Fife Council 2022

Possessing one of the strongest regional identities in Scotland, such that it still often refers to itself as a Kingdom, Fife is divided into two very distinct areas. The southern end is home to some of Scotland’s largest towns, in Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and the New Town of Glenrothes. Throw in the dockyards at Rosyth and the mining villages across the various bits of the Fife Coalfield, and you get a very typically Central Belt area. By contrast, the north east of Fife is much more rural in character, home to a string of small yet historic fishing burghs along the famed East Neuk and an ancient university at St Andrews.

These areas therefore have very strongly contrasting political histories. Labour were naturally dominant in the industrialised south, whilst the Conservatives held sway in the more rural north east. The Lib Dems would replace the Conservatives by the late 80’s, and won the UK’s Dunfermline seat in a 2006 by-election, then an overlapping Holyrood seat in 2007. The SNP meanwhile made their first constituency inroads in 2007 with Glenrothes, then took all of Fife bar Cowdenbeath in 2011. Fife has been in a bit of flux since, with Labour losing all of their seats then regaining one at Westminster then losing it again, whilst the Lib Dems once again hold the North East in both parliaments, after initially failing to regain it at Westminster by just 2 votes in 2017.

Local elections mostly followed suit, with a clear Labour majority in the urban districts and the regional council most years – only in 1977 did the Kirkcaldy district see the Labour slip to a minority. In the North East, the Conservative to Lib Dem handover came in 1984. When the single unitary Fife council arrived in the 90’s Labour won a majority at both elections, then ended the FPTP era having relatively narrowly lost it in 2003.