Post by bungle on Apr 9, 2020 12:39:37 GMT
Erewash
In 2005 the somewhat anonymous-sounding and unprepossessing constituency of Erewash got its brief moment in the sun. This is quite an apt metaphor for the cause of this attention was the refulgent television personality (and former Labour MP) Robert Kilroy-Silk. Kilroy-Silk had recently been elected to the European Parliament for the East Midlands on a UKIP ticket but, like most large political egos, he decided he was bigger than the party and within a year had founded his own called Veritas. Erewash was the constituency graced with his presence as candidate for the forthcoming GE as he sought to make a come-back to the UK Parliament some 19 years after his departure.
Suddenly there was much interest in Erewash from London political journalists. The amusement for those of us with deep connections to Derbyshire was watching pretty much all of them do two things: one, ask ‘where on earth is this place?’ and two, pronounce it as EAR-wash. Clearing up the latter point first, if any forum members find themselves within the constituency it is pronounced ER-RE-wash. The location naturally takes a bit more describing. Erewash is pretty much that bit between Derby and Nottingham which is within the county of Derbyshire. It is actually more of a north-south constituency as it starts in the town of Ilkeston at its north and follows the River Erewash south to Long Eaton, which is its other major conurbation. The constituency used to abut the boundary of the city of Derby at Spondon and stretch all the way to the Nottinghamshire border but the wards of West Hallam, Dale Abbey and Ockbrook & Borrowash were removed to Mid Derbyshire in 2010 so the constituency no longer has a boundary with Derby itself.
There are good transport connections here which are improving all the time (which might give the impression that for anyone living there the only way is ‘out’). The Brian Clough Way is the recent moniker given to the A52 dual carriageway which connects Derby and Nottingham; for anyone with a semblance of football history they must agree this is a very appropriate and politically astute designation. The M1 bisects the constituency going north-south and the A52/M1 J25 at Sandiacre is a critical piece of infrastructure. Trent Junction on the Midland Main Line is within the constituency and Long Eaton is well served by trains to both London, Derby and Nottingham. Ilkeston (pop 38,000) was one of the largest conurbations without a station until 2017 when a new station opened on the Sheffield – Nottingham line. This has increased the constituency’s role as a home for people who work in either Derby or Nottingham. All of this investment in infrastructure is potentially dwarfed by the proposal to route the HS2b extension to Leeds right through Long Eaton (a huge local political issue, unsurprisingly) with provision for a station just outside the constituency at Toton.
As a result of all of the above, Long Eaton really is a place most people with pass through or nearby without really noticing it. It struggles to punch its weight in terms of notable history or people: Geoff Hoon (who?) is one of its more notable sons. The railway junction created the town and, since then, its growth has reflected standard housing history: artisan terraces in its centre, inter-war and post war housing further out up the Derby Road (largely privately owned) and then from the 1960s onwards private family housing in areas like Petersham which abuts the M1. Politically, Long Eaton has tended to lean uneasily to the left and there are several examples of when propitious national trends have allowed the Conservatives to come through. For example, in the Derbyshire County Council elections of 2009 they were able to win the Petersham division by 43 votes whilst Labour struggled to hold on in the Long Eaton division by only 20 votes. In Labour’s dreadful year of 2017 the same divisions were both gained by the Conservatives by 150 and 135 votes respectively.
To the south of Long Eaton is one of those villages which has grown exponentially since the 1930s – Sawley. Its housing mix is very similar to Long Eaton – pre-war small, semi-detached private and corporation housing with some 1960s/1970s private family housing. This meant politically it was also broadly left during the same period but the local election lodestone failed from the early 1980s when Labour councillor Bill Camm left the party over a row about a swimming pool. Camm was ‘Mr Sawley’ and his vote at both district and county elections could be weighed. When he died the resulting county by-election in 2011 was won by Labour, whereas in their good year of 2013 they actually lost the division to the Conservatives. With current political trends the grip of the Conservatives in this area has tightened. This is the type of place where the Brexit message strongly resonated.
