2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

2010 United Kingdom general election^[1]
← outgoing members elected members →
All 59 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
Turnout	63.8%, 3.2%
	Coloured according to the winning party's vote share in each constituency

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 6 May 2010 and all 59 seats in Scotland were contested. The election result in Scotland was unusual in that there wasn't any change of seats from the 2005 general election, although the Labour Party took back two seats that it had lost in by-elections. This was the last general election at which the Labour Party won a majority of seats and plurality of votes in Scotland until 2024.

Contesting parties

Since 2005, the Scottish National Party had come first in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election as well as the 2009 European election. They had also won the Glasgow East by-election in 2008, which was one of the safest Labour seats in the UK. This boosted the party's confidence and the party's leader Alex Salmond set the ambitious target of 20 seats in the general election. Salmond himself was standing down as an MP because he wanted to focus more on his job as First Minister of Scotland. In the election, the party only increased their share of the vote by 2.3% and had their number of seats reduced to six after being overwhelmingly defeated in the Glasgow East constituency.

The Scottish Labour Party had held the majority of seats in Scotland in every general election since 1959. This is usually attributed to the North-South divide in British politics, where Scotland and the North of England tend to return mostly Labour MP's whereas the South of England tends to vote mostly for the Conservatives. Many prominent government officials were representing Scottish constituencies, such as the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Chancellor Alistair Darling. In the election, the Labour Party in Scotland increased its share of the vote by 2.5% and re-gained the Glasgow East and Dunfermline and West Fife constituencies giving them 41 out of 59 seats in Scotland.

The Scottish Conservative Party had not held the majority of Scottish seats in a general election since 1955 and it lost all eleven of its seats in the election of 1997. Since 2001, the party had only held one Westminster seat in Scotland. In 2005, following the re-organisation of Scottish constituencies, that seat was Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, a mostly rural constituency near the Scottish borders. However, the party had 11 target seats within Scotland for the election and party officials such as William Hague had predicted a 'Tory breakthrough' for Scotland.^[2] Following the election, the Conservative vote in Scotland increased by roughly 1% but with only the 1 seat being retained.

During the 2005 election, the Scottish Liberal Democrats achieved 11 Scottish seats in Westminster and saw this figure increased to 12 following the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election in 2006. Two former Liberal Democrat leaders, Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell represent Scottish constituencies. In the election, the Liberal Democrat vote fell in Scotland and the party was once again left with 11 seats.

Minor parties such as the UK Independence Party, the British National Party and the Scottish Green Party all contested more Scottish seats than they did in the 2005 election. The Socialist Workers Party and Solidarity (a splinter group of the Scottish Socialists) took part in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition for the election. The Scottish Socialist Party had contested all of the Scottish constituencies in 2005 but because of party splits, it fielded only 10 candidates for the 2010 election.

If proportional representation had been used, and hypothetically there was no change in voter behaviour, then the Labour Party would have had 25 seats (-16), the SNP would have had 12 (+6), the Liberal Democrats would have had 11 (No Change), and the Conservatives would have had 10 (+9).

Campaign events

9 April – The Labour Party candidate for Moray, Stuart Maclennan, was sacked after making offensive comments on his Twitter page. These included insulting politicians such as David Cameron, Nick Clegg, John Bercow and Diane Abbott and also referring to the elderly as 'coffin dodgers' and voters in the North of Scotland as teuchters.^[3]
12 April – Prime Minister Gordon Brown asks the Queen to dissolve parliament, thus triggering the election.
20 April – The first of three televised Scottish Leader's debates takes place.
27 April – The Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, Philip Lardner was expelled from his party and relieved from his job as a primary school teacher after making comments on his blog that homosexuality was 'not normal'. This occurred on 27 April 2010, which was too late to remove his name from the ballot paper and subsequently he still read as the Conservative & Unionist candidate.^[4]
28 April – The SNP failed to sue the BBC for excluding them from the televised leader's debates, claiming that the BBC had breached its rules on impartiality by excluding the SNP.
6 May – Polling day across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The following day, a hung parliament is declared, where no party holds an overall majority in the House of Commons.

