Inverness, Skye & West Ross-shire.

Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire is one of the largest seats in Scotland by area, stretching from the Highland capital across the Great Glen and out to the western seaboard and Skye. Inverness anchors its population, but the constituency is rural-scattered rather than town-dominated, taking in Fort William, Culloden, Ardersier and a string of smaller crofting and coastal communities. With a median age of 45 and a Census population of around 105,000, it is older and more dispersed than the urban average. Every ward falls within Highland Council, a single Scottish council authority that runs local services across this vast territory from its base in the city.

Politically, the ward picture is fragmented rather than settled. Across recent contests the SNP has won the largest share of wards, but independents have taken a substantial number, with the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Greens and Labour each holding ground -- a pattern that points to no single party in command of the place. At Westminster the 2024 result, the first on these new boundaries, returned Liberal Democrat Angus MacDonald on 37.8 per cent, with the SNP close behind on 33.3 per cent. The roughly four-point margin marks this out as competitive rather than secure, and the MP sits as one feature of a crowded local field.

The seat appears genuinely in flux rather than trending one way. Its 2024 contest was unusually fraught, and local coverage since has leaned heavily on Highland Council's finances, where successive council-tax rises and budget pressure have set the administrative tone. The narrow parliamentary margin, combined with a ward map split across six parties and a strong independent presence, leaves the constituency contested at both levels. On the figures available, this is a seat where neither the Liberal Democrat hold nor the SNP challenge looks anchored, and where direction-of-travel is better read as open than as fixed.