Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland
Jul 27, 2020 16:12:07 GMT
andrewteale, Pete Whitehead, and 10 more like this
Post by bungle on Jul 27, 2020 16:12:07 GMT
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is an ugly name for a constituency, redeemed solely by the relative ease of identifying its location. This seat which nestles in the ex-Teesside/Cleveland part of the historic North Riding of Yorkshire certainly isn’t as demographically homogenous as some of its Teesside neighbours. There are a variety of relevant geographical 'types' to be found here: deprived ex-council estates, 1970s-90s suburban estates, growth villages, a Victorian seaside resort, ex-mining villages, a historic town and some very rural hinterland. It is a mix that has made it at heart a marginal seat ever since its effective foundation in 1983 – but enough of its recent history suggests its natural default now leans more to the right rather than somewhere just to the left of middle.
Why effective foundation? 1983 saw substantial boundary changes in these parts which created a seat which was around 90% identical to the current MS & EC. The short-lived 1974 creation of Cleveland and Whitby CC was carved up with the removal of Whitby and its rural hinterland to rejoin Scarborough. The Cleveland element was then paired with areas of south Middlesbrough to create a viable constituency. These were either completely new suburban estates such as Coulby Newham and Hemlington which became viable once the A174 arterial road was completed or existing villages which also expanded at this time such as Marton and Nunthorpe. Cleveland was also left out of the new name; instead in came a moniker that caused pronunciation palpitations for the unaware – Langbaurgh*. Langbaurgh was always marginal and reflected the prevailing political direction by electing a Conservative MP in 1983 and 1987 by majorities of 6,000 and 2,000 respectively. When the sitting MP Richard Holt, a northerner partial to unhealthy food (cf. Geoffrey Dickens and the ‘Currie Club’) died of a heart attack in 1991 the resulting by-election was gained for Labour by Dr Ashok Kumar - but only on a small swing for such a marginal seat by-election of 3.5%. Some suggested this may have had a racial factor in a heavily white seat but nonetheless this earlier indicator of Conservative competitiveness proved an accurate indicator for the 1992 GE. The Conservative by-election loser, Michael Bates, successfully turned the tables and recovered the seat with a majority of 1,500
The main impact of the boundary changes in 1997 was to replace an unpronounceable name with something more prosaic but functional (whilst also shifting the small town of Marske into Redcar). A third match-up between Kumar and Bates took place and this time Kumar won by over 10,000 (and overall the tally was 2-1). He successfully nursed his majority over the next two elections avoiding the prevailing national swing in 2005 when he kept his majority to a healthy 8,000. Sadly Kumar died shortly before the 2010 General Election and at short notice Labour selected as a replacement his former constituency researcher Tom Blenkinsop who managed to hold the seat by 1,700. Hailing from the south Middlesbrough part of the seat, he was a no-nonsense member of the trade unionist right-wing tradition within the PLP. He secured a positive swing in 2015 which partially reflects he was a good fit for this seat (compared to say Vera Baird in Redcar) but it more likely reflects the limited appeal of Cameron, in particular after his government’s approach to the steelworks in Teesside. After 2015 all of this unravelled. Blenkinsop’s uncompromising approach to his left-wing critics inevitably caused tensions with the rise of Corbyn and he refused to fight the 2017 election citing that to do so whilst Corbyn was leader would be wrong. Labour’s precarious hold on this seat finally came to end when Simon Clarke, a solicitor who grew up in the constituency, took the seat for the Conservatives by just over 1,000 votes.
It could easily have been much worse for Labour in 2017. The 2019 election showed why. There are some structural problems for Labour across the Cleveland area. Clarke romped home with a swing of 11% and a majority of 11,500. Whilst some of this can be ascribed to the specific Corbyn/Brexit of the 2019 GE, there is a growing trend across the 2010s that Labour is finding it harder to keep hold of the ex-Cleveland areas. The loss of Redcar in 2010 showed a complacency about a core vote which could be softened up by a viable alternative. In Brexit terms, both Middlesbrough and R&C both voted by over 65% to leave which clearly meant any softening of Labour's position to respect the result would cause problems. The failure to win the Tees Valley Mayoralty in 2017 did not bode well (indicating struggles with turnout as well as national problems) while the poor local election results across the area in 2019 were fully anticipated where national troubles, the lack of a GE turnout and Labour being perceived as the ‘establishment’ here all took its toll in terms of seats lost.
