Wycombe

[Merseymike]

There are some constituencies which have clearly swung determinedly towards one party or another, without quite the swing necessary to see a change of representative. Wycombe is a good example of such a seat. While it did elect a Labour MP in the 1945 landslide, when it was known as the centre of the furniture industry, it reverted to Conservatism in 1951, and has remained a Tory seat ever since - usually with comfortable majorities, reaching over 20,000 in 1979, albeit with different boundaries. The last two general elections have seen Wycombe become a marginal seat, with a swing towards Labour in 2019 and a majority of just over 4,000 (which the removal of a couple of its outlying semi-rural wards could see obliterated overnight)

It also has the distinction of being a seat where its Labour candidates in three successive elections went on to leave the party - one to the LibDems then set up her own Wycombe Independents party, another to the Conservatives, and a third to the Liberal Democrats. Which rather sums up Labour's history in this seat - they consistently underperform at a local level. The town of High Wycombe itself is politically marginal, yet the Tories have always managed to win more wards than predicted. At one time the town was divided into four huge six-member wards which were all fairly close, but more often than not the Tories won all four, and even when they were split into two, the most likely Labour ward, Oakridge and Tinkers Wood, returned three Tories. The last set of boundary changes for the now-defunct district council promised better returns for Labour, yet still they failed to win wards such as Sands and lost their perennial 'safe seat' of Micklefield. Local results, then, fail to account for the rise of Labour at a national level in Wycombe. In both the last District and County elections, they failed to win seats which on paper, should be theirs for the taking, including the Eastern side of town where the Wycombe Independents still have a presence

The seat consists of the entire town of High Wycombe, plus some surrounding commuter villages. It is certainly the case that Labour would have been ahead in the town itself at the last General Election. Its strongly Brexit MP, Steve Baker, ironically represents a seat with a Remain majority in the referendum, which was once represented by perhaps the most diehard European federalist of any Tory MP, the late Sir Ray Whitney who set up the Conservative Positive European group (but who was actually a right wing traditionalist Tory on many issues). It also has a sizeable BME population, both Pakistani origin, and interestingly, from St. Vincent in the Caribbean, yet for years the Asian vote was far more Conservative than might have been expected - hence the victory of three Tories in the aforementioned Oakridge ward in its first contest. Wycombe's first Asian councillor and Town Mayor was a Conservative. The Asian vote appears to have swung decisively to Labour, and its commuter population also appears to be moving away from the Conservatives.

The tradition here in Buckinghamshire is Conservative. Labour were certainly helped by the 2010 boundary changes, where both Marlow and the Hughenden area were switched for the less hostile Hazlemere, but the 201o result saw Labour well behind the LibDems in third place, and while they regained second place in 2015, the Tories still managed 51% of the vote. So, what explains the rise in Labour fortunes in 2017 and 2019? It may be demographics, dislike of Baker, or Conservative policy among parts of the electorate. Or perhaps the seat is now displaying the sort of voting pattern which reflects its make-up and Labour have ceased to under-perform? The only wards likely to be removed in a future boundary change are either Conservative leaning (Hazlemere) or rock solid Tory (Tylers Green & Loudwater, the remainder of the rural ward surrounding Marlow not already in Beaconsfield), so future contests could prove interesting.

[Deleted]

This doesn't tell us much about the town's manufacturing past which helped Labour win in 1945.

I've visited Hughenden and Disraeli's house is very close to the town so I'm surprised it's not in this seat.

[Merseymike]

May 18, 2020 9:16:56 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

This doesn't tell us much about the town's manufacturing past which helped Labour win in 1945.

I've visited Hughenden and Disraeli's house is very close to the town so I'm surprised it's not in this seat.

I have added that, but its not very important now - Parker Knoll is still in High Wycombe but the days when the town produced most of Europe's furniture are long gone. Its become more and more a London dormitory but it does still have its light industrial estates.

[carlton43]

May 18, 2020 9:21:22 GMT Merseymike said:

May 18, 2020 9:16:56 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

This doesn't tell us much about the town's manufacturing past which helped Labour win in 1945.

I've visited Hughenden and Disraeli's house is very close to the town so I'm surprised it's not in this seat.

I have added that, but its not very important now - Parker Knoll is still in High Wycombe but the days when the town produced most of Europe's furniture are long gone. Its become more and more a London dormitory but it does still have its light industrial estates.

It was an important producer of furniture and a major manufacturer of beechwood items; but never did it get within hailing distance of being anywhere near having produced 'most of Europe's furniture'!  That is not an exaggeration but out of sight nonsense Mike.  An extensive tour of the great houses of France, Germany and Italy would soon disabuse you of any such thoughts.  Not even for a short period did it have any such dominance.

