The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,889
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Post by The Bishop on Aug 23, 2020 21:00:21 GMT
Westmorland is an ancient historic county comprising much of the southern Lake District, which sent a representative to England's parliaments almost from their inception in the late 13th century. The traditional county town was Appleby, but in more recent times it was Kendal which has long been its principal urban centre. It also contains Windermere, the biggest lake in England that gives its name to the county's second biggest town, and a sizeable slice of the Cumbrian mountains. It was actually divided come 1885 into two county seats - Kendal and Appleby - and reunited as one in 1918. Both the smaller seats generally voted Tory with occasional Liberal breakthroughs, but the recreated Westmorland voted Tory in every election from 1918 to its final contest in that form come 1979. It was, however, a seat where the Liberals never went away; they took second place in 1950 and then every GE from 1959 onwards, cutting the Tory lead to under 15% in both the first 1974 election and 1979 (notably squeezing the residual Labour vote the latter time) It was a small county and thus an undersized seat, so unsurprisingly the changes for the 1983 GE were quite extensive. The northern part of the seat containing Appleby was actually added to Penrith and the Border, where it has remained, but this was more than recompensed by the addition of Lonsdale - previously the northern part of "Furness" in historic Lancashire. Lonsdale had been a seat in its own right between 1918 and 1945, mostly voting Tory but recording a Liberal win in 1923 that was reversed the following year. Between 1950 and 1979 it formed part of Morecambe and Lonsdale (the Lancaster and Fleetwood of its day!) however unwieldy the geography may have been, though, the politics was much simpler as Morecambe was at that time a Tory stronghold and the seat invariably returned comfortable wins for them. The seat also gained a chunk of territiory, centred on Sedbergh, that had been in the north riding of Yorkshire prior to the county of Cumbria's creation in 1973 - a decision that was highly contentious at the time and is still not fully accepted locally. The sitting Westmorland MP, Michael Jopling, inherited the new W/L seat and continued to get big majorities for the blue team (a personal note here: in his final election come 1992, the valiant Labour hopeful was one Dickon Abbott, for some years a personal friend and one time mentor - he tragically committed suicide in 2004 and is still missed by many) The first real signs of a "disturbance in the force" came in 1997 - the new Tory hopeful Tim Collins saw his majority cut to 4.5k by long time LibDem activist Stan Collins (no relation, and also the LibDem/"Alliance" candidate in 1992 and 1987) and the new MP may well have looked gratefully at the major Labour effort that saw them score over 20% and a five figure vote. Well, the LibDems knew what they needed to do to have a real shot at the seat.... The rest is, of course, fabled electoral history. In 2001 the not-MP Collins was replaced by Tim Farron as the LibDem standard bearer, this ruffled a few local feathers and was blamed for some local activists defecting and helping increase the Tory share by 5% to 47% - though Collins still saw his majority cut as the Labour vote started to collapse. In 2005, the sitting MP became the sole victim of the yellow team's fabled "decapitation strategy" against some Tory front benchers - Farron winning by less than 300 as the two main candidates took over 90% between them. Come 2010 he had a remarkable result in this one time Tory fiefdom - 60% of the vote and a majority of over 12k as the Labour share was reduced to an astonishingly puny 2% and barely four figures, their joint lowest GE score at parliamentary level ever. Even here, LibDem popularity was bound to take a hit from the coalition years - but after Farron became MP the already formidable LibDem machine had gone into overdrive and established a dominant presence electorally at local level. In 2015 he still had over half the vote and a majority of almost 9k, and as one of the few survivors of that electoral rout was elected LibDem leader that summer. Surely that would make him safe electorally for the foreseeable future? Then the Tories got a local lifeline in the form of the Brexit referendum - whilst the seat narrowly voted to remain (unlike the rest of Cumbria) the still substantial leave vote, and Farron's relative absence locally during his often trying stint as leader - culminating in *that* nightmare TV interview when he tried unsuccessfully to reconcile his evangelical Christianity with his liberalism, especially regarding gay rights - meant they had the route to an electoral comeback - and in 2017 Farron's majority was slashed to just 777 votes (he had apparently been