Post by Robert Waller on Sept 4, 2020 16:33:41 GMT
There is an ongoing if somewhat sporadic debate among professional and amateur psephologists about the relative merits of compass point compared with community nomenclature for parliamentary constituencies. As usual in debates, both sides of the argument hold some weight, but one example where the compass point (in this case South West, which is rather rarely used) is definitely more defensible lies in Wiltshire. This is because when the seat was created as recently as 2010 it was the linear successor of the Westbury constituency. It is true that a seat had been named after the town of Westbury since 1449, but it had long included much territory outside this historic borough, and had indeed become a ‘county’ constituency in 1885. What is more, Westbury had for a long time not been the largest or most important town in its eponymous division. It was sandwiched between its slightly larger rival (in local sport at least) Warminster and Trowbridge, which has not only twice the population of Westbury but the status of ‘county town’ – yet has never been dignified by being included in the name of a parliamentary unit.
Trowbridge must be one of the lesser known and more unlikely county towns, though there are other counties which follow the common (indeed usual) practice in the United States of not having the largest city as ‘capital’; when Wiltshire county council was established in 1889 Trowbridge was chosen, probably as a compromise between Salisbury and Swindon and due to its railway connections. However it is not geographically central, being tucked on the western edge of the county. There should, arguably, have been a West Wiltshire seat long before the Westbury name disappeared in 2010, and South West Wiltshire now makes more sense given the removal in that review of Bradford on Avon. That delightful town was now to be included in a division that restored the name of Chippenham in addition to North Wiltshire as the county gained a seat; the north-west quadrant of Wiltshire is shared between those two constituencies.
South West Wiltshire is now a safe Conservative seat, with a majority of 21,630 over Labour. This is their largest majority in absolute and percentage terms, including Westbury's history too, under universal suffrage. Westbury was always won by a Conservative after 1923, but it was quite close on a number of occasions. Labour were not far behind not only in 1945 but right through the 1950s and 1960s – the largest Tory lead in these decades was 5,826 in 1959. Then the Liberals and Liberal Democrats took up the mantle of chief challenger from February 1974 right up through 2005 to the first SW Wiltshire contest in 2010; Duncan Hames, later MP for Chippenham, was the candidate in 2005 and lost by just over 5,000 votes. Then in 2015 the vote of the junior party in the coalition collapsed and they slumped to fourth place behind UKIP and Labour (this is a more than average Leave area, estimated at around 57%).
However in the long term the Liberal Democrats would seem to be likely at least to recover their second place, even if a challenge for victory looks distant. This is because they do have some success in local government within this constituency, whereas Labour have had no councillors at all for a number of years. In the most recent Wiltshire unitary authority elections in 2017 the Lib Dems did win the majority of the wards in Westbury itself. However the Conservatives won most of the council seats in the largest population centre of Trowbridge and all of them in Warminster.
Warminster was once suggested to be the UFO spotting capital of England, but is best characterised as a town strongly influenced by the presence of the Army, with both the Waterloo Lines and Battlesbury Barracks; and the surrounding villages such as Crockerton, Sutton Veny, and the Deverills are much favoured as residences for retirement for senior Army officers. Another place included in the SW Wiltshire seat, though with no voters, is the abandoned village of Imber, used for Army training on Salisbury Plain since the Second World War. As elsewhere, a military presence tends to push the politics of an area slightly to the right; to the right because of the perceived preference for the Conservatives on defence issues, but only slightly because of the low turnout of military personnel, and because it is easy to overestimate the proportion of those in such occupations – SW Wiltshire only ranks 37th amongst seats for jobs in ‘public service and defence’.
Despite the boundaries including the section of the Plain round Imber and a number of villages including those in the Wylye valley, this is not really a rural seat either – it is outside the top 100 constituencies as far as employment in agriculture. Most of the voters live in the towns, Trowbridge, Warminster and, third largest only, Westbury. It was noted that in 2019 Labour did exceptionally badly in towns, and the Conservatives made dramatic and unprecedented breakthroughs. It was not those situated in the south west quadrant of Wiltshire that commentators had in mind; but all the same the Tories have indeed reached a historic high here too.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 19.4% 156/650
Owner-occupied 68.4% 273/650
Private rented 16.3% 219/650
Social rented 13.2% 425/650
White 96.8% 244/650
Black 0.6% 335/650
Asian 1.0% 505/650
Managerial & professional 31.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 27.6%
Degree level 25.1% 341/650
No qualifications 20.9% 414/650
Students 5.5% 578/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 68.2% 225/573
Private rented 17.8% 301/573
Social rented 13.9% 338/573
White 95.4%
Black 0.7%
Asian 1.6%
Managerial & professional 33.3% 265/573
Routine & Semi-routine 26.0% 215/573
Degree level 29.8% 342/573
No qualifications 16.5% 352/573
General Election 2019: South West Wiltshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Andrew Murrison 33,038 60.2 + 0.2
Labour Emily Pomroy-Smith 11,408 20.8 - 5.7
Liberal Democrats Ellen Nicholson 8,015 14.6 + 4.8
Green Julie Phillips 2,434 4.4 + 1.8
C Majority 21,630 39.4 + 5.9
Turnout 54,895 70.4 - 1.6
Conservative hold
Swing 3.0 Lab to C
Trowbridge must be one of the lesser known and more unlikely county towns, though there are other counties which follow the common (indeed usual) practice in the United States of not having the largest city as ‘capital’; when Wiltshire county council was established in 1889 Trowbridge was chosen, probably as a compromise between Salisbury and Swindon and due to its railway connections. However it is not geographically central, being tucked on the western edge of the county. There should, arguably, have been a West Wiltshire seat long before the Westbury name disappeared in 2010, and South West Wiltshire now makes more sense given the removal in that review of Bradford on Avon. That delightful town was now to be included in a division that restored the name of Chippenham in addition to North Wiltshire as the county gained a seat; the north-west quadrant of Wiltshire is shared between those two constituencies.