Scottish Leaders' debates

In correspondence with the main leaders' debates, featuring David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, three televised debates were broadcast, with representatives from the four main parties in Scotland. The first debate was broadcast on STV on 20 April, the second on Sky News on 25 April and the third on BBC One Scotland on 2 May.

The representatives from each of the main parties were:

Scottish Labour Party – Jim Murphy, Secretary of State for Scotland, MP for East Renfrewshire
Scottish Conservative Party – David Mundell, Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale
Scottish Liberal Democrats – Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat Spokesman on Northern Ireland and Scotland, MP for Orkney and Shetland
Scottish National Party – Angus Robertson, SNP leader at Westminster, MP for Moray

Target seats

Labour Party

Rank	Constituency		Swing Required	Labour's place 2005	Result
1	Dundee East	SNP	0.49%	2nd	SNP hold
2	Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale	Conservative	1.95%	2nd	CON hold
3	East Dunbartonshire	Liberal Democrats	4.35%	2nd	LD hold
4	Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey	Liberal Democrats	4.69%	2nd	LD hold

Scottish National Party

Rank	Constituency		Swing Required	SNP's place 2005	Result
1	Ochil and South Perthshire	Labour	0.74%	2nd	LAB hold
2	Dundee West	Labour	7.28%	2nd	LAB hold
3	Kilmarnock and Loudoun	Labour	9.81%	2nd	LAB hold
4	Aberdeen North	Labour	9.28%	3rd	LAB hold

Liberal Democrats

Rank	Constituency		Swing Required	Liberal Democrat's place 2005	Result
1	Edinburgh South	Labour	0.48%	2nd	LAB hold
2	Aberdeen South	Labour	1.62%	2nd	LAB hold
3	Edinburgh North and Leith	Labour	2.53%	2nd	LAB hold

Conservative Party

Rank	Constituency		Swing Required	Conservative's place 2005	Result
1	Perth and North Perthshire	SNP	1.66%	2nd	SNP hold
2	Angus	SNP	2.1%	2nd	SNP hold
3	Dumfries and Galloway	Labour	2.87%	2nd	LAB hold
4	Stirling	Labour	5.46%	2nd	LAB hold

Overall results

Party		Seats					Aggregate votes
Party		Total	Gains	Losses	Net +/-	Of all (%)	Total	Of all (%)	Difference
	Labour	41	0	0		69.5	1,035,528	42.0	2.5
	Liberal Democrats	11	0	0		18.6	465,471	18.9	3.7
	SNP	6	0	0		10.2	491,386	19.9	2.2
	Conservative	1	0	0		1.7	412,855	16.7	0.9
	UKIP	0	0	0		0.0	17,223	0.7	0.3
	Scottish Green	0	0	0		0.0	16,827	0.7	0.3
	BNP	0	0	0		0.0	8,910	0.4	0.3
	TUSC	0	0	0		0.0	3,530	0.1	New
	Scottish Socialist	0	0	0		0.0	3,157	0.1	1.7
	Socialist Labour	0	0	0		0.0	1,673	0.0
	Christian	0	0	0		0.0	835	0.0	0.2
	Trust	0	0	0		0.0	534	0.0	New
	Liberal	0	0	0		0.0	389	0.0
	Scottish Jacobite	0	0	0		0.0	290	0.0	New
	Communist	0	0	0		0.0	237	0.0
	Others	0	0	0		0.0	6,877	0.3
Total		59					2,465,722	63.8	3.2

2010 map of Scottish Constituencies - Results

Votes summary

Popular vote

Labour			42.00%
SNP			19.93%
Liberal Democrats			18.88%
Conservative			16.74%
UKIP			0.70%
Greens			0.68%
Other			1.07%

Parliament seats

Labour			69.49%
Liberal Democrats			18.64%
SNP			10.17%
Conservative			1.69%

Results by constituency

Winning party in each constituency is marked in bold.