seriously worried about losing during the campaign) This meant the Tories went into last year's poll with high hopes - but Farron again being locally based may have helped squeeze the Labour vote back to deposit losing status, and he took nearly 49% and a roughly 2k majority. Which meant that this was, remarkably, the only seat on the British mainland (Orkney/Shetland being the sole other) to vote Liberal Democrat in each of the last three general elections. So what of the future here? Like all other Cumbrian seats this is overwhelmingly white (98%) but the "white British" percentage is a tad lower than most others at 95%, largely explained by the significant number of EU nationals employed in the tourism/hospitality industries. A relatively low number, by local standards, identify as Christian (68%) a relatively high number as "non-religious" (23%) and fully a third of adults are educated to degree level - all these figures help explain why this is now the only non-Tory seat in Cumbria. LibDems dominate the urban centres (in particular, they have almost totally annexed the formerly substantial Labour support in Kendal) and can at least compete in the rural divisions at local level - unlike with some formerly strong LibDem areas, the Greens have also struggled to get much of a foothold here. A lot depends on how much Brexit continues to be an important factor, should that fade then Farron can almost certainly feel safer. Even given that, there are two important future factors for the LibDems - possible future boundary changes, and (even if Farron were to become secure again) what happens when he finally retires? As the saying goes, watch this space  |
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Post by greenhert on Aug 23, 2020 22:52:56 GMT
Westmorland is an ancient historic county comprising much of the southern Lake District, which sent a representative to England's parliaments almost from their inception in the late 13th century. The traditional county town was Appleby, but in more recent times it was Kendal which has long been its principal urban centre. It also contains Windermere, the biggest lake in England that gives its name to the county's second biggest town, and a sizeable slice of the Cumbrian mountains. It was actually divided come 1885 into two county seats - Kendal and Appleby - and reunited as one in 1918. Both the smaller seats generally voted Tory with occasional Liberal breakthroughs, but the recreated Westmorland voted Tory in every election from 1918 to its final contest in that form come 1979. It was, however, a seat where the Liberals never went away; they took second place in 1950 and then every GE from 1959 onwards, cutting the Tory lead to under 15% in both the first 1974 election and 1979 (notably squeezing the residual Labour vote the latter time) It was a small county and thus an undersized seat, so unsurprisingly the changes for the 1983 GE were quite extensive. The northern part of the seat containing Appleby was actually added to Penrith and the Border, where it has remained, but this was more than recompensed by the addition of Lonsdale - previously the northern part of "Furness" in historic Lancashire. Lonsdale had been a seat in its own right between 1918 and 1945, mostly voting Tory but recording a Liberal win in 1923 that was reversed the following year. Between 1950 and 1979 it formed part of Morecambe and Lonsdale (the Lancaster and Fleetwood of its day!) however unwieldy the geography, politics was much simpler as Morecambe was at that time a Tory stronghold and the seat invariably returned comfortable wins for them. The sitting Westmorland MP, Michael Jopling, inherited the new W/L seat and continued to get big majorities for the blue team (a personal note here: in his final election come 1992, the valiant Labour hopeful was one Dickon Abbott, for some years a personal friend and one time mentor - he tragically committed suicide in 2004 and is still missed by many) The first real signs of a "disturbance in the force" came in 1997 - the new Tory hopeful Tim Collins saw his majority cut to 4.5k by long time LibDem activist Stan Collins (no relation, and also the "Alliance" candidate in 1983 and 1987) and the new MP may well have looked gratefully at the major Labour effort that saw them score over 20% and a five figure vote. Well, the LibDems knew what they needed to do to have a real shot at the seat.... The rest is, of course, fabled electoral history. In 2001 the not-MP Collins was replaced by Tim Farron as the LibDem standard bearer, this ruffled a few local feathers and was blamed for some local activists defecting and helping increase the Tory share by 5% to 47% - though Collins still saw his majority cut as the Labour vote started to collapse. In 2005, the sitting MP became the sole victim of the yellow team's fabled "decapitation strategy" against some Tory front benchers - Farron winning by less than 300 as the two main