Heading back north through what Pevsner calls ‘flat and uneventful country’ there are several Derby/Nottingham commuter villages like Breaston which are well-expanded with private family housing: these are solidly Conservative. Sandiacre is more suburban in nature and has some grim parts as well. It tends to the right on the whole but not convincingly. We then arrive in Ilkeston. Historically this was the centre of some significant heavy industry – ironworks, pipe making and coal mining. Its politics reflected this; this was solid Labour territory. There was an Ilkeston parliamentary constituency from 1885 – 1983 and in the zenith of the heavy industry period Labour could rely on the seat from 1922 onwards, regularly securing 65-70% of the vote. The only exception was in 1931 when in a two-horse race a National Labour candidate won by 2 votes. Since the 1970s this industry has dissipated and Ilkeston has struggled to re-invent its economic base. It naturally forms part of the Nottingham Urban Area and with the creation of better travel links there is a growing supply of cheaper private housing growth for Nottingham commuters, especially around Hallam Fields and Shipley Common. This has taken its toll on Labour’s grip at a county and district level. In 2017 the Conservatives managed win both the Ilkeston South and West divisions. In 2019 district elections Labour secured most of the Ilkeston seats but these were mainly with tiny majorities. In the 2019 GE it is highly probable that for the first time the Ilkeston area will have given a net positive vote to the Conservatives.
The Erewash constituency itself was formed as recently as 1983 from the old Ilkeston and South East Derbyshire constituencies. Most of the old Ilkeston seat was moved into the new Amber Valley CC with only the eponymous town and a small number of close villages being transferred into Erewash. In 1981 the sitting MP for Ilkeston, Ray Fletcher, was deselected and replaced as candidate by David Bookbinder, firebrand left-wing leader of Derbyshire County Council and bete noire of all local Tories and Norman Tebbit. Bookbinder saw Amber Valley as his better bet and stood there but lost. But given all that was said above, by no means was Erewash presumed to be a Tory banker. Whilst in 1983 sitting South East Derbyshire MP Peter Rost won Erewash by 11,000 that belies the fact the aforementioned Bill Camm took 4,000 votes as Independent Labour. Rost only secured 45% of the vote.
South East Derbyshire made up the bulk of the new Erewash. As a constituency this covered the Long Eaton urban area plus the Rural District of Shardlow, which was in essence the villages to the west/north west and south of Long Eaton stretching down to Melbourne. All of these latter areas were the Tory bedrock of support. In 1983 those villages to the south of the Trent were largely moved into the new South Derbyshire. Private housing growth meant SE Derbyshire gently but noticeably shifted rightwards across the spectrum during its post war years. In 1959 the Conservatives won by 12 votes while in 1964 Labour only regained it by 873. Trevor Park, who was elected that year and in 1966, detected that the plates were moving. He retired rather than ‘face the music’, only to do a Les Huckfield and almost immediately try to be selected for safe Labour seats. As a left-wing critic of the Wilson government he didn’t get very far. His post-parliament career peaked once he became Chair of the Municipal Services Committee on Leeds City Council. However, Park was spot on in his foreboding; in 1970, despite the Conservatives only having a national majority of 31 seats, Rost was able to gain the seat for the Conservatives by 2,700 and then hold on relatively comfortably in both 1974 elections.
Peter Rost was never on the radar for ministerial office and his greatest prowess was reserved for the tennis courts. However, like several other MPs of his generation he was a refugee from Nazi Germany and his political biography “Weimar to Westminster” is worth a read. He includes one chapter entitled ‘poxy little runt’ which is what the diarist Alan Clark called him after the latter’s drunken despatch box debacle. Rost retired in 1992 and was succeeded by Angela Knight who comfortably held the seat by 5,000. Knight was fast tracked to promotion and became a Treasury Minister which probably helped secure her post-ministerial career representing the interests of stockbrokers and then as the CEO of the British Bankers Association.
Like many seats of this demographic in the East Midlands, the call of New Labour proved compelling and in 1997 Liz Blackman was elected on a swing of 12%. She held the seat comfortably in both 2001 and 2005 when the challenge of Kilroy-Silk and Veritas barely amounted to a saved deposit. Blackman retired in 2010 and, like 1997 in reverse, these type of East Midlands seats swung back sharply to the Tories – 10.5% in the case of Erewash. Jessica Lee, a barrister, served one term before voluntarily standing down and Maggie Throup, who was eagerly expecting to become MP for Solihull in 2010, finally entered Parliament in 2015. The seat has continued to show pro-Conservative swings in every election since 2010 such that the swing required for Labour to win by the smallest margin now stands at 11%. However, unlike South Derbyshire or North West Leicestershire, this is still quite credible as an outcome. The Nottingham commuter overspill of younger voters and families seeking first houses aren’t deeply attached to voting Conservative. If Labour can connect to these aspirational voters and recapture its more traditional support in the two urban conurbations post-Brexit then it could find enough support to win. Hard, but not impossible.
