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Post by yellowperil on Apr 4, 2020 13:31:20 GMT
It really is interesting how Oxbridge colleges (and maybe universities as a whole) maintain distinct political stances over long periods. I counted OUSU (Oxford University Student Union) elections for years, and one could almost have 'done an Almanac' on the various colleges ... Balliol and Wadham Left, Christ Church and Oriel 'deep South' Right, and so on. It might be interesting to reflect why this happens - self-selection of applicants, political osmosis once there, anything else? Interesting. My granddaughter was at Wadham 2015-19 (first in psychology). I would say fairly apolitical on going, certainly moved leftwards in her time there. |
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Post by bigfatron on Apr 10, 2020 7:57:34 GMT
As a rare Cambridge 'townie' who was around in the Seventies, I can possibly shed some light on what did for them locally.
It was a Conservative administration that proposed the Lion Yard development, around 1970 IIRC; this was to replace a run-down historic area of the centre (think a neglected Shambles) with a brick and concrete shopping centre.
It was massively unpopular with the residents - when it was mooted the Tories lost seats but retained control, but they pushed on; Labour and Lib Dems both promised to cancel it if they gained power on the City Council, but the Tories responded by writing a contract which it was revealed was, in practice, irreversible even if they lost power in the next election. There were even allegations, never proven if I am remembering right, of backhanders and corruption.
The Tories lost their majority the next year, and I don't think ever got it back, even in the late Seventies when Labour were unpopular nationally.
The local MP, David Lane, was not involved and held his seat, being replaced in due course by Robert Rhodes-James; it seems the electors were happy to distinguish between the local and national Tory parties for a while, until the lack of any influence on the council eroded the effectiveness of the local Tory party and it fell out of relevance in national elections.
That's how I remember it - mind you, I was a teenager and not involved in politics, but my mother was much exercised about it and there was a lot in the local papers at the time...
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Post by matureleft on Apr 10, 2020 8:32:55 GMT
As a rare Cambridge 'townie' who was around in the Seventies, I can possibly shed some light on what did for them locally. It was a Conservative administration that proposed the Lion Yard development, around 1970 IIRC; this was to replace a run-down historic area of the centre (think a neglected Shambles) with a brick and concrete shopping centre. It was massively unpopular with the residents - when it was mooted the Tories lost seats but retained control, but they pushed on; Labour and Lib Dems both promised to cancel it if they gained power on the City Council, but the Tories responded by writing a contract which it was revealed was, in practice, irreversible even if they lost power in the next election. There were even allegations, never proven if I am remembering right, of backhanders and corruption. The Tories lost their majority the next year, and I don't think ever got it back, even in the late Seventies when Labour were unpopular nationally. The local MP, David Lane, was not involved and held his seat, being replaced in due course by Robert Rhodes-James; it seems the electors were happy to distinguish between the local and national Tory parties for a while, until the lack of any influence on the council eroded the effectiveness of the local Tory party and it fell out of relevance in national elections. That's how I remember it - mind you, I was a teenager and not involved in politics, but my mother was much exercised about it and there was a lot in the local papers at the time... The controversial development was the Grafton Centre (though Lion Yard is no thing of beauty) and the demolition of the Kite area to make way for it. It certainly affected results around the area (Market,Petersfield and Castle Wards) for a while and made John Powley, the Tory leader, a target in the 1979 local elections. On election day 1979 he nearly won Harlow (and later served briefly as MP for Norwich South) but heavily lost his Castle ward seat. The impact further away from the city centre was much less, with quite a lot of long-term residents saying the area was a slum and the city needed more shopping space. You are, however right to say that the Tories never returned to power.
The development prompted a lot of community activism in the area and that fed through into party political activism in some cases.
It's fair to say the the local Labour Party municipal heirarchy of that day took an, at best, ambivalent attitude reflecting divisions, and initially the main beneficiaries were the Liberals (as they were then) and a community activist, Margaret Reiss who stood as an Independent anti-development unity candidate in Market in 1978 against the Tories (those were the days when they were leading contenders in Market ward..!).
