Post by greenhert on Apr 25, 2020 17:22:49 GMT
Mansfield as a constituency has existed since 1885. It is currently coterminous with the Mansfield Borough Council area, which also includes Warsop and Mansfield Woodhouse.
Mansfield is an old market town in Nottinghamshire with its Royal Charter dating back to 1227. It was home to Mansfield Brewery, once the largest independent brewery in the UK until its acquisition by Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries in 1999; the site was subsequently sold to Pubmaster Ltd. Mansfield was also a hub for miners in Nottinghamshire and the site of an infamous May Day scene within the miners's strike of 1984-85; the breakaway Union of Democratic Miners subsequently formed when many of the local miners did not support the strike when the local NUM branch did. Today, Mansfield mainly relies on retail for employment and King's Mill Hospital on the outskirts of Sutton-in-Ashfield is also a major employer. As befitting an industrial town that was dominated by mining and brewing, Mansfield is 97.2% white and as much as 30.7% of the population has no qualifications (based on 2011 census statistics) with only 16.4% having degree level qualifications or higher.
Mansfield started out as a Liberal seat but first elected a Labour MP in 1918; the Liberals captured it in 1922 but that proved to be short-lived since Labour recaptured Mansfield in 1923 and held it for the next 94 years. As with many mining seats it still elected a Labour MP in 1931. In 1987 (Sir) Alan Meale only held on by 56 votes due to the aforementioned UDM breakaway and the intervention of a Moderate Labour candidate, Brian Marshall, who polled 1,580 votes (3%). Consequently, in 1992 it saw one of the largest pro-Labour swings in the country that year. In 2005 the Mansfield Independent Forum, a "small c conservative" residents' association contested the seat for the first time and finished a creditable third with 17% of the vote. This built on the election of Tony Egginton as Mayor of Mansfield in 2002, at a time when Labour's neglect of traditional working class voters during the Blair years was already becoming apparent. In 2010 they dropped to 9% partly due to intervention from UKIP and the BNP, who polled 6.2% and 4.4% respectively. UKIP absorbed most of this vote in 2015, polling as high as 11,850 votes and putting Labour under a significant threat as they did in other industrial seats north of the Watford Gap. This culminated in Ben Bradley becoming the first ever Conservative MP for Mansfield in 2017, defeating Sir Alan by 1,057 votes and benefitting substantially from UKIP's collapse; the Independent candidature of ex-Labour member Philip Shields did not help either. In 2019 it saw a swing as high as 15% to the Conservatives, boosting Mr Bradley's majority to 16,306 despite revelations of controversial blog posts he made in 2011 and 2012 about public sector workers and unemployed men. At a local level Mansfield alternates between Labour and the Mansfield Independents, with the Conservatives accidentally costing the Mansfield Independents the chance to take overall control in May 2019. Labour regained the Mayoralty of Mansfield the same year from Tony Egginton's successor, Kate Allsop (who was an Independent candidate in Ashfield in 2005) by just two votes on second preferences.
Mansfield is an old market town in Nottinghamshire with its Royal Charter dating back to 1227. It was home to Mansfield Brewery, once the largest independent brewery in the UK until its acquisition by Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries in 1999; the site was subsequently sold to Pubmaster Ltd. Mansfield was also a hub for miners in Nottinghamshire and the site of an infamous May Day scene within the miners's strike of 1984-85; the breakaway Union of Democratic Miners subsequently formed when many of the local miners did not support the strike when the local NUM branch did. Today, Mansfield mainly relies on retail for employment and King's Mill Hospital on the outskirts of Sutton-in-Ashfield is also a major employer. As befitting an industrial town that was dominated by mining and brewing, Mansfield is 97.2% white and as much as 30.7% of the population has no qualifications (based on 2011 census statistics) with only 16.4% having degree level qualifications or higher.
Mansfield started out as a Liberal seat but first elected a Labour MP in 1918; the Liberals captured it in 1922 but that proved to be short-lived since Labour recaptured Mansfield in 1923 and held it for the next 94 years. As with many mining seats it still elected a Labour MP in 1931. In 1987 (Sir) Alan Meale only held on by 56 votes due to the aforementioned UDM breakaway and the intervention of a Moderate Labour candidate, Brian Marshall, who polled 1,580 votes (3%). Consequently, in 1992 it saw one of the largest pro-Labour swings in the country that year. In 2005 the Mansfield Independent Forum, a "small c conservative" residents' association contested the seat for the first time and finished a creditable third with 17% of the vote. This built on the election of Tony Egginton as Mayor of Mansfield in 2002, at a time when Labour's neglect of traditional working class voters during the Blair years was already becoming apparent. In 2010 they dropped to 9% partly due to intervention from UKIP and the BNP, who polled 6.2% and 4.4% respectively. UKIP absorbed most of this vote in 2015, polling as high as 11,850 votes and putting Labour under a significant threat as they did in other industrial seats north of the Watford Gap. This culminated in Ben Bradley becoming the first ever Conservative MP for Mansfield in 2017, defeating Sir Alan by 1,057 votes and benefitting substantially from UKIP's collapse; the Independent candidature of ex-Labour member Philip Shields did not help either. In 2019 it saw a swing as high as 15% to the Conservatives, boosting Mr Bradley's majority to 16,306 despite revelations of controversial blog posts he made in 2011 and 2012 about public sector workers and unemployed men. At a local level Mansfield alternates between Labour and the Mansfield Independents, with the Conservatives accidentally costing the Mansfield Independents the chance to take overall control in May 2019. Labour regained the Mayoralty of Mansfield the same year from Tony Egginton's successor, Kate Allsop (who was an Independent candidate in Ashfield in 2005) by just two votes on second preferences.