Another way of looking at this is through the types of voters where Labour has enhanced or entrenched its support in recent years: ethnic minorities, students, middle class public sector types are overwhelmingly absent from this constituency. MS & EC is more working class than average and it is overwhelmingly white constituency compared to both regional and national averages. It is also noticeably older with a median age of 45 compared to 40 nationally; 22% of voters are over 65. The levels of people with no educational qualifications is above average; similarly unemployment levels outrun both the regional and national average. Once upon a time all of this would indicate likely Labour strength but at present this is not the case.
Local election results on the surface offer limited help in terms of parliamentary voting trends as there are numerous independents who stand across both the Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland wards which make up this constituency. But if viewed through the prism of 'Labour' and 'non-Labour' there are some emerging underlying trends. It is easy to spot in more affluent and middle class wards like Marton East and Nunthorpe where the local independents are pretty much given a free pass by the Tories safe in the knowledge that come a general election a comfortable majority of those voters will go blue. The areas of the constituency closest to urban Middlesbrough are strongest for Labour – Ladgate ward has been reliably Labour throughout all the Middlesbrough independent vicissitudes since the days of Ray 'Robocop' Mallon. Park End will vote heavily Labour nationally even if locally the independents have been recently successful. Coulby Newham and Hemlington have been generally more Labour than not but in recent years the Conservatives have made great strides in the former (including a couple of by-election successes). The former is a very large mixed estate which contains the modern Roman Catholic cathedral next to the shopping centre. In the 2000s the Liberal Democrats did manage to capitalise on some of the ‘not Labour’ votes in some of the wards in this southern of end of Middlesbrough but this hasn’t survived their brush with national government.
Outside the Middlesbrough conurbation the next biggest focal point to the constituency is the historic town of Guisborough to the south east (population 17,000 in the civil parish). With its ruined priory and large high street it could easily grace part of a handsome and prosperous Home Counties seat – but poke underneath and you can see from the shopping experience that there isn’t quite the wealth here to sustain the array of fancy artisan bakers and expensive clothes shops that would be compulsory down south. The amount of private housing here has substantially increased in each decade since the 1960s and the town itself is now split into 3 wards. Two of these are safely Tory at a national level - Hutton and Belmont. Guisborough ward itself is much more marginal, reflecting the influence by the old artisan terraced houses in the centre of the town which are largely lower quality rental lets.
Ironstone mining casts a long shadow in the eastern part of the constituency. It is what created Middlesbrough in the 19th century and gave the wider area its industrial heritage. Yet the mines – and miners - were actually situated in small villages within the Cleveland Hills. Places with bucolic names like Lingdale are in fact very obviously ex-pit villages with similar characteristics to places in County Durham or South Yorkshire. There is still mining in the area at Boulby although this is for alum/potash rather than ironstone and it is far less labour intensive. Skelton, Brotton and Loftus all made it to small town size off the back of mining growth but today what employment there is isn’t substantial or highly paid. Voting patterns here used to be strong for Labour but this has been unravelling for a while. In Skelton the Conservatives were always competitive and now they have substantially moved forward whilst elsewhere Independents reign supreme.
The final element of the constituency is the manufactured seaside town of Saltburn founded as it was off the opportunity of the ironstone railways to carry passengers. It is a delightful Victorian idea of how a seaside town should be but it is obvious to any visitor where and when the money ran out (as in Whitby West Cliff). Before it did a substantial pier and cliff railway were installed and the promenade gives fine views across to Hartlepool. Typically it has always voted Conservative but this trend isn’t as striking as it once was – there is a small but noticeable ‘metropolitan’ and artistic element who now enjoy this town. Labour can win seats here at local elections but generally it is the well-known local independents who clean up. No one here sees themselves as from Cleveland – it is always Saltburn by the Sea, Yorkshire.
Can Labour win again in MS & EC? Never say never, but like many ex-mining seats the habitual voters are dying off and being replaced with far less reliable ones. Building a coalition of support across such a diverse constituency in the 2020s will be tougher but not impossible. With around 71,000 electors it is unlikely to see any major boundary changes in the forthcoming review unless other changes require it to be rebuilt.