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Post by pl on Apr 10, 2020 9:23:49 GMT
(those were the days when they were leading contenders in Market ward..!). I was campaign manager for the Conservative candidate in Market back in 2002. The heady days when the Conservative could come second on 15% of the vote. Leafletting the ward is a nightmare given the colleges were note keen on political leaflets. This resulted in us waiting until the early hours of the morning to target the pigeon holes in the porters lodges to avoid being thrown out! Happy days. I obviously hadn’t discovered the benefits of putting leaflets in addressed envelopes yet! |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Apr 10, 2020 9:47:13 GMT
(those were the days when they were leading contenders in Market ward..!). I was campaign manager for the Conservative candidate in Market back in 2002. The heady days when the Conservative could come second on 15% of the vote. Leafletting the ward is a nightmare given the colleges were note keen on political leaflets. This resulted in us waiting until the early hours of the morning to target the pigeon holes in the porters lodges to avoid being thrown out! Happy days. I obviously hadn’t discovered the benefits of putting leaflets in addressed envelopes yet! I'm surprised you did any campaigning in MArket at all at that time. My then-gf was a paper candidate in that ward four years earlier (as I was in Romsey) and there was literally no campaign at all (unless there was some generic leaflet delivered of which we were blissfully unaware). The Conservatives carefully targeted a couple of winnable wards and ignored the rest - a successful strategy as they won Trumpington and Cherry Hinton that year (Graham Stuart, now MP for Beverley winning in the latter) |
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Post by pl on Apr 10, 2020 9:59:32 GMT
I was campaign manager for the Conservative candidate in Market back in 2002. The heady days when the Conservative could come second on 15% of the vote. Leafletting the ward is a nightmare given the colleges were note keen on political leaflets. This resulted in us waiting until the early hours of the morning to target the pigeon holes in the porters lodges to avoid being thrown out! Happy days. I obviously hadn’t discovered the benefits of putting leaflets in addressed envelopes yet! I'm surprised you did any campaigning in MArket at all at that time. My then-gf was a paper candidate in that ward four years earlier (as I was in Romsey) and there was literally no campaign at all (unless there was some generic leaflet delivered of which we were blissfully unaware). The Conservatives carefully targeted a couple of winnable wards and ignored the rest - a successful strategy as they won Trumpington and Cherry Hinton that year (Graham Stuart, now MP for Beverley winning in the latter) Yes.. even now I can still navigate my way around Cherry Hinton despite having never been there for anything other than leafletting. My first canvassing session saw me accidently (some might say deliberately sent to) knock on the door of the then Labour MP. I also had a wild eyed man set his dogs on me, while screaming "You killed my wife, you killed my wife. The Tories destroyed the NHS". Not even campaigning in Rhyl West have I had a worse campaigning session than in the (even then) million pound houses in Cherry Hinton. The Market campaign was for a friend - and there were still semi generic leaflets to deliver. I was doing finals at the time and was very bored. So any excuse to avoid work was gratefully taken. Also, any excuse to annoy the Lib Dems was quickly taken! |
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Post by bigfatron on Apr 10, 2020 13:21:37 GMT
Thank, Matureleft, for putting me straight - memories of political events from the start of my second decade of life are hazy at best! I can remember my mum being worked up about it, though we lived in Girton at the time, but she had lived right by Midsummer Common in the fifties so will have known the Kite area well.
I also remember a kid at school whose dad was something to do with the Tories being taken the piss out of by the sixth form kids (who presumably didn't need any facts to do some low-grade bullying) about how much money his family must have now they had banked the backhanders from the developers...
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Apr 11, 2020 0:32:56 GMT
It really is interesting how Oxbridge colleges (and maybe universities as a whole) maintain distinct political stances over long periods. I counted OUSU (Oxford University Student Union) elections for years, and one could almost have 'done an Almanac' on the various colleges ... Balliol and Wadham Left, Christ Church and Oriel 'deep South' Right, and so on. It might be interesting to reflect why this happens - self-selection of applicants, political osmosis once there, anything else? I'm a Keble man. Much High Tory going on in my day, to go with the High Church. |
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Post by matureleft on Apr 11, 2020 6:54:49 GMT
The controversial development was the Grafton Centre (though Lion Yard is no thing of beauty) and the demolition of the Kite area to make way for it. It certainly affected results around the area (Market,Petersfield and Castle Wards) for a while and made John Powley, the Tory leader, a target in the 1979 local elections. On election day 1979 he nearly won Harlow (and later served briefly as MP for Norwich South) but heavily lost his Castle ward seat. The impact further away from the city centre was much less, with quite a lot of long-term residents saying the area was a slum and the city needed more shopping space. You are, however right to say that the Tories never returned to power.
