The 2005 General Election in Scotland

Abstract

All general elections in Scotland are interesting. Despite the fact that Labour has been the dominant party since the 1960s, the country has developed a complicated four-party system that gives rise to different forms of party competition in different constituencies. The Scottish National Party (SNP) became Labour's principal opponent in the 1970s; geographical concentrations of support have enabled the Liberal Democrats to win significant numbers of seats in recent elections; the Conservative party has been relegated almost to 'fringe' status but persists. In 2005, however, the general election in Scotland was even more interesting than usual because it was fought on very substantially revised constituency boundaries.