Post by Robert Waller on Jan 13, 2023 20:54:53 GMT
Norfolk is certainly an unusual county. Not everyone now knows that it was through at least the 11th to the 16th centuries England’s economic powerhouse, based mainly on wool production and fabrics such as worsted, which is named after a village in the county. Although overtaken in the process of the Industrial Revolution by other counties such as Lancashire and Yorkshire, the evidence of Norfolk’s former highly populated status may be seen in the very large number of medieval churches that dot both the countryside and Ordnance Survey maps. Indeed there are still no fewer than 540 civil parishes in the county.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civil_parishes_in_Norfolk#:~:text=This%20is%20a%20list%20of,There%20are%20540%20civil%20parishes.
A goodly number of these are to be found in the Mid Norfolk constituency.
Although not entirely a reliable indicator, in this case the prefix Mid is an apt description of a division that sits squarely in the centre of Norfolk, at no point touching the coast. There are currently four places within it that are usually dignified with the title of town. Three of these sit on the edges of the seat: Attleborough at its southern end (population just over 10,000), Watton (7,000) on the south-western edge, and Wymondham (14,000) on the south-eastern border with South Norfolk constituency. Right in the centre of Mid Norfolk is the largest of the towns, Dereham, home to over 18,000 souls. However the majority of the electorate lives in a very large number of villages spread across over twenty rural wards in Breckland and South Norfolk Districts, outside those four towns.
A flavour of the constituency may be given by a roll call of some of the names of villages in Mid Norfolk. The agricultural element is recalled by Beetley and Old Beetley. Weasenham St Peter is at the northern end of the constituency and Rockland All Saints and Morley St Botolph at the other. There are Great Dunham and Great Fransham, although both are now small. There are also Bintree and Billingford and Bawdeswell. Clint Green sounds like an eco-warrior and Fiddlers Green like a centre of the rural black economy. There are areas called The Warren and The Grazing Grounds. It sounds like something from The Slow Train, by Flanders and Swann. That so few, if any, of these are widely known names confirms that the Mid Norfolk seat though central in the county is now something of a backwater.
Created as an extra division in the 1983 boundary review (though there had been a Central Norfolk with different boundaries between 1950 and February 1974), the seat named Mid Norfolk has only ever been won by the Conservative party since then, and has had three MPs: Richard Ryder (1983-97), Chief Whip in John Major’s government, then Keith Simpson (1997-2010), the military historian who switched to the Broadland constituency on its creation in 2010 - this was logical as Mid Norfolk supplied over 65% of its voters. The closest the party ever came to losing it on its old boundaries was in 1997, when Ryder retired and the Blair surge reduced the majority to just 1,336. It could be argued that the version of Mid Norfolk that George Freeman won in 2010 was the new and extra seat in the county in that review too, as it took less than half of its electorate from the old Mid, and a third from SW Norfolk and a fifth from South Norfolk. This version has never been anywhere near marginal. In December 2019 Freeman won by over 22,500, and Mid Norfolk ranked outside the top 250 on Labour’s target list, requiring a swing of 20.2%.
Local election results reinforce this impression of adamantine safety. In the most recent contests at district level in May 2019, in Breckland the Tory hegemony was broken only by a solitary Green candidate who finished top of the poll in Dereham Neatherd ward, elected along with two Conservatives; two Labour out of three in Dereham Withburga (if you wish to know, named after an 8th century saint, a, East Anglian princess who founded an abbey in the town); a Green sharing the representation of Saham Toney; and an Independent likewise in Watton. The Conservatives, therefore, won at least one seat in every ward. In the smaller, South Norfolk council, section they lost only to a pair of Liberal Democrats in South Wymondham, a ward which will be removed in the forthcoming boundary changes.
In the more recent May 2021 Norfolk county elections, the Tories simply won all seven electoral divisions entirely within Mid Norfolk and all three partly included – all easily, except for a reasonable Liberal Democrat showing in Wymondham. The villages in particular produced some very one sided contests, such as the four to one trouncing of Labour who were second in Necton & Launditch, and five to one ahead of the Greens in Elmton & Mattishall. That the opposition is often evenly divided between Labour, LD and Green makes the scope of the victories even more convincing.
