PEOPLE keep saying it was the constitution that decided the election in Scotland – and it was – but there’s a bit more to it than that.

Look at the deeper stats, the trends under the trends, and you’ll see something else: the constitution is the leading factor, but how we respond to the issue and what the parties say about it depends on deeper factors that haven’t really changed much at all. In fact, there’s some new research which suggests their influence may be more powerful than ever.

But first: a quick look at the big picture of how the constitution played out. The vast majority of current Yes supporters – over 90% – voted for the SNP but the primacy of the constitution as a motivating factor is also demonstrated by how willing No supporters were to vote tactically. In several key seats where the Tories and Labour faced an SNP challenge, unionists were prepared to put aside the traditional left/right divide and vote to stop the SNP. In the end, it denied the nationalists the majority they desperately wanted.

Look deeper, though, and something really interesting emerges. The broad picture is of Scotland divided down the middle between the pro and anti-independence parties, but the situation is much more complicated when you look in detail at specific areas. The website Ballot Box Scotland has done a breakdown of how the parties fared in the regional list vote and it is these figures that are worth looking at in more detail. They show that the old story of Scotland hasn’t really disappeared, it’s just being told in a different way.

Let’s look at the SNP first. The headline of the election was SNP dominance and a pro-independence majority in parliament, but the support is not consistent. The SNP’s strongest support is in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Dundee: look at Dundee City West (52.1%) and Glasgow Provan (49.5%) and Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (49.5%). But look also at Edinburgh Southern (24.3%) and Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire (30.1%) and Eastwood (29%). That’s a pretty wide variation from top to bottom.

Something similar applies to the Conservatives. Again, the headline story of the election was a failure by the Tories to expand their vote much under the new leader Douglas Ross, but a look at the regional breakdowns is just as revealing. In certain parts of the country, the Tory vote is rock-bottom: in large parts of Glasgow, for example, they could only manage between 8 and 11%. At least it’s better than the UK entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, but not much better.

However, just like with the SNP, there is wide regional variation in the Conservative vote, with them getting close to half the vote in some parts of the country. Look at Banffshire and Buchan Coast for instance (39.8%) or Aberdeenshire West (42.3%), Dumfriesshire (42.9%) or Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire (47.3%). In those parts of the country, and a few others, the SNP is nowhere.

On the face of it, the explanation for people voting in this way – 50% for the SNP in some parts of the central belt and more than 40% for the Tories in some parts of the south and north-east – is the constitution and the question of independence. Dundee and Glasgow are effectively Yes cities, whereas Aberdeen, large parts of Edinburgh, and the south of Scotland are No, No, and No.

However, one of the reasons people take these positions on the constitution – the deeper trend if you like – is economic well-being. Where the SNP vote is particularly high, poverty is also relatively high, and where the SNP struggles, poverty is low, and the same applies to the Tories, only in reverse: they do well where poverty is low and badly where it’s high. It is not a universal rule obviously – there’s certainly plenty of poverty in Aberdeen (albeit more hidden), rural poverty is a real problem, and there are very prosperous parts of Glasgow and Dundee – but in general the picture holds: poorer communities are more likely to be SNP.

But it’s where this trend might go in the future that really interests me. The influence of poverty has always existed in Scottish politics but in the old days it was reflected in a strong vote for Labour in places like Glasgow and Dundee, whereas now it’s reflected through the SNP and that’s perfectly understandable in a way. If you’re struggling financially or you’re unemployed or you’re in a very low-paid job or life’s a bit crap, you’re going to go for the party that promises change and that used to be Labour and now it’s the SNP. Conversely, if you’ve got a well-paid job and have some money in the bank, you may be cautious about change and vote Conservative. The motivations are the same, it’s just the result that’s different.

So the question is where we might go next. You may have seen the research published in the last few days that showed that, since 2015, child poverty has risen in every one of Scotland’s council areas. The research, by Loughborough University, showed the biggest rise was in Glasgow, where child poverty has increased by 5.1% since 2014-15 and is the highest in Scotland. It’s no coincidence that the city also has one of the highest levels of support for the SNP.

The conclusions we can draw from all of this are deeply depressing. Firstly, a large vote that’s motivated by a desire for change and an end to poverty has moved from Labour to the SNP without any significant change actually happening – in fact, as we’ve seen, the situation on poverty is getting worse for many Scots. The Scottish Government’s response – with the inevitability of Fridays following Thursdays – is that it’s worse in England, but that doesn’t change the bottom line: child poverty is worse in Scotland than it used to be.

The second conclusion, I’m afraid, is even more depressing. Politicians generally act when there is an incentive to do so – it’s human nature, and the incentive is normally what’s good for the politician, or good for the party, or good for other people who might be encouraged to vote for them. But what’s the incentive here for the SNP? If people who live in poverty think the SNP is the answer, and still think the SNP is the answer when poverty is getting worse, what incentive is there for the Scottish Government to act? And what hope is there that, one day, the picture on poverty might actually improve?

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