(*the overwhelming consensus of my local friends is it is pronounced Lang-barth and not Lang-bar but like all local things everyone has a claim to the authentic and authoritative view).
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is an ugly name for a constituency, redeemed solely by the relative ease of identifying its location. This seat which nestles in the ex-Teesside/Cleveland part of the historic North Riding of Yorkshire certainly isn’t as demographically homogenous as some of its Teesside neighbours. There are a variety of relevant geographical 'types' to be found here: deprived ex-council estates, 1970s-90s suburban estates, growth villages, a Victorian seaside resort, ex-mining villages, a historic town and some very rural hinterland. It is a mix that has made it at heart a marginal seat ever since its effective foundation in 1983 – but enough of its recent history suggests its natural default now leans more to the right rather than somewhere just to the left of middle.
Why effective foundation? 1983 saw substantial boundary changes in these parts which created a seat which was around 90% identical to the current MS & EC. The short-lived 1974 creation of Cleveland and Whitby CC was carved up with the removal of Whitby and its rural hinterland to rejoin Scarborough. The Cleveland element was then paired with areas of south Middlesbrough to create a viable constituency. These were either completely new suburban estates such as Coulby Newham and Hemlington which became viable once the A174 arterial road was completed or existing villages which also expanded at this time such as Marton and Nunthorpe. Cleveland was also left out of the new name; instead in came a moniker that caused pronunciation palpitations for the unaware – Langbaurgh*. Langbaurgh was always marginal and reflected the prevailing political direction by electing a Conservative MP in 1983 and 1987 by majorities of 6,000 and 2,000 respectively. When the sitting MP Richard Holt, a northerner partial to unhealthy food (cf. Geoffrey Dickens and the ‘Currie Club’) died of a heart attack in 1991 the resulting by-election was gained for Labour by Dr Ashok Kumar - but only on a small swing for such a marginal seat by-election of 3.5%. Some suggested this may have had a racial factor in a heavily white seat but nonetheless this earlier indicator of Conservative competitiveness proved an accurate indicator for the 1992 GE. The Conservative by-election loser, Michael Bates, successfully turned the tables and recovered the seat with a majority of 1,500
The main impact of the boundary changes in 1997 was to replace an unpronounceable name with something more prosaic but functional (whilst also shifting the small town of Marske into Redcar). A third match-up between Kumar and Bates took place and this time Kumar won by over 10,000 (and overall the tally was 2-1). He successfully nursed his majority over the next two elections avoiding the prevailing national swing in 2005 when he kept his majority to a healthy 8,000. Sadly Kumar died shortly before the 2010 General Election and at short notice Labour selected as a replacement his former constituency researcher Tom Blenkinsop who managed to hold the seat by 1,700. Hailing from the south Middlesbrough part of the seat, he was a no-nonsense member of the trade unionist right-wing tradition within the PLP. He secured a positive swing in 2015 which partially reflects he was a good fit for this seat (compared to say Vera Baird in Redcar) but it more likely reflects the limited appeal of Cameron, in particular after his government’s approach to the steelworks in Teesside. After 2015 all of this unravelled. Blenkinsop’s uncompromising approach to his left-wing critics inevitably caused tensions with the rise of Corbyn and he refused to fight the 2017 election citing that to do so whilst Corbyn was leader would be wrong. Labour’s precarious hold on this seat finally came to end when Simon Clarke, a solicitor who grew up in the constituency, took the seat for the Conservatives by just over 1,000 votes.
It could easily have been much worse for Labour in 2017. The 2019 election showed why. There are some structural problems for Labour across the Cleveland area. Clarke romped home with a swing of 11% and a majority of 11,500. Whilst some of this can be ascribed to the specific Corbyn/Brexit of the 2019 GE, there is a growing trend across the 2010s that Labour is finding it harder to keep hold of the ex-Cleveland areas. The loss of Redcar in 2010 showed a complacency about a core vote which could be softened up by a viable alternative. In Brexit terms, both Middlesbrough and R&C both voted by over 65% to leave which clearly meant any softening of Labour's position to respect the result would cause problems. The failure to win the Tees Valley Mayoralty in 2017 did not bode well (indicating struggles with turnout as well as national problems) while the poor local election results across the area in 2019 were fully anticipated where national troubles, the lack of a GE turnout and Labour being perceived as the ‘establishment’ here all took its toll in terms of seats lost.