[Merseymike]

May 18, 2020 9:59:08 GMT carlton43 said:

May 18, 2020 9:21:22 GMT Merseymike said:

I have added that, but its not very important now - Parker Knoll is still in High Wycombe but the days when the town produced most of Europe's furniture are long gone. Its become more and more a London dormitory but it does still have its light industrial estates.

It was an important producer of furniture and a major manufacturer of beechwood items; but never did it get within hailing distance of being anywhere near having produced 'most of Europe's furniture'!  That is not an exaggeration but out of sight nonsense Mike.  An extensive tour of the great houses of France, Germany and Italy would soon disabuse you of any such thoughts.  Not even for a short period did it have any such dominance.

I really wasn't thinking of great houses - Wycombe produced everyday furniture for everyday people. It had a good reputation with the growth of middle class lifestyles, and a certain level of middle-class cache, and was certainly what the town was known for. However, its as I say, not very relevant to the current political make-up.

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 18, 2020 15:08:23 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Maybe the question needs to be - Steve Baker is an arch-Brexiteer representing an anti-Brexit constituency. Is that the principal reason why Labour have become competitive in a very bad year, and if so will the seat revert to its former safe Tory ways, depending partly on boundary changes - or will the seat now become less Tory-inclined in general than it has been in recent years?

Re ethnic minorities, even 40 years ago when I was at university my cricket captain, a friend of mine, told me he'd recently played in a match between his home team in Luton and a High Wycombe West Indians team. So the Caribbean community in the town is quite well-established even though Asian communities are larger.

Places like Holmer Green in neighbouring Chesham and Amersham are more likely to have switched Tory to LD over Brexit,although there will be an element of that in Hazlemere. The principle reason why Wycombe has swung towards Labour is Londoners, particularly ethnic minorities, have moved out along the railway lines looking for cheaper housing and Bucks is quite popular I imagine because of its fast and reasonably priced train links to Marylebone,the multiple grammars in the area(RGS and John Hampden in Wycombe,Sir William Borlase in Marlow) and the M40 nearby as well.

[Arthur Figgis]

May 18, 2020 15:32:00 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

May 18, 2020 15:08:23 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Maybe the question needs to be - Steve Baker is an arch-Brexiteer representing an anti-Brexit constituency. Is that the principal reason why Labour have become competitive in a very bad year, and if so will the seat revert to its former safe Tory ways, depending partly on boundary changes - or will the seat now become less Tory-inclined in general than it has been in recent years?

Re ethnic minorities, even 40 years ago when I was at university my cricket captain, a friend of mine, told me he'd recently played in a match between his home team in Luton and a High Wycombe West Indians team. So the Caribbean community in the town is quite well-established even though Asian communities are larger.

Places like Holmer Green in neighbouring Chesham and Amersham are more likely to have switched Tory to LD over Brexit,although there will be an element of that in Hazlemere. The principle reason why Wycombe has swung towards Labour is Londoners, particularly ethnic minorities, have moved out along the railway lines looking for cheaper housing and Bucks is quite popular I imagine because of its fast and reasonably priced train links to Marylebone,the multiple grammars in the area(RGS and John Hampden in Wycombe,Sir William Borlase in Marlow) and the M40 nearby as well.

I hear the railway company has an excellent pricing manager.

[Sibboleth]

May 18, 2020 15:32:00 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

The principle reason why Wycombe has swung towards Labour is Londoners, particularly ethnic minorities, have moved out along the railway lines looking for cheaper housing and Bucks is quite popular I imagine because of its fast and reasonably priced train links to Marylebone,the multiple grammars in the area(RGS and John Hampden in Wycombe,Sir William Borlase in Marlow) and the M40 nearby as well.

The result here was wildly divergent from basically anywhere else, even locally. The pace of demographic change in this country is also really not very rapid; I think people are being excessively influenced by American electoral discussion, but the level of population mobility in the United States is vastly greater than here. The obvious explanations would be some combination of a) anti-Brexit consolidation, b) a negative personal vote for the incumbent related to a) and c) the established Pakistani electorate here voting more typically than normal as a backlash against anti-Muslim sentiment in the Conservative Party. Mind you, Wycombe weirdly underperformed for Labour in 1997 and 2001 (basically every other constituency with a similar profile elected a Labour MP, after all), so maybe it's electorate just likes mildly trolling psephologists when there's a landslide on.

[Merseymike]

May 18, 2020 15:08:23 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Maybe the question needs to be - Steve Baker is an arch-Brexiteer representing an anti-Brexit constituency. Is that the principal reason why Labour have become competitive in a very bad year, and if so will the seat revert to its former safe Tory ways, depending partly on boundary changes - or will the seat now become less Tory-inclined in general than it has been in recent years?