South West Wiltshire is now a safe Conservative seat, with a majority of 21,630 over Labour. This is their largest majority in absolute and percentage terms, including Westbury's history too, under universal suffrage. Westbury was always won by a Conservative after 1923, but it was quite close on a number of occasions. Labour were not far behind not only in 1945 but right through the 1950s and 1960s – the largest Tory lead in these decades was 5,826 in 1959. Then the Liberals and Liberal Democrats took up the mantle of chief challenger from February 1974 right up through 2005 to the first SW Wiltshire contest in 2010; Duncan Hames, later MP for Chippenham, was the candidate in 2005 and lost by just over 5,000 votes. Then in 2015 the vote of the junior party in the coalition collapsed and they slumped to fourth place behind UKIP and Labour (this is a more than average Leave area, estimated at around 57%).
However in the long term the Liberal Democrats would seem to be likely at least to recover their second place, even if a challenge for victory looks distant. This is because they do have some success in local government within this constituency, whereas Labour have had no councillors at all for a number of years. In the most recent Wiltshire unitary authority elections in 2017 the Lib Dems did win the majority of the wards in Westbury itself. However the Conservatives won most of the council seats in the largest population centre of Trowbridge and all of them in Warminster.
Warminster was once suggested to be the UFO spotting capital of England, but is best characterised as a town strongly influenced by the presence of the Army, with both the Waterloo Lines and Battlesbury Barracks; and the surrounding villages such as Crockerton, Sutton Veny, and the Deverills are much favoured as residences for retirement for senior Army officers. Another place included in the SW Wiltshire seat, though with no voters, is the abandoned village of Imber, used for Army training on Salisbury Plain since the Second World War. As elsewhere, a military presence tends to push the politics of an area slightly to the right; to the right because of the perceived preference for the Conservatives on defence issues, but only slightly because of the low turnout of military personnel, and because it is easy to overestimate the proportion of those in such occupations – SW Wiltshire only ranks 37th amongst seats for jobs in ‘public service and defence’.
Despite the boundaries including the section of the Plain round Imber and a number of villages including those in the Wylye valley, this is not really a rural seat either – it is outside the top 100 constituencies as far as employment in agriculture. Most of the voters live in the towns, Trowbridge, Warminster and, third largest only, Westbury. It was noted that in 2019 Labour did exceptionally badly in towns, and the Conservatives made dramatic and unprecedented breakthroughs. It was not those situated in the south west quadrant of Wiltshire that commentators had in mind; but all the same the Tories have indeed reached a historic high here too.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 19.4% 156/650
Owner-occupied 68.4% 273/650
Private rented 16.3% 219/650
Social rented 13.2% 425/650
White 96.8% 244/650
Black 0.6% 335/650
Asian 1.0% 505/650
Managerial & professional 31.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 27.6%
Degree level 25.1% 341/650
No qualifications 20.9% 414/650
Students 5.5% 578/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 68.2% 225/573
Private rented 17.8% 301/573
Social rented 13.9% 338/573
White 95.4%
Black 0.7%
Asian 1.6%
Managerial & professional 33.3% 265/573
Routine & Semi-routine 26.0% 215/573
Degree level 29.8% 342/573
No qualifications 16.5% 352/573
General Election 2019: South West Wiltshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Andrew Murrison 33,038 60.2 + 0.2
Labour Emily Pomroy-Smith 11,408 20.8 - 5.7
Liberal Democrats Ellen Nicholson 8,015 14.6 + 4.8
Green Julie Phillips 2,434 4.4 + 1.8
C Majority 21,630 39.4 + 5.9
Turnout 54,895 70.4 - 1.6
Conservative hold
Swing 3.0 Lab to C
