Post by sirbenjamin on Oct 14, 2021 22:47:09 GMT
When the parliamentary representation for the county of Essex was increased from 17 to 18 seats at the last boundary review, Witham was effectively the 'new girl in town', created from bits of various other seats that nobody else wanted. Indeed it's probably a minor miracle that the seat wasn't named 'Essex Mid', as it takes in wards from three different Local Authorities (Braintree, Maldon and Colchester) without much of a sense of affinity towards any of these places.
Since its 2010 creation, the seat has been held by Priti Patel - not herself an Essex Girl per se - with substantial absolute majorities that have given her much to smirk about. Whatever one thinks of her or her politics, it seems to have gone down very well with the voters in the Witham constituency, and her appeal seems to be fairly consistent right across its various ragbaggy components.
The town of Witham itself (pronounced with a hard 't') is on the London-Norwich railway line, though not all trains stop there, and with plenty of heavy industry and uninspiring estates of curly streets and flat-roofed pubs, is far from the idyllic image of a Tory heartland. But the town has a population of only 25,000 or so, and it is indeed the only part of the seat where Labour voters still exist in reasonable numbers. The former Wetherspoons was located on Dorothy L. Sayers drive - a nod to the authors death in the town.
Even fewer mainline trains stop at Hatfield Peverel and Kelveden, while the seat also includes much of the Braintree branch line which was lucky to survive the Beeching axe, albeit in truncated form.
The salty flatlands and flat saltlands around the Blackwater Estuary in Maldon borough are sparsely populated and relatively - though not overwhelmingly - affluent, with agriculture and eccentric light industry predominant. The Maldon district wards are all very safely Conservative at a local level, with the main challenge usually coming from independents. The village of Tiptree (in Colchester borough) is known for its fruity preserves, though the quaint, traditional image conjured up by jam jar labels maybe a little misleading in its evocativity. It is, however, monolithically Conservative in its voting habits.
The seat includes Colchester Zoo in its North Eastern corner, where most of the residents are dyed-in-the-wool Conservative voters, apart from a few Lib-Dem lemurs and the entirety of the mandrill enclosure.
Overall it is a more safely Conservative seat than it probably should be - the Brexitiness of Essex more generally likely has something to do with that, though Patel has likely built up a personal vote over the past decade by taking positions that chime with the voters and now has a very high profile within government.
Having been created out of nothing at the last boundary review, Witham looks set to survive more or less in its current form if the final recommendations are anything like the initial proposals - it will gain Mersea island and lose Hatfield Peverel - and will provide a Priti comfortable base for the Home Secretary for as long as she wants it.
Since its 2010 creation, the seat has been held by Priti Patel - not herself an Essex Girl per se - with substantial absolute majorities that have given her much to smirk about. Whatever one thinks of her or her politics, it seems to have gone down very well with the voters in the Witham constituency, and her appeal seems to be fairly consistent right across its various ragbaggy components.
The town of Witham itself (pronounced with a hard 't') is on the London-Norwich railway line, though not all trains stop there, and with plenty of heavy industry and uninspiring estates of curly streets and flat-roofed pubs, is far from the idyllic image of a Tory heartland. But the town has a population of only 25,000 or so, and it is indeed the only part of the seat where Labour voters still exist in reasonable numbers. The former Wetherspoons was located on Dorothy L. Sayers drive - a nod to the authors death in the town.
Even fewer mainline trains stop at Hatfield Peverel and Kelveden, while the seat also includes much of the Braintree branch line which was lucky to survive the Beeching axe, albeit in truncated form.
The salty flatlands and flat saltlands around the Blackwater Estuary in Maldon borough are sparsely populated and relatively - though not overwhelmingly - affluent, with agriculture and eccentric light industry predominant. The Maldon district wards are all very safely Conservative at a local level, with the main challenge usually coming from independents. The village of Tiptree (in Colchester borough) is known for its fruity preserves, though the quaint, traditional image conjured up by jam jar labels maybe a little misleading in its evocativity. It is, however, monolithically Conservative in its voting habits.
The seat includes Colchester Zoo in its North Eastern corner, where most of the residents are dyed-in-the-wool Conservative voters, apart from a few Lib-Dem lemurs and the entirety of the mandrill enclosure.
Overall it is a more safely Conservative seat than it probably should be - the Brexitiness of Essex more generally likely has something to do with that, though Patel has likely built up a personal vote over the past decade by taking positions that chime with the voters and now has a very high profile within government.
Having been created out of nothing at the last boundary review, Witham looks set to survive more or less in its current form if the final recommendations are anything like the initial proposals - it will gain Mersea island and lose Hatfield Peverel - and will provide a Priti comfortable base for the Home Secretary for as long as she wants it.
