Post by BossMan on Apr 9, 2020 23:28:09 GMT
KEIGHLEY
Keighley is a West Yorkshire town, about half way between Bradford and Skipton. The constituency which takes its name is almost as classical a marginal as they come, and seldom bucks the national trend at general elections. The exceptions were in 1979 and 2017, when Labour won despite the Conservatives securing the most seats in the general elections of those years.
The constituency was created in 1885. The Liberals held it for all but five years until 1924, and never won it again – symbolic of that party’s decline into third party national status during that decade.
Since then, Keighley has changed hands between the Conservative and Labour parties no fewer than thirteen times, all but one of those occasions as a result of an election. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas was the exception – he was elected as a Labour MP but crossed the floor to the Tories in 1947.
This constituency should perhaps therefore be regarded as suitable for an MP seeking a springboard to a parliamentary career, as most of its MPs have eventually ended up defeated. One notable exception was the independently minded Ann Cryer, who entered Parliament as a Labour member in 1997 at the age of 56 and managed to retire at a time of her own choosing, in 2010, when the seat was regained by the Conservative Kris Hopkins. Mrs Cryer’s late husband, Bob Cryer, had held the seat between 1974 and 1983.
The seat attracted attention in 2004 by the election of two BNP councillors. They topped the poll in the Keighley West ward and also won a seat in Worth Valley. It caused tensions between elements of the white and Asian communities of the constituency, which prompted BNP leader Nick Griffin to stand as a candidate in the 2005 general election. However, despite saving his deposit, he came nowhere near winning, and the BNP did not subsequently win any more council seats here.
There is still some evidence that race can still perhaps have an impact on some of the council election results. In Keighley Central, for instance, Labour won overwhelmingly in 2018, yet they lost in 2019 when the Conservatives selected a Muslim candidate.
The constituency voted 53% in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum, and UKIP had some success here at their peak of 2014, picking up Keighley West ward.
Apart from occasions where Independent candidates are successful, none of the six wards can be classed as utterly safe for either party and can be vulnerable in a bad year.
The tendency is for Labour to win the three wards in the town of Keighley itself, and for the Conservatives to win the three other wards which give the constituency as a whole a semi-rural character. Worth Valley includes a chain of villages and small towns including Haworth, once home of the Brontë sisters. Craven includes a large stretch of countryside and small communities such as Silsden and Addingham. Then there is Ilkley, the spa town and affluent residential and commuting resort across its famous moor from Keighley, nestling on the slopes of the hills above the River Wharfe.
In the most recent general election of 2019, the Conservative candidate Robbie Moore ousted the incumbent Labour MP John Grogan by 2,218 votes. Grogan had himself only two years previously ousted Kris Hopkins by 239 votes in 2017. In short, this is one of those "seats to watch" at every general election.
Keighley is a West Yorkshire town, about half way between Bradford and Skipton. The constituency which takes its name is almost as classical a marginal as they come, and seldom bucks the national trend at general elections. The exceptions were in 1979 and 2017, when Labour won despite the Conservatives securing the most seats in the general elections of those years.
The constituency was created in 1885. The Liberals held it for all but five years until 1924, and never won it again – symbolic of that party’s decline into third party national status during that decade.
Since then, Keighley has changed hands between the Conservative and Labour parties no fewer than thirteen times, all but one of those occasions as a result of an election. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas was the exception – he was elected as a Labour MP but crossed the floor to the Tories in 1947.
This constituency should perhaps therefore be regarded as suitable for an MP seeking a springboard to a parliamentary career, as most of its MPs have eventually ended up defeated. One notable exception was the independently minded Ann Cryer, who entered Parliament as a Labour member in 1997 at the age of 56 and managed to retire at a time of her own choosing, in 2010, when the seat was regained by the Conservative Kris Hopkins. Mrs Cryer’s late husband, Bob Cryer, had held the seat between 1974 and 1983.
The seat attracted attention in 2004 by the election of two BNP councillors. They topped the poll in the Keighley West ward and also won a seat in Worth Valley. It caused tensions between elements of the white and Asian communities of the constituency, which prompted BNP leader Nick Griffin to stand as a candidate in the 2005 general election. However, despite saving his deposit, he came nowhere near winning, and the BNP did not subsequently win any more council seats here.
There is still some evidence that race can still perhaps have an impact on some of the council election results. In Keighley Central, for instance, Labour won overwhelmingly in 2018, yet they lost in 2019 when the Conservatives selected a Muslim candidate.
The constituency voted 53% in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum, and UKIP had some success here at their peak of 2014, picking up Keighley West ward.
Apart from occasions where Independent candidates are successful, none of the six wards can be classed as utterly safe for either party and can be vulnerable in a bad year.
The tendency is for Labour to win the three wards in the town of Keighley itself, and for the Conservatives to win the three other wards which give the constituency as a whole a semi-rural character. Worth Valley includes a chain of villages and small towns including Haworth, once home of the Brontë sisters. Craven includes a large stretch of countryside and small communities such as Silsden and Addingham. Then there is Ilkley, the spa town and affluent residential and commuting resort across its famous moor from Keighley, nestling on the slopes of the hills above the River Wharfe.
In the most recent general election of 2019, the Conservative candidate Robbie Moore ousted the incumbent Labour MP John Grogan by 2,218 votes. Grogan had himself only two years previously ousted Kris Hopkins by 239 votes in 2017. In short, this is one of those "seats to watch" at every general election.