YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Jul 22, 2020 14:17:30 GMT
Doncaster is an industrial town surrounded by the South Yorkshire coalfield, and has a particular history with the railway industry; it's where the famous locomotives Flying Scotsman and Mallard were built. This constituency contains most of the main built up area of the town, south of the River Don, and extends eastwards to include the areas of Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall, Barnby Dun and Armthorpe, birthplace of Kevin Keegan; these eastern areas were outside the pre-1974 County Borough of Doncaster and have their own parish councils.
Overall, this is a working class constituency with high deprivation levels. The main exceptions are in suburban Bessacarr in the south of the constituency, and to some extent in the eastern parishes, especially Barnby Dun and Kirk Sandall, where most census areas are less deprived than the English median. However, much of the area around the town centre is in the most deprived 10% in England, and overall this is the 93rd most deprived consituency in England. The tower blocks on Cleveland Street, visible from trains approaching the station from the south or west, are in a census area which is the most deprived in South Yorkshire and the 55th most deprived in England. Armthorpe also has quite high deprivation levels.
Similar patterns appear in the census returns. The constituency has lower than the median proportions of graduates and professional and managerial occupations, and higher proportions of those in working class occupations and with no qualifications or low level ones only; mostly it is not extreme in these respects, but it is 17th in the UK for elementary occupations. The main exceptions again, with a more middle class profile, are Kirk Sandall, Barnby Dun and especially Bessacarr; some areas east of the town centre, around Town Fields and Wheatley Hills, also show a middle class element in the population. Unlike the older age profile of some surrounding areas, the age profile of this constituency is fairly average, with slightly fewer people in their 70s and slightly more in their 30s than the national average.
The constituency is essentially a continuation of the constituency which existed until 1983 and which was simply named "Doncaster", especially the post-1950 version which did not include the areas north of the Don now in Doncaster North and did include Bessacarr. However that version did not include the eastern parishes. Doncaster first voted Labour in 1922, and then became fairly safe Labour, except in 1931, until the 1950 boundary changes, which turned it marginal, and it voted Conservative three times in the 1950s. Renamed Doncaster Central and extended to the east, it was fairly close in 1983, but swung sharply to Labour in 1987 and then looked safe. Since 1997 the MP has been Rosie Winterton; as with some other South Yorkshire constituencies there was a dramatic fall in her share of the vote in 2010, when it fell below 40%, followed by a recovery in 2015 and 2017, making the seat look fairly safe again, and then another big fall in 2019, reducing the majority over the Conservatives to only just over 2,000.
Local elections in Doncaster borough have had some unusual moments, especially the election of an executive Mayor from the English Democrats in 2009. In recent years, however, most of the wards in this constituency have elected Labour councillors, with the only non-Labour councillor in this constituency at the moment a Conservative who is one of the three representing Bessacarr. Former Liberal Democrat strength in Bessacarr, last won in 2012, disappeared when two of the councillors left the party; before the Coalition years they had some strength in other parts of the constituency as well. UKIP won a single seat here in 2014, in the then Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall & Barnby Dun ward in the east, and won another in a by-election there, but did not hold them in the 2015 all up elections.
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Post by Robert Waller on Feb 13, 2021 13:42:04 GMT
2011 Census
Age 65+ 15.8% 396/650 Owner-occupied 62.1% 443/650 Private rented 18.4% 156/650 Social rented 17.5% 279/650 White 91.2% 412/650 Black 1.4% 223/650 Asian 5.2% 217/650 Managerial & professional 23.4% Routine & Semi-routine 35.0% Degree level 18.5% 558/650 No qualifications 27.9% 144/650 Students 6.2% 449/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 58.5% 419/573 Private rented 24.7% 115/573 Social rented 16.8% 225/573 White 87.1% Black 2.2% Asian 5.9% Managerial & professional 23.3% 509/573 Routine & Semi-routine 34.0% 22/573 Degree level 23.6% 517/573 No qualifications 24.7% 60/573
General Election 2019: Doncaster Central
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Rosie Winterton 16,638 40.0 -17.9 Conservative Roberto Weeden-Sanz 14,360 34.5 +0.1 Brexit Party Surjit Duhre 6,842 16.5 New Liberal Democrats Paul Horton 1,748 4.2 +1.9 Yorkshire Leon French 1,012 2.4 -0.7 Green Frank Sheridan 981 2.4 New
Lab Majority 2,278 5.5 -18.0
Turnout 41,581 58.2 -1.8
Labour hold
Swing 9.0 Lab to C
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Nov 12, 2022 21:58:25 GMT
The proposals of the Boundary Commission here remove Barnby Dun from the north-east corner of the current constituency, and replace it with a southern extension to include the fairly prosperous town of Tickhill, currently in the Don Valley constituency. Initial proposals to rename it Doncaster Town have been abandoned as Doncaster is no longer a town, having received city status in 2022.
