Post by Robert Waller on Aug 3, 2020 12:24:28 GMT
Eastleigh is an ordinary looking constituency with an interesting and unusual electoral history. This Hampshire seat curls round the north and east of the city of Southampton in a kidney shape, reaching Southampton Water at Hamble, which is regarded as the main location of the fictional TV series Howards' Way. It too has seen more than its fair share of drama in the last quarter of a century or so.
This started with a tragedy, when in 1994 the Conservative MP was found dead at home, in the words of Wikipedia “apparently self-strangled during an act of autoerotic asphyxiation”. The resulting byelection was a gain for the Liberal Democrat candidate David Chidgey, though this probably had less to do with the circumstances than with the steady build up of Alliance then Lib Dem strength on Eastleigh Borough Council since the early 1980s: they had become the largest party in 1986, and have never been overtaken since – indeed the council has been under Liberal Democrat overall control continuously since 1995. This remarkable municipal performance helps to explain how the Liberal Democrats twice managed to retain the parliamentary seat after their MP retired, which is often not as easy a task as winning it in a byelection in the first place.
David Chidgey successfully defended this seat twice, winning narrowly in 1997 then increasing his lead to over 3,000 in 2001, mainly by squeezing the Labour share; Labour had at times been competitive in Eastleigh, losing in their strong year of 1966 by a majority of only 701, and actually finishing second in the 1994 byelection. Chidgey retired blamelessly in 2005, but handed Eastleigh over to Chris Huhne who beat Conor Burns (Now MP for Bournemouth West) by 568 votes. Rather like Chidgey, Huhne also strengthened his position in 2010; but then scandal struck, as he went through a long drawn out legal procedure which ended with conviction for handing over penalty points for a driving offence to his (then) wife, and a short prison term. His resignation caused another byelection, this one at the end of February 2013, and it really must be regarded as a triumph for the Liberal Democrat strength in this neck of the woods that Mike Thornton held the seat at the head of a field of 14 candidates. It might also be pointed out, though, that UKIP finished second and the Conservatives third. Between them they polled over half the vote, compared with Thornton’s 32%. While it is certainly not true that UKIP vote came overwhelmingly from the Conservatives, they would not have eaten so much into the pro-EU Liberal Democrat share. In 2015, along with so many other members of the junior coalition party, Thornton went down decisively, the new Conservative candidate Mims Davies winning by over 9,000. In 2017 she increased her lead over Thornton to 14,000; and despite some controversy over Mims Davies’s switch to Mid Sussex in 2019, the Tory lead was further extended.
One cannot completely write off the Liberal Democrats in Eastleigh as long as they have such a dominant position in local government (as well as the resilience of their medium term parliamentary history here). After the May 2019 elections the councilor score on the borough council read Liberal Democrat 34, Independent 3 (all in Bishopstoke ward at the north end of the seat), Conservative 2, Others 0. Most of the LD ward victories are overwhelming.
The eponymous town, Eastleigh, was developed relatively early as 19th century railway town (London & South Eastern) and the legacy can still be seen in the Victorian grid pattern of terraced housing in what is now Eastleigh Central ward. When the Eastleigh Borough Council as at present constituted was first formed in 1973, Labour won the first contests in all four Eastleigh wards as drawn at the time, although thereafter only Eastleigh South reliably remained in their column, until it was first gained by the Liberal Democrats in 1994. By May 2019 Labour could scarcely exceed one in six votes cast in any of the present Eastleigh town wards. However Eastleigh itself has accounted for a smaller and smaller minority in this seat, with the growth of the much more modern Southampton suburbs such as Hedge End and West End, which have expanded especially because of their proximity to the M27 (indeed in 2011 the aborted boundary review for 600 seats initially suggested a constituency called Hedge End and Hamble). Hedge End, for example, hardly existed in the 1950s but surpassed a population of 20,000 in the 2000s decade. West End has also grown from a hamlet to over 10,000 souls. Both now outweigh older villages in the same neighbourhood such as Botley, home of the radical writer William Cobbett in the early 19th century. All these areas of growth, along with other wards such as Bursledon and Netley, Fair Oak and Horton Heath and Hamble-le-Rice and Butlocks Heath, are heavily owner occupied and very ‘white’ for south east England; overall Eastleigh constituency has only 5% of all ethnic minorities combined and is over 70% owner occupied. It ranked in the top 25 for proportion in employment at the time of the most recent Census.
Clearly the battle here will continue to be between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. With an electorate of 85,000 in 2019 there will have to be some boundary changes, but it remains to be seen whether these will be major or minor. If the borough of Eastleigh is still essentially the core of the seat, that local election dominance is likely to continue to give the Liberal Democrats hope, together with their run of seven parliamentary victories including the two byelections. One notable feature of this constituency is the Hampshire and Test cricket ground that was built in West End at the beginning of the century as the Rose Bowl and is currently, as the Ageas Bowl, hosting socially distanced international matches. As the name implies, it is an arena – and further gladiatorial electoral contests cannot be ruled out in its vicinity, when elections are allowed again – and we can all be spectators.