candidates took over 90% between them. Come 2010 he had a remarkable result in this one time Tory fiefdom - 60% of the vote and a majority of over 12k as the Labour share was reduced to an astonishingly puny 2% and barely four figures, one of their lowest GE scores at parliamentary level ever. Even here, LibDem popularity was bound to take a hit from the coalition years - but after Farron became MP the already formidable LibDem machine had gone into overdrive and established a dominant presence electorally at local level. In 2015 he still had over half the vote and a majority of almost 9k, and as one of the few survivors of that electoral rout was elected LibDem leader that summer. Surely that would make him safe electorally for the foreseeable future? Then the Tories got a local lifeline in the form of the Brexit referendum - whilst the seat narrowly voted to remain (unlike the rest of Cumbria) the still substantial leave vote, and Farron's relative absence locally during his often trying stint as leader, meant they had the route to an electoral comeback - and in 2017 Farron's majority was slashed to just 777 votes (he had apparently been seriously worried about losing during the campaign) This meant the Tories went into last year's poll with high hopes - but Farron again being locally based may have helped squeeze the Labour vote back to deposit losing status, and he took nearly 49% and a roughly 2k majority. So what of the future here? Like all other Cumbrian seats this is overwhelmingly white (98%) but the "white British" percentage is a tad lower than most others at 95%, largely explained by the significant number of EU nationals employed in the tourism/hospitality industries. A relatively low number, by local standards, identify as Christian (68%) a relatively high number as "non-religious" (23%) and fully a third of adults are educated to degree level - all these figures help explain why this is now the only non-Tory seat in Cumbria. LibDems dominate the urban centres (in particular, they have almost totally annexed the formerly substantial Labour support in Kendal) and can at least compete in the rural divisions at local level - unlike with some formerly strong LibDem areas, the Greens have also struggled to get much of a foothold here. Much depends on how much Brexit continues to be an important factor, should that fade then Farron can almost certainly feel safer. Even given that, there are two important future factors for the LibDems - possible future boundary changes, and (even if Farron were to become safe again) what happens when he finally retires? As the saying goes, watch this space Some points that need to be made here: 1. Morecambe & Lonsdale looked awkward on a map but it was slightly better connected than Lancaster & Fleetwood. 2. The Alliance (Liberal) candidate in 1983 in Westmorland & Lonsdale was Kenneth Hulls, not Stan Collins; this seat was one of only five that year where the Alliance vote actually decreased (by 0.2% notionally). 3. The Labour vote of 2.2% in 2010 is in fact the lowest Labour vote share ever, tied with Glasgow Bridgeton in 1935 (then held by the Independent Labour Party, meaning that the 2010 result in Westmorland & Lonsdale is in fact the worst ever for Labour overall). |
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,889
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Post by The Bishop on Aug 24, 2020 9:11:25 GMT
Thank you for those. Point 2 was a typo (I had meant to put 1992 not 1983!) and has been corrected, point 3 has also been clarified. The first however is a genuine matter of opinion, so is remaining unchanged |
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Post by Robert Waller on Apr 27, 2021 15:39:53 GMT
2011 Census
Age 65+ 24.5% 14/650
Owner-occupied 72.1% 159/650
Private rented 14.8% 289/650
Social rented 10.6% 558/650
White 98.3% 79/650
Black 0.2% 545/650
Asian 0.8% 568/650
Managerial & professional 34.1%
Routine & Semi-routine 24.5%
Accommodation and food service activities 12.8% 2/650
Retired 20.1% 18/650
Degree level 33.3% 113/650
No qualifications 18.9% 505/650
Students 5.6% 569/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 71.6% 134/573
Private rented 17.2% 335/573
Social rented 11.2% 462/573
White 97.6%
Black 0.3%
Asian 0.8%
Managerial & professional 35.5% 212/573
Routine & Semi-routine 22.7% 323/573
Degree level 38.5% 125/573
No qualifications 14.0% 474/573
General Election 2019: Westmorland and Lonsdale
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Democrats Tim Farron 25,795 48.9 +3.1
Conservative James Airey 23,861 45.3 +1.0
Labour Phillip Black 2,293 4.4 -4.9
Brexit Party Steven Bolton 763 1.5 New
LD Majority 1,934 3.6 +2.1
Turnout 52,712 77.8 -0.1
Liberal Democrats hold
Swing 1.1 C to LD
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Post by ibnu on Feb 9, 2022 5:40:02 GMT
Does anyone know how much of the lib dem vote share is here a personal vote for Tim Farron ?
