Andrew Morrison, an accountant and resident of Glasgow East, offers an overview of the constituency ahead of the upcoming by-election.
This constituency is among the most deprived in Britain and is home to the ex-council ward ‘Calton’ which - as David Cameron mentioned in one of his first speeches as leader - was reported to have has a male life expectancy of 53.9 years. This is appallingly low compared to the UK average of 75.9 years. Even Iraqis, who lack a universally free health service, can expect to live much longer than this. Glasgow East is also home to the Easterhouse estate – famous for inspiring former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith to set up the Centre for Social Justice.
Cosmetically the areas around Glasgow East have been modernised and many of the large communal housing blocks built in the bleak ‘Brutalist’ architectural style have been demolished, however the area still suffers from all the big problems which plague inner cities – worklessness, alcohol abuse, drug addiction, petty crime. Glasgow East suffers from these problems on a larger scale compared to other inner city constituencies.
Not all of the area is doom and gloom however. Since the electoral borders were altered to create Glasgow East more affluent neighbourhoods are now included in the area. Suburbs such as Carmyle, Garrowhill and Mount Vernon are relatively peaceful and such areas are likely to be heavily targeted by the Nationalists.
Sadly for them however, Labour incumbents in Glasgow have hardly had
reason to stir in their slumber. The closest this area came to turning
Conservative was during the Scots Tories apogee in 1955, where
nationally the party won more than 50% of the popular vote. At that
election the party polled 42.2% of all votes cast in this seat, and the
Labour candidate was still returned to Westminster safely.
Glasgow is a city scarred by a sectarian divide between the Catholic and the Protestant working classes. The Glasgow East area has a relatively high Catholic population and historically the Labour Party could rely on this demographic to turn out for them. On the other hand, when the Conservative Party operated in Scotland under the Unionist Party title, there was a reliance on the protestant working-class ‘Orange vote’. Nowadays there is more crossover between faith and political affiliation.
As for the more mainstream support, those who are of the Conservative persuasion in Glasgow are typically robust in their beliefs. Famous Tories from Glasgow include the late Eric Forth, and Dr Liam Fox – both of whom have never had their conservative beliefs called into question. Glasgow University still has a Conservative Association and there is enough Tory support in Glasgow to return a Conservative MSP to the Scottish Parliament to represent the city. The support is found in pockets within the city, but no constituency has a pocket sizeable enough to elect a Conservative MP to Westminster.
In conclusion, the striking feature that the incoming Member of Parliament for Glasgow East should notice is that too many people here suffer from poverty of thought and ambition rather than merely financial poverty: no amount of government expenditure can rectify the social ills now ingrained into the mentality of those suffering from all sorts of social breakdown and chaotic personal lives.
For the incoming MP to seriously improve life in this area, he must not suffer from poverty of thought and realise when to stop throwing good money after bad; the Treasury has spent billions after billions on deprived areas such as this, but the big problems are still looming over us as ever.
The old policies have now been tried, tested, and failed. The economic investment has been made into the area, but there has been none of the promised ‘follow through’ of social improvement such as tackling the causes of crime. This is a challenge now best left to a future government to resolve using different and more radical policies.