The changes will slightly help the Conservatives but the consensus of those who have done the calculations is that they do not do so by enough to wipe out the 2019 Labour majority.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 19, 2022 10:58:58 GMT
2019 Notional results on new boundaries Lab | 17660 | 37.7% | Con | 17598 | 37.6% | BxP | 7463 | 15.9% | LD | 1975 | 4.2% | Grn | 1076 | 2.3% | YP | 1071 | 2.3% | | | | Majority | 62 | 0.1% |
Lab | 17081 | 38.5% | Con | 16267 | 36.6% | BxP | 7144 | 16.1% | LD | 1861 | 4.2% | YP | 1036 | 2.3% | Grn | 1029 | 2.3% | | | | Majority | 814 | 1.8% |
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Dec 19, 2022 12:19:37 GMT
2019 Notional results on new boundaries Lab | 17660 | 37.7% | Con | 17598 | 37.6% | BxP | 7463 | 15.9% | LD | 1975 | 4.2% | Grn | 1076 | 2.3% | YP | 1071 | 2.3% | | | | Majority | 62 | 0.1% |
So I don't quite need to amend the bit of my post about the consensus of those who have done the calculations.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 19, 2022 12:31:37 GMT
2019 Notional results on new boundaries Lab | 17660 | 37.7% | Con | 17598 | 37.6% | BxP | 7463 | 15.9% | LD | 1975 | 4.2% | Grn | 1076 | 2.3% | YP | 1071 | 2.3% | | | | Majority | 62 | 0.1% |
So I don't quite need to amend the bit of my post about the consensus of those who have done the calculations. I haven't see the other calculations but I was interested in your comment there. Ward boundary changes complicate calculations and if others show a significantly larger majority, I wouldn't have as much confidence in arguing for my own figures as I would in some other areas.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Dec 19, 2022 12:51:42 GMT
I haven't see the other calculations but I was interested in your comment there. Ward boundary changes complicate calculations and if others show a significantly larger majority, I wouldn't have as much confidence in arguing for my own figures as I would in some other areas. Electoral Calculus has a Labour majority of 842; bjornhattan's demographic model has 1361. How do you handle the Stainforth/Barnby Dun split?
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Dec 19, 2022 13:02:37 GMT
Electoral Calculus has a Labour majority of 842; bjornhattan's demographic model has 1361. How do you handle the Stainforth/Barnby Dun split? I didn't know about bjornhattan's model. Where can we see it? Link in this post (posted, incredibly, an hour and a half after the revised recommendations for England and Scotland were published)
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Post by bjornhattan on Dec 19, 2022 13:06:43 GMT
I haven't see the other calculations but I was interested in your comment there. Ward boundary changes complicate calculations and if others show a significantly larger majority, I wouldn't have as much confidence in arguing for my own figures as I would in some other areas. Electoral Calculus has a Labour majority of 842; bjornhattan's demographic model has 1361. How do you handle the Stainforth/Barnby Dun split? Wards never come into my model; I use LSOAs from the census as my base geography. This means if a ward is split between constituencies, my model can still function (if an LSOA is split between constituencies then it assigns it to the one with greatest overlap; there aren't too many places where this is an issue and the numbers of votes involved is generally negligible). The disadvantage is that I can't pick up on hyperlocal patterns that appear in local election results - for example in Bassetlaw my model has Labour much stronger in the more working class town of Worksop than in more genteel Retford, even though the two vote similarly in elections to their council. I believe ElectoralCalculus somehow incorporate ward level local results into their model but calculate figures for individual census output areas and aggregate these into new constituencies - again this gives them the flexibility to handle ward splits.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Dec 19, 2022 13:10:38 GMT
Electoral Calculus has a Labour majority of 842; bjornhattan's demographic model has 1361. How do you handle the Stainforth/Barnby Dun split? Wards never come into my model; I use LSOAs from the census as my base geography. This means if a ward is split between constituencies, my model can still function (if an LSOA is split between constituencies then it assigns it to the one with greatest overlap; there aren't too many places where this is an issue and the numbers of votes involved is generally negligible). The disadvantage is that I can't pick up on hyperlocal patterns that appear in local election results - for example in Bassetlaw my model has Labour much stronger in the more working class town of Worksop than in more genteel Retford, even though the two vote similarly in elections to their council. I believe ElectoralCalculus somehow incorporate ward level local results into their model but calculate figures for individual census output areas and aggregate these into new constituencies - again this gives them the flexibility to handle ward splits. So what do you have for Stainforth and Barnby Dun (currently in the same ward and proposed to be united in Doncaster North, but currently split between that constituency and this one)? My guess is that Barnby Dun is considerably more Tory, and that that might explain much of the difference between your figures (and EC's) and Pete's.
