Why Scotland is different (some politics for a change)

[alitheapipkin]

I'd like to say that it's because Scots are less racist and more leftwing than the English but that wouldn't actually be true (social attitude studies consistently show little difference - for example this report (pdf) "Is Scotland more left-wing than England" finds very modest differences in concern over income inequality and support for tax-and-

Comments

[kalimac]

Possibly the difference between Scotland and Wales has something to do with the Scottish Parliament having more devolved powers than the Welsh Assembly, and possibly due to the differing histories of the respective nationalist parties: the SNP has always focused on the heartland, whereas PC is strongest in the remote rural districts and weak in the urban centre.

[danieldwilliam]

Banff and Buchan is pretty rural.

[kalimac]

So? They've won everywhere; I'm speaking of their focus. The first two seats it ever won in the UK Parliament were Motherwell and Hamilton, and it's continued to do well in urban areas.

[danieldwilliam]

The SNP have not always focused on the heartlands  (by which I think you mean Scotland's cities). Until devolution they mostly held rural seats, like Banff and Buchan, Argyle or Perth. Until Salmond managed the various  breakthroughs that he did the SNP were often referred to as the Tartan Tories because they were,  often as not,  competing with the Conservatives in rural constituencies.

I'm not sure why Wales and Scotland have ended up in different places on the question of the EU but I don't think the SNP being an urban party and Plaid being a rural one is the reason.

[kalimac]

Still won plenty of urban seats and polled relatively well in the central belt, far more than PC did in urban Wales.