In 2005 the somewhat anonymous-sounding and unprepossessing constituency of Erewash got its brief moment in the sun. This is quite an apt metaphor for the cause of this attention was the refulgent television personality (and former Labour MP) Robert Kilroy-Silk. Kilroy-Silk had recently been elected to the European Parliament for the East Midlands on a UKIP ticket but, like most large political egos, he decided he was bigger than the party and within a year had founded his own called Veritas. Erewash was the constituency graced with his presence as candidate for the forthcoming GE as he sought to make a come-back to the UK Parliament some 19 years after his departure.
Suddenly there was much interest in Erewash from London political journalists. The amusement for those of us with deep connections to Derbyshire was watching pretty much all of them do two things: one, ask ‘where on earth is this place?’ and two, pronounce it as EAR-wash. Clearing up the latter point first, if any forum members find themselves within the constituency it is pronounced ER-RE-wash. The location naturally takes a bit more describing. Erewash is pretty much that bit between Derby and Nottingham which is within the county of Derbyshire. It is actually more of a north-south constituency as it starts in the town of Ilkeston at its north and follows the River Erewash south to Long Eaton, which is its other major conurbation. The constituency used to abut the boundary of the city of Derby at Spondon and stretch all the way to the Nottinghamshire border but the wards of West Hallam, Dale Abbey and Ockbrook & Borrowash were removed to Mid Derbyshire in 2010 so the constituency no longer has a boundary with Derby itself.
There are good transport connections here which are improving all the time (which might give the impression that for anyone living there the only way is ‘out’). The Brian Clough Way is the recent moniker given to the A52 dual carriageway which connects Derby and Nottingham; for anyone with a semblance of football history they must agree this is a very appropriate and politically astute designation. The M1 bisects the constituency going north-south and the A52/M1 J25 at Sandiacre is a critical piece of infrastructure. Trent Junction on the Midland Main Line is within the constituency and Long Eaton is well served by trains to both London, Derby and Nottingham. Ilkeston (pop 38,000) was one of the largest conurbations without a station until 2017 when a new station opened on the Sheffield – Nottingham line. This has increased the constituency’s role as a home for people who work in either Derby or Nottingham. All of this investment in infrastructure is potentially dwarfed by the proposal to route the HS2b extension to Leeds right through Long Eaton (a huge local political issue, unsurprisingly) with provision for a station just outside the constituency at Toton.
As a result of all of the above, Long Eaton really is a place most people with pass through or nearby without really noticing it. It struggles to punch its weight in terms of notable history or people: Geoff Hoon (who?) is one of its more notable sons. The railway junction created the town and, since then, its growth has reflected standard housing history: artisan terraces in its centre, inter-war and post war housing further out up the Derby Road (largely privately owned) and then from the 1960s onwards private family housing in areas like Petersham which abuts the M1. Politically, Long Eaton has tended to lean uneasily to the left and there are several examples of when propitious national trends have allowed the Conservatives to come through. For example, in the Derbyshire County Council elections of 2009 they were able to win the Petersham division by 43 votes whilst Labour struggled to hold on in the Long Eaton division by only 20 votes. In Labour’s dreadful year of 2017 the same divisions were both gained by the Conservatives by 150 and 135 votes respectively.
To the south of Long Eaton is one of those villages which has grown exponentially since the 1930s – Sawley. Its housing mix is very similar to Long Eaton – pre-war small, semi-detached private and corporation housing with some 1960s/1970s private family housing. This meant politically it was also broadly left during the same period but the local election lodestone failed from the early 1980s when Labour councillor Bill Camm left the party over a row about a swimming pool. Camm was ‘Mr Sawley’ and his vote at both district and county elections could be weighed. When he died the resulting county by-election in 2011 was won by Labour, whereas in their good year of 2013 they actually lost the division to the Conservatives. With current political trends the grip of the Conservatives in this area has tightened. This is the type of place where the Brexit message strongly resonated.