Re ethnic minorities, even 40 years ago when I was at university my cricket captain, a friend of mine, told me he'd recently played in a match between his home team in Luton and a High Wycombe West Indians team. So the Caribbean community in the town is quite well-established even though Asian communities are larger.

I honestly don't know is the answer to the first point - although on one level Wycombe should be a marginal.
I suppose we will just have to wait and see.

The Caribbean community is long standing and is unusual in being so focused on St Vincent archive.voice-online.co.uk/article/caribbean-island-changed-uk-town

[Merseymike]

May 18, 2020 20:09:07 GMT @barnabymarder said:

May 18, 2020 16:06:07 GMT Sibboleth said:

The result here was wildly divergent from basically anywhere else, even locally. The pace of demographic change in this country is also really not very rapid; I think people are being excessively influenced by American electoral discussion, but the level of population mobility in the United States is vastly greater than here. The obvious explanations would be some combination of a) anti-Brexit consolidation, b) a negative personal vote for the incumbent related to a) and c) the established Pakistani electorate here voting more typically than normal as a backlash against anti-Muslim sentiment in the Conservative Party. Mind you, Wycombe weirdly underperformed for Labour in 1997 and 2001 (basically every other constituency with a similar profile elected a Labour MP, after all), so maybe it's electorate just likes mildly trolling psephologists when there's a landslide on.

Well you say underperformed, but it was still a big swing by any normal standards. I tend to think that the reason Labour fell 2,000 short in 1997 was at least partly that the party was starting very narrowly in 3rd place, and unlike in certain constituencies (e.g. Hastings & Rye, I think Bristol W too) there had been no constituency opinion poll showing Labour ahead or at least the clear challenger. Labour started with way under half the Tory vote and I think quite a lot of anti-Tory voters stuck with the second-placed Lib Dems. The swing to Labour (whose candidate was Chris Bryant) was 14%, in fact way above the national average, and it isn't really fair to say that it was an underperformance. True, Labour did even more spectacularly well in some other seats, but this was still a very strong performance in the circumstances, and against a very well-established Tory MP.  

I would agree with that. I still had a few local contacts then, and part of the problem was that Labour and the LibDems had been running the district council together in full coalition (apparently wasn't allowed under Labour rules at the time, but they did it, shared leadership and everything). So it wasn't really clear who the main challengers were likely to be particularly as Marlow was still in the seat then which had a strong LibDem vote. Chris Bryant had been curate at the parish church in High Wycombe and had ieft the ministry to pursue a political career.

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 18, 2020 15:51:40 GMT Arthur Figgis said:

May 18, 2020 15:32:00 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

Places like Holmer Green in neighbouring Chesham and Amersham are more likely to have switched Tory to LD over Brexit,although there will be an element of that in Hazlemere. The principle reason why Wycombe has swung towards Labour is Londoners, particularly ethnic minorities, have moved out along the railway lines looking for cheaper housing and Bucks is quite popular I imagine because of its fast and reasonably priced train links to Marylebone,the multiple grammars in the area(RGS and John Hampden in Wycombe,Sir William Borlase in Marlow) and the M40 nearby as well.

I hear the railway company has an excellent pricing manager.

😂What are you saying there I wonder Arthur? Seriously though, for most trips, in comparison Chiltern services seem to be a lot cheaper than GWR ☹

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 18, 2020 16:06:07 GMT Sibboleth said:

May 18, 2020 15:32:00 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

The principle reason why Wycombe has swung towards Labour is Londoners, particularly ethnic minorities, have moved out along the railway lines looking for cheaper housing and Bucks is quite popular I imagine because of its fast and reasonably priced train links to Marylebone,the multiple grammars in the area(RGS and John Hampden in Wycombe,Sir William Borlase in Marlow) and the M40 nearby as well.

The result here was wildly divergent from basically anywhere else, even locally. The pace of demographic change in this country is also really not very rapid; I think people are being excessively influenced by American electoral discussion, but the level of population mobility in the United States is vastly greater than here. The obvious explanations would be some combination of a) anti-Brexit consolidation, b) a negative personal vote for the incumbent related to a) and c) the established Pakistani electorate here voting more typically than normal as a backlash against anti-Muslim sentiment in the Conservative Party. Mind you, Wycombe weirdly underperformed for Labour in 1997 and 2001 (basically every other constituency with a similar profile elected a Labour MP, after all), so maybe it's electorate just likes mildly trolling psephologists when there's a landslide on.

