In 1997, the boundary changes were in the Conservatives favour and gave Lord James a notional majority of 4,291 - the likes of which he has not seen since 1979. In the end, along with the rest of Britain, Edinburgh West voted tactically to get rid of the Tories. Donald Gorrie, already with experience from his years as a local councillor made his mark on the Westminster Parliament with many interventions in the devolution debate. However, despite a shining performance as an MP, Gorrie was rejected by his constituency association when they chose a candidate for Holyrood. The official and somewhat lame excuse give by the association was that they preferred to let someone else get a chance at representing them at Holyrood.
Most observers suspect that the association's motive was nothing less than cynical ageism.
Donald Gorrie's major handicap was his age - born in 1933, he is already past the normal retiral age. It seems likely that Edinburgh West prefer to try to get a new candidate in and settled while they are comfortably ahead for the first time ever thanks to Mr Gorrie's 1997 victory, rather than risk losing the seat in a few years time when their popularity may have dropped. Certainly, the Tories must be smiling at the disarray in the local Liberal Democrat association who rejected Donald Gorrie, by far and away the Lib Dem's most able Westminster MP, as their candidate in favour of Cllr Margaret Smith. The Tories selected Lord Douglas of Selkirk to contest this seat. In fact, this noble lord is none other then Lord James Douglas Hamilton, the Tory MP here from 1974 to 1997.