Another way of looking at this is through the types of voters where Labour has enhanced or entrenched its support in recent years: ethnic minorities, students, middle class public sector types are overwhelmingly absent from this constituency. MS & EC is more working class than average and it is overwhelmingly white constituency compared to both regional and national averages. It is also noticeably older with a median age of 45 compared to 40 nationally; 22% of voters are over 65. The levels of people with no educational qualifications is above average; similarly unemployment levels outrun both the regional and national average. Once upon a time all of this would indicate likely Labour strength but at present this is not the case.
Local election results on the surface offer limited help in terms of parliamentary voting trends as there are numerous independents who stand across both the Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland wards which make up this constituency. But if viewed through the prism of 'Labour' and 'non-Labour' there are some emerging underlying trends. It is easy to spot in more affluent and middle class wards like Marton East and Nunthorpe where the local independents are pretty much given a free pass by the Tories safe in the knowledge that come a general election a comfortable majority of those voters will go blue. The areas of the constituency closest to urban Middlesbrough are strongest for Labour – Ladgate ward has been reliably Labour throughout all the Middlesbrough independent vicissitudes since the days of Ray 'Robocop' Mallon. Park End will vote heavily Labour nationally even if locally the independents have been recently successful. Coulby Newham and Hemlington have been generally more Labour than not but in recent years the Conservatives have made great strides in the former (including a couple of by-election successes). The former is a very large mixed estate which contains the modern Roman Catholic cathedral next to the shopping centre. In the 2000s the Liberal Democrats did manage to capitalise on some of the ‘not Labour’ votes in some of the wards in this southern of end of Middlesbrough but this hasn’t survived their brush with national government.
Outside the Middlesbrough conurbation the next biggest focal point to the constituency is the historic town of Guisborough to the south east (population 17,000 in the civil parish). With its ruined priory and large high street it could easily grace part of a handsome and prosperous Home Counties seat – but poke underneath and you can see from the shopping experience that there isn’t quite the wealth here to sustain the array of fancy artisan bakers and expensive clothes shops that would be compulsory down south. The amount of private housing here has substantially increased in each decade since the 1960s and the town itself is now split into 3 wards. Two of these are safely Tory at a national level - Hutton and Belmont. Guisborough ward itself is much more marginal, reflecting the influence by the old artisan terraced houses in the centre of the town which are largely lower quality rental lets.
Ironstone mining casts a long shadow in the eastern part of the constituency. It is what created Middlesbrough in the 19th century and gave the wider area its industrial heritage. Yet the mines – and miners - were actually situated in small villages within the Cleveland Hills. Places with bucolic names like Lingdale are in fact very obviously ex-pit villages with similar characteristics to places in County Durham or South Yorkshire. There is still mining in the area at Boulby although this is for alum/potash rather than ironstone and it is far less labour intensive. Skelton, Brotton and Loftus all made it to small town size off the back of mining growth but today what employment there is isn’t substantial or highly paid. Voting patterns here used to be strong for Labour but this has been unravelling for a while. In Skelton the Conservatives were always competitive and now they have substantially moved forward whilst elsewhere Independents reign supreme.
The final element of the constituency is the manufactured seaside town of Saltburn founded as it was off the opportunity of the ironstone railways to carry passengers. It is a delightful Victorian idea of how a seaside town should be but it is obvious to any visitor where and when the money ran out (as in Whitby West Cliff). Before it did a substantial pier and cliff railway were installed and the promenade gives fine views across to Hartlepool. Typically it has always voted Conservative but this trend isn’t as striking as it once was – there is a small but noticeable ‘metropolitan’ and artistic element who now enjoy this town. Labour can win seats here at local elections but generally it is the well-known local independents who clean up. No one here sees themselves as from Cleveland – it is always Saltburn by the Sea, Yorkshire.
Can Labour win again in MS & EC? Never say never, but like many ex-mining seats the habitual voters are dying off and being replaced with far less reliable ones. Building a coalition of support across such a diverse constituency in the 2020s will be tougher but not impossible. With around 71,000 electors it is unlikely to see any major boundary changes in the forthcoming review unless other changes require it to be rebuilt.
(*the overwhelming consensus of my local friends is it is pronounced Lang-barth and not Lang-bar but like all local things everyone has a claim to the authentic and authoritative view).