2011 Census
Owner-occupied 71.2% 183/650
Private rented 12.8% 405/650
Social rented 14.1% 395/650
White 95.1% 317/650
Black 0.5% 374/650
Asian 2.7% 318/650
Managerial & professional 34.7%
Routine & Semi-routine 24.0%
Degree level 26.0% 311/650
No qualifications 18.5% 516/650
Students 5.8% 513/650
Age 65+ 15.6% 408/650
General election 2019: Eastleigh
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Paul Holmes 32,690 55.4 +5.0
Liberal Democrats Lynda Murphy 17,083 29.0 +3.3
Labour Sam Jordan 7,559 12.8 -7.2
Green Ron Meldrum 1,639 2.8 +1.5
C Majority 15,607 26.4 +1.7
Turnout 58,971 70.3 -0.2
Conservative hold Swing +0.9 from LD to C
This started with a tragedy, when in 1994 the Conservative MP was found dead at home, in the words of Wikipedia “apparently self-strangled during an act of autoerotic asphyxiation”. The resulting byelection was a gain for the Liberal Democrat candidate David Chidgey, though this probably had less to do with the circumstances than with the steady build up of Alliance then Lib Dem strength on Eastleigh Borough Council since the early 1980s: they had become the largest party in 1986, and have never been overtaken since – indeed the council has been under Liberal Democrat overall control continuously since 1995. This remarkable municipal performance helps to explain how the Liberal Democrats twice managed to retain the parliamentary seat after their MP retired, which is often not as easy a task as winning it in a byelection in the first place.
David Chidgey successfully defended this seat twice, winning narrowly in 1997 then increasing his lead to over 3,000 in 2001, mainly by squeezing the Labour share; Labour had at times been competitive in Eastleigh, losing in their strong year of 1966 by a majority of only 701, and actually finishing second in the 1994 byelection. Chidgey retired blamelessly in 2005, but handed Eastleigh over to Chris Huhne who beat Conor Burns (Now MP for Bournemouth West) by 568 votes. Rather like Chidgey, Huhne also strengthened his position in 2010; but then scandal struck, as he went through a long drawn out legal procedure which ended with conviction for handing over penalty points for a driving offence to his (then) wife, and a short prison term. His resignation caused another byelection, this one at the end of February 2013, and it really must be regarded as a triumph for the Liberal Democrat strength in this neck of the woods that Mike Thornton held the seat at the head of a field of 14 candidates. It might also be pointed out, though, that UKIP finished second and the Conservatives third. Between them they polled over half the vote, compared with Thornton’s 32%. While it is certainly not true that UKIP vote came overwhelmingly from the Conservatives, they would not have eaten so much into the pro-EU Liberal Democrat share. In 2015, along with so many other members of the junior coalition party, Thornton went down decisively, the new Conservative candidate Mims Davies winning by over 9,000. In 2017 she increased her lead over Thornton to 14,000; and despite some controversy over Mims Davies’s switch to Mid Sussex in 2019, the Tory lead was further extended.
One cannot completely write off the Liberal Democrats in Eastleigh as long as they have such a dominant position in local government (as well as the resilience of their medium term parliamentary history here). After the May 2019 elections the councilor score on the borough council read Liberal Democrat 34, Independent 3 (all in Bishopstoke ward at the north end of the seat), Conservative 2, Others 0. Most of the LD ward victories are overwhelming.
The eponymous town, Eastleigh, was developed relatively early as 19th century railway town (London & South Eastern) and the legacy can still be seen in the Victorian grid pattern of terraced housing in what is now Eastleigh Central ward. When the Eastleigh Borough Council as at present constituted was first formed in 1973, Labour won the first contests in all four Eastleigh wards as drawn at the time, although thereafter only Eastleigh South reliably remained in their column, until it was first gained by the Liberal Democrats in 1994. By May 2019 Labour could scarcely exceed one in six votes cast in any of the present Eastleigh town wards. However Eastleigh itself has accounted for a smaller and smaller minority in this seat, with the growth of the much more modern Southampton suburbs such as Hedge End and West End, which have expanded especially because of their proximity to the M27 (indeed in 2011 the aborted boundary review for 600 seats initially suggested a constituency called Hedge End and Hamble). Hedge End, for example, hardly existed in the 1950s but surpassed a population of 20,000 in the 2000s decade. West End has also grown from a hamlet to over 10,000 souls. Both now outweigh older villages in the same neighbourhood such as Botley, home of the radical writer William Cobbett in the early 19th century. All these areas of growth, along with other wards such as Bursledon and Netley, Fair Oak and Horton Heath and Hamble-le-Rice and Butlocks Heath, are heavily owner occupied and very ‘white’ for south east England; overall Eastleigh constituency has only 5% of all ethnic minorities combined and is over 70% owner occupied. It ranked in the top 25 for proportion in employment at the time of the most recent Census.
Clearly the battle here will continue to be between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. With an electorate of 85,000 in 2019 there will have to be some boundary changes, but it remains to be seen whether these will be major or minor. If the borough of Eastleigh is still essentially the core of the seat, that local election dominance is likely to continue to give the Liberal Democrats hope, together with their run of seven parliamentary victories including the two byelections. One notable feature of this constituency is the Hampshire and Test cricket ground that was built in West End at the beginning of the century as the Rose Bowl and is currently, as the Ageas Bowl, hosting socially distanced international matches. As the name implies, it is an arena – and further gladiatorial electoral contests cannot be ruled out in its vicinity, when elections are allowed again – and we can all be spectators.
2011 Census
Owner-occupied 71.2% 183/650
Private rented 12.8% 405/650
Social rented 14.1% 395/650
White 95.1% 317/650
Black 0.5% 374/650
Asian 2.7% 318/650
Managerial & professional 34.7%
Routine & Semi-routine 24.0%
Degree level 26.0% 311/650
No qualifications 18.5% 516/650
Students 5.8% 513/650
Age 65+ 15.6% 408/650
General election 2019: Eastleigh
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Paul Holmes 32,690 55.4 +5.0
Liberal Democrats Lynda Murphy 17,083 29.0 +3.3
Labour Sam Jordan 7,559 12.8 -7.2
Green Ron Meldrum 1,639 2.8 +1.5
C Majority 15,607 26.4 +1.7
Turnout 58,971 70.3 -0.2
Conservative hold Swing +0.9 from LD to C