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Post by carlton43 on Feb 9, 2022 8:42:55 GMT
Does anyone know how much of the lib dem vote share is here a personal vote for Tim Farron ? No. Not even Tim Farron. There can never be a way of 'knowing'. |
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Post by batman on Feb 9, 2022 11:31:37 GMT
Does anyone know how much of the lib dem vote share is here a personal vote for Tim Farron ? No. Not even Tim Farron. There can never be a way of 'knowing'. generally you're right, it is a very inexact process. However, if there are local elections on the same day as a parliamentary election, and there is a clear discrepancy between them in favour of the MP elected, then we have a more exact idea. For example, the Labour candidates in the local elections of 2010 in the wards making up the Ealing North constituency outpolled the Tory candidates by around 3,000, but Steve Pound on the same day had a majority of around 10,000. So we have a very strong idea of what his personal vote was on that day. And there are of course many other examples. |
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Post by ibnu on Feb 9, 2022 13:52:08 GMT
No. Not even Tim Farron. There can never be a way of 'knowing'. generally you're right, it is a very inexact process. However, if there are local elections on the same day as a parliamentary election, and there is a clear discrepancy between them in favour of the MP elected, then we have a more exact idea. For example, the Labour candidates in the local elections of 2010 in the wards making up the Ealing North constituency outpolled the Tory candidates by around 3,000, but Steve Pound on the same day had a majority of around 10,000. So we have a very strong idea of what his personal vote was on that day. And there are of course many other examples. I'm curious to how exactly do MP's establish personal votes, I can understand that MP's can have a negative effect on vote share but even a great MP will only directly interact with a very small selection of the electorate. How does that allow them to routinely run far ahead of the partisan baselines of the constituency ? |
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Post by andrewp on Feb 9, 2022 14:39:16 GMT
generally you're right, it is a very inexact process. However, if there are local elections on the same day as a parliamentary election, and there is a clear discrepancy between them in favour of the MP elected, then we have a more exact idea. For example, the Labour candidates in the local elections of 2010 in the wards making up the Ealing North constituency outpolled the Tory candidates by around 3,000, but Steve Pound on the same day had a majority of around 10,000. So we have a very strong idea of what his personal vote was on that day. And there are of course many other examples. I'm curious to how exactly do MP's establish personal votes, I can understand that MP's can have a negative effect on vote share but even a great MP will only directly interact with a very small selection of the electorate. How does that allow them to routinely run far ahead of the partisan baselines of the constituency ? As said above it’s an inexact process but doesn’t it depend a bit on how we define personal vote? Is it attracting the vote of someone who otherwise wouldn’t have voted or is a natural floating voter or is it attracting the vote of someone who would normally vote for a different party? The number of the latter is surely almost always very very small. Ex Bridgwater MP Tom ( Lord) King was considered to have a bit of a personal vote but I doubt many people who otherwise would have voted Labour or Liberal voted for him. In the example above with Steve Pound, it’s also difficult to say exactly that the 7000 difference was due to the MP or whether it was the national picture/ Labour government who attracted the votes, or were they just people who liked a Labour government, but who liked a Tory council. I knew people who said that Jeremy Browne was a good constituency MP, but in the next breath said ‘but I’ll never vote for him’ I do believe it’s easier for a councillor than an MP, to get a personal vote. Partly because more people will have interacted with them or know someone who has or can see something change very locally which they can attribute to that councillor. |
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Post by batman on Feb 9, 2022 14:52:05 GMT
I'm curious to how exactly do MP's establish personal votes, I can understand that MP's can have a negative effect on vote share but even a great MP will only directly interact with a very small selection of the electorate. How does that allow them to routinely run far ahead of the partisan baselines of the constituency ? As said above it’s an inexact process but doesn’t it depend a bit on how we define personal vote? Is it attracting the vote of someone who otherwise wouldn’t have voted or is a natural floating voter or is it attracting the vote of someone who would normally vote for a different party? The number of the latter is surely almost always very very small. Ex Bridgwater MP Tom ( Lord) King was considered to have a bit of a personal vote but I doubt many people who otherwise would have voted Labour or Liberal voted for him. In the example above with Steve Pound, it’s also difficult to say exactly that the 7000 difference was due to the MP or whether it was the national picture/ Labour government who attracted the votes, or were they just people who liked a Labour government, but who liked a Tory council. I knew people who said that Jeremy Browne was a good constituency MP, but in the next breath said ‘but I’ll never vote for him’ I do believe it’s easier for a councillor than an MP, to get a personal vote. Partly because more people will have interacted with them or know someone who has or can see something change very locally which they can attribute to that councillor. Steve was famous for knowing & taking up the casework for huge proportions of his electorate. Perceptions of him locally were extremely positive. In 2010 Labour was not popular nationally and Ealing North was still regarded as a possibly viable seat for the Tories (it isn't any more). The difference IMHO was very heavily predominantly a perception that he was a very good local MP & deserved the chance to continue. |
