UDDINGSTON AND BELLSHILL
Winner in 2016: Richard Lyle (SNP)
THIS constituency contains parts of both North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire, and was newly created for the 2011 election.
It lacked a clear-cut predecessor seat, although it inherited its first MSP from the old Hamilton North and Bellshill constituency.
The fact that it was one of the minority of first-past-the-post seats that the SNP failed to capture in 2011 suggests that the terrain is relatively favourable for Labour, and that it might be the sort of place that would become genuinely competitive again if Labour were to ever mount a serious national fightback.
Local council results tell a similar story – in three of the four wards that lie entirely within the constituency, Labour and the SNP were fairly evenly matched in the last local elections, while Labour were well ahead in the other one.
But that was in 2017, when Labour were only around 12 percentage points behind the SNP nationally.
If polls are to be believed, the gap is currently much wider. Indeed, the SNP’s advantage over Labour may be even bigger than it was in 2016, when the constituency changed hands on a swing of almost 10%.
That left the SNP’s Richard Lyle with a handsome majority of almost 5000 votes over the veteran Labour MSP Michael McMahon, who was abruptly ejected from Holyrood after having been a constituency representative since the Parliament was created in 1999.
Lyle will be retiring at this election, but his replacement as SNP candidate, the local councillor Stephanie Callaghan, should have little difficulty in defending the seat unless the national state of play changes dramatically.
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