewar. There was a 14.6 % swing from Labour to the SNP in Maryhill and Patricia Ferguson with 49.8 % was elected with a 4,326 majority over Bill Wilson who took 30.1 % of the vote. Patricia Ferguson was elected one of the Deputy Presiding Officers of the Scottish Parliament and is married to Bill Butler the new MSP for Glasgow Anniesland.

The fight for third place was close run in Maryhill. Lib Dem Claire Hamblem came third with 7.8 %, just ahead of Gordon Scott of the SSP with 6.3 %. Tory Michael Fry a regular columnist in the Scotsman and Herald also contested Maryhill. He took 14,693 votes in East Lothian in 1983 coming second behind John Home Robertson. In Maryhill in 1999 he did not do quite as well, taking 1,194 votes (5.2 %) and coming fifth.

Maria Fyfe announced that she would not be standing for the next general election and this caused some of the biggest excitement in the constituency since Labour won the seat in 1945. Originally it was assumed that a candidate would be chosen from within the constituency and the front runners were thought to be Cllr Hanzala Malik who represents the Woodlands ward in the constituency, Cllr Christopher Kelly, another local councillor and assistant to the local MSP, Patricia Ferguson, and Murdo Mathison, a Scottish party officer and Maryhill CLP secretary. However when the short list was announced it consisted of three women, none of whom were connected to the constituency . John MacCalman in the Herald reported that there was anger among the local ethnic community that Hanzala Malik, local Woodlands councillor, failed to make the shortleet and there was speculation that Asian party members in the constituency might boycott the final selection meeting. The three women selected were Ann McKechin, a solicitor from Kelvin constituency, Katrina Murray, a volunteer health service co-ordinator and trade union activist, and Katie Clark, from Edinburgh. One disgruntled non-Asian member said: 'There is huge disappointment among the local candidates. They spent a great deal of time preparing for this interview only to be given a perfunctory interview with little or no policy questions being asked. Afterwards it became clear that this was a de facto women's list if not a de jure women's list which they cannot have in law.'

Against this background of local party discontent, Ann McKechin, 39, was selected to succeed Maria Fyfe. She polled 77 votes, with Katie Clark taking 34 votes and Katrina Murray one single vote. Ms McKechin is a member of the Kelvin CLP and is a solicitor who recently initiated a resolution on the control of the arms trade at a Labour Party Conference.

The SNP candidate is Alex Dingwall, a UNISON official in Glasgow City Council. The Tories have selected Gawain Towler, an Advisor on International Development for the Conservatives in the European Parliament. The Lib Dem candidate is Stuart Callison and the SSP have selected Gordon Scott who will be looking to defeat not only the Tories and but also the Lib Dems this time around.

In 1983 the Scotsman commented 'Glasgow Maryhill is one of those seats in which it is almost possible to imagine a sack of potatoes with a Labour label on it being duly returned to the Mother of Parliaments.' Has anything changed since then? The fact that the SNP took over 30 % of the vote in the Scottish election suggests that things have changed, but it remains to be seen whether the SNP can reproduce or better their 1999 showing in the present Westminster election.

1 st May 1997 (Westminster Election)

Logo	Party	Candidate	Votes	%
	Labour	Maria Fyfe	19,301	64.94%
	Scottish National Party	Cllr John Wailes	5,037	16.95%
	Liberal Democrat	Elspeth Attwool	2,119	7.13%
	Conservative	Stuart Baldwin	1,747	5.88%
	Natural Law	Lorna Blair	651	2.19%
	Scottish Socialist Alliance	Mandy Baker	409	1.38%
	Pro Life Alliance	Jahangir Hanif	344	1.16%
	Referendum	Roderick Paterson	77	0.26%
	SEP	Steve Johnstone	36	0.12%
	Lab hold	Lab majority	14,264	47.99%

Links

• Alex Dingwall (Scottish National Party)

• Glasgow SNP MSPs

• Glasgow Maryhill (Conservative)

• Glasgow Maryhill Constituency (Liberal Democrat)