The development prompted a lot of community activism in the area and that fed through into party political activism in some cases.
It's fair to say the the local Labour Party municipal heirarchy of that day took an, at best, ambivalent attitude reflecting divisions, and initially the main beneficiaries were the Liberals (as they were then) and a community activist, Margaret Reiss who stood as an Independent anti-development unity candidate in Market in 1978 against the Tories (those were the days when they were leading contenders in Market ward..!).
pretty sure I recollect that Reiss was a Liberal when I was at Cambridge, which was very soon after her election. I voted in Market ward in 1980, and also in 1981 because at that time the county council division was very different from the city council one, and still included many of the colleges, including King's where I was, which were in Newnham in city council elections. I don't know what the boundaries are now. She started as a non-party figure (and could be huffy if challenged on that). However she joined the SDP when that was set up. She only served one 4 year term, giving way to a Liberal in 1982 (they already had the other two Market seats - she had stood to displace the single Tory. He was Graham Edwards who then switched to Queen Edith’s and won a by-election there, sitting until 2000. |
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Post by matureleft on Apr 11, 2020 7:54:18 GMT
I remember Graham Edwards as I went to the count in 1980. There was another Tory councillor called Graham, have forgotten his surname but he held off our challenge in E.Chesterton by 6 votes. 4 of the voters who accounted for that majority were Kingsmen in one house though the girl I fancied at the time did turn up and vote Labour. She is now an eminent figure in the art world. Graham Knowles narrowly held East Chesterton. I remember the count very well. |
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Post by yellowperil on Apr 11, 2020 8:29:26 GMT
Surprised that Margaret Reiss was not a Liberal, but probably at the time I didn't read Liberal election literature very carefully! When I read the first reference to her in the post from matureleft I for a moment read "community activist" as "communist" and thought "wtf" then read it properly.  |
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Post by yellowperil on Apr 11, 2020 10:01:10 GMT
Our candidate I remember very well, he was a very likeable young man called Carey Widdows. I think he got selected for Abbey, which was and is safe Labour, not long afterwards. He did however have an irritating habit of shouting "Avon lady!" almost every time the doorbell went. One of our party workers in East Chesterton, a close friend at the time though not ever an actual Labour member, is now a tech multimillionaire in Germany. Strictly your statement is correct, Abbey was indeed safe Labour, and now it may be even more so, but didn't Labour lose it to the Greens in, I think, 2008 and 2009? So not always safe, which is what may otherwise be implied? Does anyone know what became of Carey Widdows? |
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Post by matureleft on Apr 11, 2020 12:50:35 GMT
Our candidate I remember very well, he was a very likeable young man called Carey Widdows. I think he got selected for Abbey, which was and is safe Labour, not long afterwards. He did however have an irritating habit of shouting "Avon lady!" almost every time the doorbell went. One of our party workers in East Chesterton, a close friend at the time though not ever an actual Labour member, is now a tech multimillionaire in Germany. Yes, he was nice and was later elected for Abbey Ward. He didn't serve long. My abiding memory was that he declined to put his phone number on newsletters. When questioned about this he said that his wife disliked the calls. Understandably I think he prioritised his relationship. |
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Post by finsobruce on Apr 11, 2020 14:33:14 GMT
Our candidate I remember very well, he was a very likeable young man called Carey Widdows. I think he got selected for Abbey, which was and is safe Labour, not long afterwards. He did however have an irritating habit of shouting "Avon lady!" almost every time the doorbell went. One of our party workers in East Chesterton, a close friend at the time though not ever an actual Labour member, is now a tech multimillionaire in Germany. "Ding Dong!" |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Apr 11, 2020 20:47:50 GMT
Mark Todd was the runner-up to Anne Campbell in the selection for Cambridge in 1989 - losing that led him to try in South Derbyshire where he eventually succeeded.
I remember founding what must have been almost the last ever constituency branch of Young Socialists (before it was reorganised as Young Labour) in 1993. Andrew Gilligan was a co-founder.
