East Renfrewshire (UK Parliament Constituency)
East Renfrewshire is a constituency of the British House of Commons, located in Scotland to the south of Glasgow. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the First-past-the-post system of voting.
Before 1997, it was the safest Conservative seat in Scotland. However it failed to survive the 1997 Labour landslide, and the Labour Party's Jim Murphy has held the seat ever since. Murphy was the Secretary of State for Scotland (2009–10) and is currently the Shadow Defence Secretary (2010-). The seat currently gives Murphy a healthy majority of over 10,000 votes, with the strongest challenge coming from the Conservatives. In terms of turnout, the constituency was the highest across the country in 2010.
The constituency itself has a mostly middle-class electorate, and takes in the East Renfrewshire council area, with the towns of Barrhead, Clarkston, Giffnock and Newton Mearns.
Read more about East Renfrewshire (UK Parliament Constituency): History, Boundaries and Local Government Areas, Population and Politics, Election Results
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—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)