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bsjmcr
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,591 
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Post by bsjmcr on Feb 10, 2022 1:51:47 GMT
Does anyone know how much of the lib dem vote share is here a personal vote for Tim Farron ? I’m not local to the area or that familiar with it so don’t know how ‘visible’ he is across such a sprawling constituency but I’d say he is an adept media performer on local issues. I bet he was virtually unheard of outside the North West before he became leader, but I had seen his face pop up often before he became leader on BBC North West news having a say on virtually any of the ‘token’ news items from Cumbria that make it on the NW news. So avid watchers of NWT in any remote corner of W&L presumably would have liked seeing him talk about local issues even if he might not manage to doorknock their village. As said in the excellent description here this ironically is a factor why his majority was dented in 2017 due to his leadership responsibilities likely massively taking him out of the area (and so talking about national issues only) and so I get the impression this is a sort of area that places great importance in the visibility of Farron cutting ribbons and turning up at village halls and makes it known to him when he may be perceived as putting personal ambition before the constituency. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 19, 2022 8:53:19 GMT
The proposed boundary changes remove around 15,000 voters from the south of the constituency to a cross-county Morecambe & Lunesdale. In their place come nearly 20,000 from the Southern end of Penrith & The Border - the southern half of Eden district, which is all historically part of the county of Westmorland, centred on the town of Appleby. The Conservatives were probably ahead by a small amount in the area being removed but will have been massively ahead in the area being added and this is easily enough to notionally wipe out the Lib Dem majority. Nevertheless, there is obviously potential for the Lib Dems to squeeze the (admittedly not large) Labour vote in the incoming areas and to attract defections from the Conservatives in an area they will not have worked as hard previously, especially in the context of an election where the latter are falling back nationally. The Lib Dems won all bar one seat in the incoming area in the inaugural elections to Westmorland & Furness council (and therefore all bar one within the new boundaries of this constituency). If Tim Farron stands again (and he's still relatively young), you'd have to fancy him again here 2019 Notional result | Con | 26709 | 48.3% | | LD | 22524 | 40.7% | | Lab | 4446 | 8.0% | | Grn | 685 | 1.2% | | BxP | 605 | 1.1% | | Oth | 325 | 0.6% |
| | | | Majority | 4185 | 7.6% |
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CatholicLeft
Labour
2032 posts until I was "accidentally" deleted.
Posts: 6,712
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Post by CatholicLeft on Jan 12, 2023 11:24:08 GMT
Staying in Appleby for a few days and just had a copy of the "Eden Gazette" through the door. A good quality 4-page Lib Dem publication. It manages to have 8 photos of Tim Farron on and headlines with the "Ambulance care crisis", has an "editorial" on the NHS, aericles on the rail crisis, short-term lets, cancer backlog, clean rivers, local farmers etc., so hitting rhe right issues.
Of course, a good old-fashioned barchart 📊 on the back page with a "The choice is clear" headline, with an accompanying article stating voting for Labour "will just let the Conservatives sneak in." Also, a description of the proposed boundary changes which, as mentioned elsewhere, brings Appleby into the constituency.
The barchart is not of the propsed constituency, but of the present one, which could be slightly misleading but fair enough.
Better than the rubbish we get in Blackburn.
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Post by batman on Jan 12, 2023 12:32:29 GMT
Incidentally, and not specific to this constituency; in the Labour Party, Cumbria is in the same region as the North-East from Teeside to Berwick-on-Tweed, not in the North-West region. I don't know if is true for the Conservatives or other parties as well
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jan 12, 2023 13:10:05 GMT
Incidentally, and not specific to this constituency; in the Labour Party, Cumbria is in the same region as the North-East from Teeside to Berwick-on-Tweed, not in the North-West region. I don't know if is true for the Conservatives or other parties as well Definitely North West Region in the Lib Dems. |
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CatholicLeft
Labour
2032 posts until I was "accidentally" deleted.
Posts: 6,712
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Post by CatholicLeft on Jan 21, 2023 14:06:23 GMT
Incidentally, and not specific to this constituency; in the Labour Party, Cumbria is in the same region as the North-East from Teeside to Berwick-on-Tweed, not in the North-West region. I don't know if is true for the Conservatives or other parties as well Seems daft that the new Westmorland and Furness not be in the North West region given part of it is clearly Lancashire, now that Cumbria disappears. |
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Post by Chris Whiteside on May 5, 2023 21:33:58 GMT
Incidentally, and not specific to this constituency; in the Labour Party, Cumbria is in the same region as the North-East from Teeside to Berwick-on-Tweed, not in the North-West region. I don't know if is true for the Conservatives or other parties as well I can confirm that Cumbria is in the North West Region within the Conservative party, which uses the standard government regions. |
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