Newark

[Robert Waller]

I have started writing up this one.

[Robert Waller]

The boundaries of the Newark constituency in Nottinghamshire have, by stages, been modified with the effect of favouring the Conservative party. The seat of this name was held by Labour from 1950 until 1979, but that was largely because in then included most of the late-developed Dukeries coalfield, opened up in the 1920s , with the large planned ‘pit villages’ such as New Ollerton, Edwinstowe and Blidworth. These were removed on the creation of Sherwood as an extra Nottinghamshire constituency in 1983. However the Newark seat did include the marginal town of (East) Retford from 1983 to 2010, and they were able to regain it in the 1997 Blair / New Labour landslide, before suffering an aberrantly poor result in 2001 after the single-term MP Fiona Jones had run into personal troubles. In 2010 Retford was returned to Bassetlaw, leaving none of the elements of the seat outside the town of Newark favourable to Labour.

The town of Newark-on-Trent itself, once known as the Key to the North, earned a reputation for cropping up in English history, as the site of the death of King John for example, and most notably as a Royalist base in the Civil War. But despite its castle, old market square, fine town houses and streets named ‘gates’ as in York, Newark’s residential areas are more typified by large council estates at the north and south ends of the town (in Bridge ward and Devon ward respectively, neither of them reliably Labour in May council contests). Its private housing is in the main not outstanding either, yet the town of Newark has probably consistently given the Conservatives a majority in general elections. More Conservative still are up-market villages like Collingham and Winthorpe to the north of Newark, Lowdham, a commuting base towards Nottingham, and Bingham, well to the south and in the borough of Rushcliffe. The small but attractive town of Southwell (some would call it a city, as its beautiful Minster has cathedral status) has some Liberal Democrat strength at least in council elections, though overall they did not achieve 10% in the 2019 general election.

The A1 trunk road, once called the Great North Road, passes through the heart of the constituency for some 20 miles, to some extent binding it together. However, only one party is on the road to success here. Robert Jenrick, who succeeded Patrick Mercer (a second successive representative in some bother) in a byelection in 2014, has rapidly if quietly risen to Cabinet rank. He achieved a record majority of 21,816 in 2019, with a massive 63.3% of the vote. As well as the boundary changes, Newark has been trending rightwards, not least because here in east Nottinghamshire we are on the borders of strongly pro-Brexit Lincolnshire; UKIP’s Roger Helmer had finished second in the 2014 byelection, for example. Clearly ‘Leave’, 97% white, no more than average in educational qualifications, over 72% owner occupied … all the ingredients were there to cook up into a nourishing broth for Boris’s Conservatives.

2011 Census
Age 65+ 19.3 164/650
Owner-occupied 72.6 138/650
Private rented 13.0 396/650
Social rented 12.4 474/650
White 96.9 232/650
Black 0.6 353/650
Asian 1.2 474/650
Managerial & professional 23.0
Routine & Semi-routine 26.0
Degree level 28.0 239/650
No qualifications 22.2 360/650
Students 6.0 484/650


General Election 2019: Newark

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative Robert Jenrick 34,660 63.3 +0.6
Labour James Baggaley 12,844 23.5 -6.2
Liberal Democrats David Watts 5,308 9.7 +4.6
Green Jay Henderson 1,950 3.6 New

C Majority 21,816 39.8 +6.8

Turnout 54,762 72.2 -0.7

Conservative hold

Swing 3.4 Lab to C

[iang]

Newark has was it advertises as a National Civil War Centre which opened just a few years ago, which to be honest I thought was somewhat underwhelming. Worcester used to have an excellent Civil War museum at the Commandery, and about 10 years ago some bright sparks at the Council decided to change it completely. It's been partially changed back again now, but it still isn't as good as it was.

[greenhert]

Southwell's Minster gained cathedral status in 1884; it is surprising that it never attained city status, although its rather isolated location and small size has been an obstruction in obtaining such status.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Southwell is where my distant ancestor first propogated the Bramley apple.

[carlton43]

This was the seat of W E Gladstone for 10-years when he was in his High Tory/Conservative 'Good Years' before going to pot later.

And not only Bramley apples but the Laxton Superb from the wonderful village with remaining open field system agriculture.

[yellowperil]

Apr 29, 2020 22:37:14 GMT carlton43 said:

This was the seat of W E Gladstone for 10-years when he was in his High Tory/Conservative 'Good Years' before going to pot later.

And not only Bramley apples but the Laxton Superb from the wonderful village with remaining open field system agriculture.

I will of course disagree with Carlton on Gladstone and which were his good years- and while I have heard many  rumours about his personal  proclivities I have never heard an accusation about pot. But I can join him in singing the praises of Laxton, at least. 

[Deleted]

This seat has also swung to the Conservatives at every General Election since 1997.

Across the East Midlands, Amber Valley, Corby, Erewash, Mansfield, North East Derbyshire, North West Leicestershire, Sherwood and South Derbyshire have also followed this pattern.

[Robert Waller]

In the Boundary Commission's initial proposals for its '2023 review', there is relatively little drama affecting the Nottinghamshire section of the East Midlands regional report, as the county is quite close to the requirements to retain its current 11 seats, its entitlement being 11.22 quotas.
As a result, the changes to Newark are minor: The existing constituency is expanded northwards to include two additional District of Bassetlaw wards: Clayworth and Sturton. The Conservatives won neither of these in the most recent Bassetlaw council elections (2019), as they lost Clayworth to an Independent while Labour gained Sturton from an Independent who did not stand again. The changes will however have a negligible effect on Robert Jenrick's very safe Tory seat of Newark - though there is a knock on effect in that the Commission have used this slight further inclusion of parts of the Bassetlaw District to suggest removing Bassetlaw as a constituency name after over 135 years (since 1885) in favour of 'Worksop and Retford'.