Constituency	Labour	%	Lib Dems	%	SNP	%	Conservative	%	Others	%	Notes
Aberdeen North	16,746	44.4%	7,001	18.6%	8,385	22.2%	4,666	12.4%	903	2.4%	SNP target #4
Aberdeen South	15,722	36.5%	12,216	28.4%	5,102	11.9%	8,914	20.7%	1,080	2.5%	Lib Dem target #1
Airdrie and Shotts	20,849	58.2%	2,898	8.1%	8,441	23.5%	3,133	8.7%	528	1.5%
Angus	6,535	17.2%	4,090	10.8%	15,020	39.6%	11,738	30.9%	577	1.5%	Conservative target #2
Argyll and Bute	10,274	22.7%	14,292	31.6%	8,563	18.9%	10,861	24.0%	945	2.0%
Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock	21,632	47.1%	4,264	9.3%	8,276	18.0%	11,721	25.5%	N/A
Banff and Buchan	5,382	14.0%	4,365	11.3%	15,868	43.3%	11,841	30.8%	1,010	2.6%	Largest swing recorded in Scotland (10.6 SNP to CON)
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk	5,003	10.2%	22,230	45.4%	4,497	9.2%	16,555	33.8%	729	1.5%	Michael Moore's Seat
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross	7,081	24.6%	11,907	41.4%	5,516	19.2%	3,744	13.0%	520	1.8%
Central Ayrshire	20,950	47.7%	5,236	11.9%	8,364	19.0%	8,943	20.4%	422	1.0%
Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill	27,728	66.6%	3,519	8.5%	7,014	16.9%	3,374	8.1%	N/A
Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East	23,549	57.2%	3,924	9.5%	9,794	23.8%	3,407	8.3%	476	1.2%
Dumfries and Galloway	23,950	45.9%	4,608	8.8%	6,419	12.3%	16,501	31.6%	695	1.3%	Conservative target #3
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale	13,263	28.9%	9,080	19.8%	4,945	10.8%	17,457	38.0%	1,147	2.5%	Conservative's only Scottish seat, Labour target #2
Dundee East	13,529	33.3%	4,285	10.6%	15,350	37.8%	6,177	15.2%	796	1.9%	Labour target #1
Dundee West	17,994	48.5%	4,233	11.4%	10,716	28.9%	3,461	9.3%	722	2.0%	SNP target #2
Dunfermline and West Fife	22,639	46.3%	17,169	35.1%	5,201	10.6%	3,305	6.8%	633	1.3%	Regained by Labour after by-election loss to Lib Dems
East Dunbartonshire	16,367	34.1%	18,551	38.7%	5,054	10.5%	7,431	15.5%	545	1.1%	Labour target #3
East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow	26,241	51.1%	5,052	9.9%	11,738	23.0%	6,613	13.0%	1,302	2.6%
East Lothian	21,919	44.6%	8,228	16.9%	7,883	16.0%	9,661	19.7%	1,410	2.9%
East Renfrewshire	25,987	50.8%	4,720	9.2%	4,535	8.9%	15,567	30.4%	372	0.7%	Jim Murphy's seat
Edinburgh East	17,314	43.4%	7,751	19.4%	8,133	20.4%	4,358	10.9%	2,309	5.8%
Edinburgh North and Leith	17,740	37.5%	16,016	33.8%	4,568	9.6%	7,079	14.9%	1,825	3.8%	Lib Dem target #2
Edinburgh South	15,215	34.7%	14,899	34.0%	3,354	7.7%	9,452	21.6%	880	2.0%
Edinburgh South West	19,473	42.8%	8,194	18.0%	5,530	12.2%	11,026	24.3%	1,239	2.7%	Alistair Darling's seat
Edinburgh West	12,881	27.7%	16,684	35.9%	6,115	13.2%	10,767	23.2%	N/A
Falkirk	23,207	45.7%	5,225	10.3%	15,364	30.3%	5,698	11.2%	1,283	2.5%
Glasgow Central	15,908	52.0%	5,010	16.4%	5,357	17.5%	2,158	7.1%	2,139	7.0%