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Post by peterl on Oct 27, 2021 23:31:41 GMT
Cambridge is a city of around 125,000 just over 50 miles north of London. Although an ancient settlement, perhaps inhabited since the Bronze Age, and received a town charter from King John in 1207, it did not receive city status until 1951. The City’s main fame comes from the presence of the University of Cambridge, the second largest English-speaking university worldwide, founded in 1209. The population includes around 30,000 students and 40% of the City’s residents hold a university qualification, a figure more than twice the national average. Asides from higher education, other major local industries include software and bioscience.
Cambridge City Council has been controlled by Labour for much of the time since the 1972 reforms. Labour have controlled the Council from 1973-6, 1986-7, 1988-92, 1996-8, and from 2014 to present. The Conservatives enjoyed one brief period of control from 1976-9, and the Lib Dems had one lengthier period in charge from 2000 to 2012, with the Council being in No Overall Control for the remaining periods. The Green Party are also represented on the Council and have been gradually gaining ground in recent local elections. Cambridgeshire County Council, based within the City, is currently run by a coalition of Labour, Lib Dem and independent councillors, having been most commonly run by the Conservatives in the past. Cambridge is also part of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined Authority, of which the mayor is currently Labour’s Nik Johnson.
The constituency of Cambridge is one of the country’s oldest and was created in 1295. There was formerly also a University of Cambridge constituency from 1603 until 1950, with one of the most notable members for this second constituency being Sir Issac Newton, elected as a Whig in 1689 and again in 1701. The first partisan MP for Cambridge itself was Sir John Hynde Cotton, a Tory elected in 1708. Since the constituency was reduced to a single member as part of the 1885 reforms, Cambridge has been represented by fifteen different members. It has been held by Conservatives from 1885-1906, 1910-1945, 1950-1966 and 1967-1992. Liberals and Lib Dems were elected in 1906, 2005 and 2010. Labour won the constituency in 1945 and then later held the seat from 1992 until 2005 and again from 2015 to the present. The only significant performances by a smaller party were by the Green Party scoring 7.6% in 2010 and 7.9% in 2015, but with diminished results since. Daniel Zeichner, formerly Shadow DEFRA minister, is the current member. At 73.8%, Cambridge was the highest remain voting constituency in the East of England in the 2016 referendum.
Cambridge is a city with an interesting political dynamic. Labour are currently the dominant party, but a Lib Dem resurgence could be achievable under the right conditions. In 2015, Labour won out by just 599 votes, though their majorities have increased since. The Conservatives have not won Cambridge since the days of Margaret Thatcher and the Tories remain in a distant third place, though few constituencies have been held by all three major parties in reasonably recent history.
General Election Result 2019
Daniel Zeichner Labour 25,776 48.0% −3.9%
Rod Cantrill Liberal Democrats 16,137 30.0% +0.7%
Russell Perrin Conservative 8,342 15.5% −0.8%
Jeremy Caddick Green Party 2,164 4.0% +1.7%
Peter Dawe Brexit Party 1,041 1.9% +1.9%
Miles Hurley Independent 111 0.2% +0.2%
Jane Robins SDP 91 0.2% +0.2%
Keith Garrett Rebooting Democracy 67 0.1% −0.1%
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Post by John Chanin on Oct 28, 2021 6:10:13 GMT
What the profile doesn’t do (and I don’t want to discourage you) is give any indication of how the constituency breaks down internally. I know enough about Cambridge to know it is really quite varied. Your profiles would benefit from a little attention to this.
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Post by Robert Waller on Oct 28, 2021 9:53:14 GMT
I agree with John about this.
The internal varying political characteristics within seats were very much an essential part of my original 'Almanac' conception.
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Post by matureleft on Oct 28, 2021 10:50:40 GMT
I sense that there's a lot of experience of Cambridge politics on this site, albeit in some cases (including my own) not very recent. It should be possible to pull together quite a strong profile of the seat. Among the interesting facets is the development of a strong divergence between local and parliamentary voting patterns from the late 1970s until the 1990s. The Conservatives held this seat against a pretty steady decline in their local government strength. That divergence appears modest now - the Conservatives are typically reduced to minority positions in both contests.
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Post by Robert Waller on Oct 28, 2021 11:10:59 GMT
Yes indeed!
My idea in starting this project was that collectively we could offer expertise and indeed varying opinions on the psephology of each constituency.
So within each thread contributions are welcome, for example on the internal voting patterns, the effect of the proposed boundary changes, relevant statistics, and so on.
That is why I don't mind people starting a thread with a profile even if their first post does not contain all of these elements.
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