BBC NEWS | VOTE 2003


CANDIDATE	PARTY	VOTES	%	+/-%
Margaret Jamieson	LAB	12633	40.1	-3.9
Daniel Coffey	SNP	11423	36.2	-0.9
Robin Traquair	CON	3295	10.4	-1.2
Ian Gibson	LD	1571	5.0	-2.2
Colin Rutherford	SSP	1421	4.5	+4.5
May Anderson	IND	404	1.3	+1.3
Matthew Donnelly	IND	402	1.3	+1.3
Lyndsay McIntosh	SPA	371	1.2	+1.2

	MAJORITY	1240	3.9
	TURNOUT	31550	51.6


ELECTORATE	61055

DESCRIPTION: Kilmarnock & Loudoun

Kilmarnock is by far the largest town in this constituency. Like the rest of the seat, it is industrial in nature and home to both heavy and light engineering plants, meat canning factories and the Johnnie Walker whisky distillery. The smaller towns east of Kilmarnock grew up on textile manufacture, and the carpet, knitwear and shoe industries are still important today. But unemployment here is higher than Scotland�s average.

Kilmarnock, and from 1983 Kilmarnock and Loudon, has been a Labour seat since 1945. Labour's Margaret Jamieson saw off a strong challenge from the SNP's Alex Neil (now a list MSP) to win the Holyrood seat in 1999. She has run into some controversy: while taking part in the parliament's business exchange scheme, she signed a confidentiality agreement with drugs company Pfizer, despite being deputy convener of the health committee. She again hit the headlines when it was revealed she had claimed more in expenses than any other MSP, although she put much of that down to the over-ordering of stationery by an assistant. The SNP has long seen the seat as a prime target.

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