Heading back north through what Pevsner calls ‘flat and uneventful country’ there are several Derby/Nottingham commuter villages like Breaston which are well-expanded with private family housing: these are solidly Conservative. Sandiacre is more suburban in nature and has some grim parts as well. It tends to the right on the whole but not convincingly. We then arrive in Ilkeston. Historically this was the centre of some significant heavy industry – ironworks, pipe making and coal mining. Its politics reflected this; this was solid Labour territory. There was an Ilkeston parliamentary constituency from 1885 – 1983 and in the zenith of the heavy industry period Labour could rely on the seat from 1922 onwards, regularly securing 65-70% of the vote. The only exception was in 1931 when in a two-horse race a National Labour candidate won by 2 votes. Since the 1970s this industry has dissipated and Ilkeston has struggled to re-invent its economic base. It naturally forms part of the Nottingham Urban Area and with the creation of better travel links there is a growing supply of cheaper private housing growth for Nottingham commuters, especially around Hallam Fields and Shipley Common. This has taken its toll on Labour’s grip at a county and district level. In 2017 the Conservatives managed win both the Ilkeston South and West divisions. In 2019 district elections Labour secured most of the Ilkeston seats but these were mainly with tiny majorities. In the 2019 GE it is highly probable that for the first time the Ilkeston area will have given a net positive vote to the Conservatives.
The Erewash constituency itself was formed as recently as 1983 from the old Ilkeston and South East Derbyshire constituencies. Most of the old Ilkeston seat was moved into the new Amber Valley CC with only the eponymous town and a small number of close villages being transferred into Erewash. In 1981 the sitting MP for Ilkeston, Ray Fletcher, was deselected and replaced as candidate by David Bookbinder, firebrand left-wing leader of Derbyshire County Council and bete noire of all local Tories and Norman Tebbit. Bookbinder saw Amber Valley as his better bet and stood there but lost. But given all that was said above, by no means was Erewash presumed to be a Tory banker. Whilst in 1983 sitting South East Derbyshire MP Peter Rost won Erewash by 11,000 that belies the fact the aforementioned Bill Camm took 4,000 votes as Independent Labour. Rost only secured 45% of the vote.
South East Derbyshire made up the bulk of the new Erewash. As a constituency this covered the Long Eaton urban area plus the Rural District of Shardlow, which was in essence the villages to the west/north west and south of Long Eaton stretching down to Melbourne. All of these latter areas were the Tory bedrock of support. In 1983 those villages to the south of the Trent were largely moved into the new South Derbyshire. Private housing growth meant SE Derbyshire gently but noticeably shifted rightwards across the spectrum during its post war years. In 1959 the Conservatives won by 12 votes while in 1964 Labour only regained it by 873. Trevor Park, who was elected that year and in 1966, detected that the plates were moving. He retired rather than ‘face the music’, only to do a Les Huckfield and almost immediately try to be selected for safe Labour seats. As a left-wing critic of the Wilson government he didn’t get very far. His post-parliament career peaked once he became Chair of the Municipal Services Committee on Leeds City Council. However, Park was spot on in his foreboding; in 1970, despite the Conservatives only having a national majority of 31 seats, Rost was able to gain the seat for the Conservatives by 2,700 and then hold on relatively comfortably in both 1974 elections.
Peter Rost was never on the radar for ministerial office and his greatest prowess was reserved for the tennis courts. However, like several other MPs of his generation he was a refugee from Nazi Germany and his political biography “Weimar to Westminster” is worth a read. He includes one chapter entitled ‘poxy little runt’ which is what the diarist Alan Clark called him after the latter’s drunken despatch box debacle. Rost retired in 1992 and was succeeded by Angela Knight who comfortably held the seat by 5,000. Knight was fast tracked to promotion and became a Treasury Minister which probably helped secure her post-ministerial career representing the interests of stockbrokers and then as the CEO of the British Bankers Association.
Like many seats of this demographic in the East Midlands, the call of New Labour proved compelling and in 1997 Liz Blackman was elected on a swing of 12%. She held the seat comfortably in both 2001 and 2005 when the challenge of Kilroy-Silk and Veritas barely amounted to a saved deposit. Blackman retired in 2010 and, like 1997 in reverse, these type of East Midlands seats swung back sharply to the Tories – 10.5% in the case of Erewash. Jessica Lee, a barrister, served one term before voluntarily standing down and Maggie Throup, who was eagerly expecting to become MP for Solihull in 2010, finally entered Parliament in 2015. The seat has continued to show pro-Conservative swings in every election since 2010 such that the swing required for Labour to win by the smallest margin now stands at 11%. However, unlike South Derbyshire or North West Leicestershire, this is still quite credible as an outcome. The Nottingham commuter overspill of younger voters and families seeking first houses aren’t deeply attached to voting Conservative. If Labour can connect to these aspirational voters and recapture its more traditional support in the two urban conurbations post-Brexit then it could find enough support to win. Hard, but not impossible.