Because the rest of Bucks doesn't really have any significant poorer parts. Bucks got rid of its biggest working class town Slough in 1974 and Slough is significant because may be another source of migrants just down the road looking for reasonably priced housing in an area with a better reputation than Slough,really. Anti-Brexit consolidation would be a factor in outer suburbs of High Wycombe itself like Loudwater and Hazlemere but not a huge part of the swing.I don't think Steve Baker has a negative personal vote anyway, there's a large segment of the British Asian community that voted Leave quite enthusiastically and may sympathise with his stance, but the Islamophobia issue in the Conservative Party (and wider society of course) will have cost the Tories a lot of votes. Wycombe under performed in 1997 and 2001 I think because there was a larger contingent of WWC in the constituency,who would have been sympathetic to Thatcherism. Those types have probably moved over to places like Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead now.

[John Chanin]

May 19, 2020 0:06:52 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

Because the rest of Bucks doesn't really have any significant poorer parts.

Have you ever been to Aylesbury?

[Deleted]

May 19, 2020 0:06:52 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

May 18, 2020 16:06:07 GMT Sibboleth said:

The result here was wildly divergent from basically anywhere else, even locally. The pace of demographic change in this country is also really not very rapid; I think people are being excessively influenced by American electoral discussion, but the level of population mobility in the United States is vastly greater than here. The obvious explanations would be some combination of a) anti-Brexit consolidation, b) a negative personal vote for the incumbent related to a) and c) the established Pakistani electorate here voting more typically than normal as a backlash against anti-Muslim sentiment in the Conservative Party. Mind you, Wycombe weirdly underperformed for Labour in 1997 and 2001 (basically every other constituency with a similar profile elected a Labour MP, after all), so maybe it's electorate just likes mildly trolling psephologists when there's a landslide on.

Because the rest of Bucks doesn't really have any significant poorer parts. 

Nonsense. Poverty can be found just about everywhere if you look for it. Generalisations like that are a major problem because it means nobody takes action to alleviate poverty in those areas because they don't believe it exists.

[Merseymike]

May 19, 2020 7:29:31 GMT @europeanlefty said:

May 19, 2020 0:06:52 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

Because the rest of Bucks doesn't really have any significant poorer parts. 

Nonsense. Poverty can be found just about everywhere if you look for it. Generalisations like that are a major problem because it means nobody takes action to alleviate poverty in those areas because they don't believe it exists.

I think the word "significant" is important in the sense that they tend to be isolated and small. And they have declined because of the sale of council houses. The one I was brought up in is now worth half a million. So the council estate in Beaconsfield has largely been sold and the people who would have lived in it before are more likely to be in Slough or Wycombe.
But of course there is poverty everywhere and being poor in a sea of affluence can be more difficult still as nothing is set up for you. No cheap shops in Gerrards Cross.

Yes - there has traditionally been a white working class Tory vote in High Wycombe. It's largely why those wards stayed stubbornly Tory.

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 19, 2020 7:12:18 GMT John Chanin said:

May 19, 2020 0:06:52 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

Because the rest of Bucks doesn't really have any significant poorer parts.

Have you ever been to Aylesbury?

Yes, I have actually.Aylesbury is a prime example of a town where the poor areas are dispersed and hidden to some extent. There are council estates but they must have been heavily affected by Right To Buy. Of course poor people exist in Bucks, just not in high enough concentration to affect the result except in Wycombe and Slough.

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 19, 2020 7:29:31 GMT @europeanlefty said:

May 19, 2020 0:06:52 GMT Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells said:

Because the rest of Bucks doesn't really have any significant poorer parts. 

Nonsense. Poverty can be found just about everywhere if you look for it. Generalisations like that are a major problem because it means nobody takes action to alleviate poverty in those areas because they don't believe it exists.

As Mike says, significant is the key word here. There is poverty everywhere, but it is not electorally relevant because it is dispersed in areas of Bucks outside Slough and Wycombe.

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 19, 2020 7:40:39 GMT Merseymike said:

May 19, 2020 7:29:31 GMT @europeanlefty said:

Nonsense. Poverty can be found just about everywhere if you look for it. Generalisations like that are a major problem because it means nobody takes action to alleviate poverty in those areas because they don't believe it exists.

I think the word "significant" is important in the sense that they tend to be isolated and small. And they have declined because of the sale of council houses. The one I was brought up in is now worth half a million. So the council estate in Beaconsfield has largely been sold and the people who would have lived in it before are more likely to be in Slough or Wycombe.
But of course there is poverty everywhere and being poor in a sea of affluence can be more difficult still as nothing is set up for you. No cheap shops in Gerrards Cross.

Yes - there has traditionally been a white working class Tory vote in High Wycombe. It's largely why those wards stayed stubbornly Tory.

Thanks for explaining this from a more local perspective. There is actually a massive Tescos in the middle of Gerrards Cross but I get your general point.

[Pete Whitehead]

Tescos isn't a cheap shop

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

May 19, 2020 10:36:21 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Tescos isn't a cheap shop

Well,it can be if you choose the right products. Not as uniformly cheap as Aldi or Lidl,no. Disclaimer- I work for a more upmarket rival