Glasgow East	19,797	61.6%	1,617	5.0%	7,957	24.7%	1,453	4.5%	1,340	4.1%	Regained by Labour after by-election loss to SNP
Glasgow North	13,181	44.5%	9,283	31.3%	3,530	11.9%	2,039	7.1%	1,530	5.2%
Glasgow North East	20,100	68.3%	2,262	7.7%	4,158	14.1%	1,569	5.3%	1,320	4.4%
Glasgow North West	19,233	54.1%	5,622	15.8%	5,430	15.3%	3,537	9.9%	1,760	5.0%
Glasgow South	20,736	51.7%	4,739	11.8%	8,078	20.1%	4,592	11.5%	1,949	4.9%
Glasgow South West	19,863	62.5%	2,870	9.0%	5,192	16.3%	2,084	6.6%	1,772	4.9%
Glenrothes	25,247	62.3%	3,108	7.7%	8,799	21.7%	2,922	7.2%	425	1.0%
Gordon	9,811	20.1%	17,575	36.0%	10,827	22.2%	9,111	18.7%	1,451	2.9%
Inverclyde	20,933	56.0%	5,007	13.3%	6,577	17.5%	4,502	12.0%	433	1.2%
Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey	10,407	22.1%	19,172	40.7%	8,803	18.7%	6,278	13.3%	2,426	5.2%	Danny Alexander's seat, Labour target #4
Kilmarnock and Loudoun	24,460	52.5%	3,419	7.3%	12,082	26.0%	6,592	14.2%	N/A		SNP target #3
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath	29,559	64.5%	4,269	9.3%	6,550	14.3%	4,258	9.3%	1,166	2.6%	Gordon Brown's seat, largest majority of any Scottish seat
Lanark and Hamilton East	23,258	50.0%	5,249	11.3%	9,780	21.0%	6,981	15.0%	1,286	2.7%
Linlithgow and East Falkirk	25,634	49.8%	6,589	12.8%	13,081	25.4%	6,146	11.9%	N/A
Livingston	23,215	48.5%	5,316	11.1%	12,424	25.9%	5,158	10.8%	1,794	3.7%
Midlothian	18,449	47.0%	6,711	17.1%	8,100	20.6%	4,661	11.9%	1,321	3.3%
Moray	7,007	17.1%	5,965	14.5%	16,273	39.7%	10,683	26.1%	1,085	2.6%
Motherwell and Wishaw	23,910	61.1%	3,840	9.8%	7,104	18.2%	3,660	9.4%	609	1.6%
Na h-Eileanan an Iar	4,838	32.9%	1,097	7.5%	6,723	45.7%	647	4.4%	1,412	9.6%
North Ayrshire and Arran	21,860	47.4%	4,630	10.0%	11,965	25.9%	7,212	15.6%	449	1.0%
North East Fife	6,869	17.1%	17,763	44.3%	5,685	14.2%	8,715	21.8%	1,032	2.6%	Menzies Campbell's seat
Ochil and South Perthshire	19,131	37.9%	5,754	11.4%	13,944	27.6%	10,342	20.5%	1,298	2.6%	SNP target #1
Orkney and Shetland	2,061	10.7%	11,989	62.0%	2,042	10.6%	2,032	10.5%	1,222	6.3%	Safest Lib Dem seat in the UK
Paisley and Renfrewshire North	23,613	54.0%	4,597	10.5%	8,333	19.1%	6,381	14.6%	783	1.8%
Paisley and Renfrewshire South	23,842	59.6%	3,812	9.5%	7,228	18.1%	3,979	9.9%	1,137	2.8%	Douglas Alexander's seat
Perth and North Perthshire	7,923	16.4%	5,954	12.3%	19,118	39.6%	14,739	30.5%	534	1.1%	Conservative target #1
Ross, Skye and Lochaber	5,265	15.1%	18,335	52.6%	5,263	15.1%	4,260	12.2%	1,715	4.9%	Charles Kennedy's seat
Rutherglen and Hamilton West	28,566	60.8%	5,636	12.0%	7,564	16.1%	4,540	9.7%	675	1.4%
Stirling	19,558	41.8%	6,797	14.5%	8,091	17.3%	11,204	23.9%	1,141	2.4%	Conservative target #4
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine	6,159	13.6%	17,362	38.4%	7,086	15.7%	13,678	30.3%	910	2.0%
West Dunbartonshire	25,905	61.3%	3,434	8.1%	8,497	20.1%	3,242	7.7%	1,188	2.8%