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Post by batman on Dec 19, 2022 14:06:17 GMT
In psephological matters I would generally trust Pete's figures over those of EC.
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Post by bjornhattan on Dec 19, 2022 14:10:23 GMT
In psephological matters I would generally trust Pete's figures over those of EC. In fairness, I would trust Pete's figures over my own...
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 19, 2022 14:24:55 GMT
In psephological matters I would generally trust Pete's figures over those of EC. I do so agree with that. Pete has what was once termed 'bottom' and 'political nous', and a feeling for the appropriate mathematical model to suit occasion and circumstances. This is part art and extreme immersion in subject as well as painstaking mechanistics of calculation.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,876
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Post by YL on Dec 19, 2022 14:27:54 GMT
I don't particularly trust Electoral Calculus (and anyway, unlike Pete Whitehead and bjornhattan, they don't give full results, just numerical majorities) but I think the demographic model approach has its advantages and that it is worth seeing the results of both that and a more conventional approach based on local elections.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 19, 2022 14:40:28 GMT
In psephological matters I would generally trust Pete's figures over those of EC. In fairness, I would trust Pete's figures over my own... Its kind of you to say that but I'm not sure I would in this case. As I say this was a difficult area due to ward boundary changes. My ward notionals for the previous general elections were based on the old wards (as these were the building blocks) and I may have assigned too much of the old Torne Valley to this seat. Also unsure how Bunby Dunn voted relative to the old Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall & Burnby Dunn ward. I may revisit this one but I think we can confidently say Labour notionally held this, probably by a few hundred rather than my smaller figure
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 19, 2022 14:58:24 GMT
I've amended my notional result in my original post
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Post by batman on Dec 19, 2022 15:10:40 GMT
Fair enough Pete but I once saw some notionals for rural Welsh wards on Electoral Calculus. Even I, with my limited knowledge of Welsh rural ward (as opposed to parliamentary) psephology, knew that it was complete horseshit. They also were totally wrong about the constituency next door to mine, Brentford & Isleworth, in terms of the 3 Chiswick wards, even though Hounslow Council HAD ACTUALLY PUBLISHED THE VOTING FIGURES BY WARD. Some of their errors are elementary ones and I think that they often - not always of course, but often - just don't understand the areas they are making their calculations, or guesses, about.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 19, 2022 15:36:53 GMT
Fair enough Pete but I once saw some notionals for rural Welsh wards on Electoral Calculus. Even I, with my limited knowledge of Welsh rural ward (as opposed to parliamentary) psephology, knew that it was complete horseshit. They also were totally wrong about the constituency next door to mine, Brentford & Isleworth, in terms of the 3 Chiswick wards, even though Hounslow Council HAD ACTUALLY PUBLISHED THE VOTING FIGURES BY WARD. Some of their errors are elementary ones and I think that they often - not always of course, but often - just don't understand the areas they are making their calculations, or guesses, about. I agree although I think they have improved a bit over the years. I do think clearly my initial estimate was incorrect though and I certainly didn't adjust the figures to match those on EC. As I say I haven't actually seen theirs, only a map showing which party would have won and the only ward notionals I can see are the projected ones based on current opinion polls rather than what they would have been in 2019
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Post by bjornhattan on Dec 19, 2022 18:54:28 GMT
Wards never come into my model; I use LSOAs from the census as my base geography. This means if a ward is split between constituencies, my model can still function (if an LSOA is split between constituencies then it assigns it to the one with greatest overlap; there aren't too many places where this is an issue and the numbers of votes involved is generally negligible). The disadvantage is that I can't pick up on hyperlocal patterns that appear in local election results - for example in Bassetlaw my model has Labour much stronger in the more working class town of Worksop than in more genteel Retford, even though the two vote similarly in elections to their council. I believe ElectoralCalculus somehow incorporate ward level local results into their model but calculate figures for individual census output areas and aggregate these into new constituencies - again this gives them the flexibility to handle ward splits. So what do you have for Stainforth and Barnby Dun (currently in the same ward and proposed to be united in Doncaster North, but currently split between that constituency and this one)? My guess is that Barnby Dun is considerably more Tory, and that that might explain much of the difference between your figures (and EC's) and Pete's. My figures (using percentages) are: Stainforth - Lab 45.0%, Brexit 28.9%, Con 19.6% Barnby Dun - Con 46.7%, Lab 24.8%, Brexit 13.7% Combined ward - Lab 35.3%, Con 32.6%, Brexit 22.3% Overall, Stainforth has a Labour majority of about 600 over the Conservatives (and roughly 350-400 over the Brexit Party). Barnby Dun has a Conservative majority of about 450 over Labour. The combined ward is finely balanced but would have been narrowly Labour in 2019.
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