Constituency Profile
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 districts, 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 was 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, the former Prime Minister, 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.
Read more about this topic: Dunfermline East (Scottish Parliament Constituency)
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