Dunfermline East (Scottish Parliament constituency)

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**Dunfermline East**
Scottish Parliament county constituency

Dunfermline East shown within the Mid Scotland and Fife electoral region
Created:	1999
MSP:	Helen Eadie
Party:	Labour
Council area:	Fife (part)

Dunfermline East is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood). It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the plurality (first past the post) method of election. Also, however, it is one of nine constituencies in the Mid Scotland and Fife electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to nine constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.

1 Electoral region
2 Constituency boundaries and council area
3 Description of the constituency
4 Member of the Scottish Parliament
5 Election results
6 Footnotes

[edit] Electoral region

The other eight constituencies of the South of Scotland region are Dunfermline West, Fife Central, Fife North East, Kirkcaldy, Ochil, Perth, Stirling and Tayside North.

The region covers all of the Clackmannanshire council area, all of the Fife council area, all of the Perth and Kinross council area, all of the Stirling council area and parts of the Angus council area.

[edit] Constituency boundaries and council area

The constituency was created at the same time as the Scottish Parliament, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of a pre-existing Westminster (House of Commons) constituency. In 2005, however, Scottish Westminster constituencies were mostly replaced with new constituencies^[1]. The Dunfermline East Westminster constituency was divided between Dunfermline and West Fife and Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

The Holyrood constituency of Dunfermline East is one of five Mid Scotland and Fife constituencies covering the Fife council area, the others being Dunfermline West, Fife Central, Fife North East and Kirkcaldy. All are entirely within the council area.

Dunfermline East covers a south-western portion of the council area, with Dunfermline West to the west, Fife Central to the northeast and Kirkcaldy to the east.

[edit] Description of the constituency

The constituency contains no part of the town of Dunfermline, which is within the Dunfermline West constituency. (The pre-existing Westminster constituency was created during the period, 1975 to 1996, of local government regions and disticts, when there was Dunfermline district of the Fife local government region. In 1996, regions and districts were replaced with unitary council areas.)

Cowdenbeath is the largest town in the constituency, and most of the constituency area was once part of the Fife coalfield, on the north bank of the Firth of Forth. The region has economic troubles, and the closure of the Rosyth naval base and the troubles at the naval dockyard have not helped.

Statistically, this is one of Labour’s safest seats in Scotland. In the House of Commons, there has been a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the area since 1950. Gordon Brown, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, was MP for the Dunfermline East Westminster constituency from 1983 to 2005. He is now MP for the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency, where his majority at the last general election was over 15,000.

[edit] Member of the Scottish Parliament

Labour’s Helen Eadie won the Dunfermline East Holyrood constituency in the first Scottish Parliament election, in 1999, and retained it in the second, in 2003.

[edit] Election results

Scottish parliamentary election, 1999: Dunfermline East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Helen Eadie	16,574	55.89	N/A
	Scottish National Party	David McCarthy	7,877	26.56	N/A
	Conservative	Carrie Ruxton	2,931	9.88	N/A
	Liberal Democrats	Fred Lawson	2,276	7.67	N/A
Majority			8,697	29.33
Turnout			29,658
	Labour hold		Swing

Scottish parliamentary election, 2003: Dunfermline East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Helen Eadie	11,552	19.9	-6.0
	Scottish National Party	Janet Law	4,262	18.4	-8.2
	Conservative	Stuart Randall	2,485	10.7	+0.9
	Independent Campaign for Local Hospital Services	Brian Walker Stewart	1,890	8.2	+8.2
	Scottish Socialist	Linda Graham	1,537	6.6	+6.6
	Liberal Democrats	Rodger Spillane	1,428	6.2	-1.5
Majority			7,290	31.5
Turnout			23,154	45.2
	Labour hold		Swing	-6.0