Cowdenbeath & Kirkcaldy.

Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy is a Fife seat of some 95,000 people, strung along the south of the county between the Forth coast and the old coalfield. Kirkcaldy, the larger coastal town, anchors the seat; Cowdenbeath lends the other half of its name, with Burntisland, Kinghorn, Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay filling out a network of small towns rather than a single dominant centre. The median age, 45, runs a little above the national figure. A single unitary authority, Fife Council, runs local services across all seven wards.

Local politics here is a three-way contest with no settled victor. In the most recent ward elections, fought in 2022, the SNP took the largest share of seats, Labour ran close behind and the Conservatives held a smaller presence, with individual wards turning on narrow margins. Those contests are now several years old, and the Westminster picture has since moved. At the 2024 general election -- the first on these boundaries -- Labour won on 45.7 per cent, the SNP runner-up on 28.0, a gap of some seventeen points. Melanie Ward has held it since.

The direction of travel appears to favour Labour, though a margin won at a single contest on new lines is not yet durable, and the ward arithmetic remains divided. Recent local coverage has had a constructive, administrative character, dominated by Kirkcaldy town-centre and waterfront regeneration, housing and routine council business rather than national controversy. On the figures available the seat reads as Labour-leaning but contestable -- a recent gain rather than safe ground, with the SNP the obvious challenger.