Aberdeen City Council 2022

Scotland’s third largest city has two particular claims to fame. Historically, it had as many Universities to its name as the entirety of England did, a fact it had a lot of fun with at the time. And in more modern times it has been Scotland’s oil and gas capital – though that’s perhaps a more uncomfortable status to hold in an era of pressing need for climate action. Both of these have brought the city a degree of affluence that somewhat tempered the typical leftwards lean of Scotland’s other industrial cities.

That meant that through much of the democratic era, Aberdeen’s representation in the UK parliament was split between Labour in the north and Conservatives in the south, though Labour would intermittently win both until they gained a more solid hold in 1997. The SNP won both seats in 2015, though Aberdeen South returned briefly to historic Conservative form in 2017. At Holyrood the three seats started out two Labour and one Lib Dem – again, it was the south that was odd-one-out – before the SNP gained one in 2003, and they’ve held all three since 2011.

Though Labour were the dominant force in the city council through the late 20^th century, failing to win a majority in the old district just once in 1977, they typically faced a very strong Conservative group. Through the 80’s and into the 90’s the Lib Dems would slowly grow their strength to become the city’s second force, culminating in them taking the lead in the final FPTP elections in 2003.