Rutherglen (which means red valley in English) was once true to its name. The former industrial town in the suburbs of greater Glasgow used to be a staunch Labour heartland (Keir Hardie, the party’s founder, was even born nearby).
That all changed with the rise of the SNP in the 2000s. The area – now part of the constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West – has bounced between the two parties at every election since 2015, and was most recently won by the SNP in 2019.