Why is Mid Norfolk so consistently Conservative? Its occupational class makeup is, if anything, skewed to the routine and semi routine occupations, the percentages of these in the 2021 census (26.8%) lying in the top quartile of all seats in England and Wales. However its housing is still over 70% owner occupied, and the population over 96% even in 2021, after ten years in which these indicators both declined. Looking at those still working in agricultural occupations in 2021, although the overall numbers are no longer great, it was nevertheless over 5% in the MSOAs of Mundford, Weeting & Forest (between Attleborough and Watton) and Necton & Gressenhall, west of Dereham, reaching a peak of over 7% in Whissonsett, Litcham & Narborough at the northern end of Mid Norfolk. Since the decline of agricultural trade unionism, this economic sector has been solidly Conservative. Finally, there is the regional factor. Outside the cities, East Anglia and indeed the whole East of England has swung, long term, to the right.
The region has also grown in population, necessitating significant boundary changes at each successive review. Those affecting Mid Norfolk in the latest, 2023, edition are not as drastic as others in East Anglia, but at the time of the last general election its electorate had reached 81,795, which needed some trimming to fit the quota. The main change, as mentioned above, is to transfer the Wymondham area to South Norfolk, and the alignment of ward boundaries means a very small further loss to SW Norfolk. However there is a slightly larger movement of voters in the other direction, because the whole of All Saints & Wayland ward will now be included in Mid Norfolk, thus moving the boundary somewhat in a south-westerly direction.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/E_32_Mid%20Norfolk%20CC.pdf
Overall the new ‘Mid’ will have around 10,000 fewer electors, and a notional or majority a couple of thousand lower – Wymondham’s departure will not weaken the Conservative grip, that is assuming it behaves in the same way in general as in local elections.
Norfolk may not be as central to the nation’s economy as it once was, and this constituency at its heart may be one of its less well known – and indeed not critical to the overall outcome of a general election and the formation of a government. But it is a principle of the Almanac of British Politics (as indeed of the theory of liberal democracy) that all constituencies are of interest – whether they are among the first we turn our attention to, or almost the last.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 22.2% 49/650
Owner-occupied 72.2% 154/650
Private rented 13.7% 354 /650
Social rented 11.8% 505/650
White 97.8% 147 /650
Black 0.4% 427/650
Asian 0.7% 582/650
Managerial & professional 29.2%
Routine & Semi-routine 28.7%
Degree level 21.3% 464/650
No qualifications 26.3% 204/650
Students 5.4% 595/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 71.6% 129/573
Private rented 16.3% 369 /573
Social rented 12.0% 422/573
White 96.7%
Black 0.3%
Asian 1.3%
Managerial & professional 31.0% 317/573
Routine & Semi-routine 26.8% 185/573
Degree level 25.6% 463/573
No qualifications 20.1% 191/573
General Election 2019: Mid Norfolk
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative George Freeman 35,051 62.4 +3.4
Labour Adrian Heald 12,457 22.2 -7.9
Liberal Democrats Steffan Aquarone 7,739 13.8 +8.7
Independent P J O'Gorman 939 1.7 New
C Majority 22,594 40.2 +11.3
2019 electorate 81,795
Turnout 56,186 68.5 -1.1
Conservative hold
Swing 5.7 Lab to C
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civil_parishes_in_Norfolk#:~:text=This%20is%20a%20list%20of,There%20are%20540%20civil%20parishes.
A goodly number of these are to be found in the Mid Norfolk constituency.
Although not entirely a reliable indicator, in this case the prefix Mid is an apt description of a division that sits squarely in the centre of Norfolk, at no point touching the coast. There are currently four places within it that are usually dignified with the title of town. Three of these sit on the edges of the seat: Attleborough at its southern end (population just over 10,000), Watton (7,000) on the south-western edge, and Wymondham (14,000) on the south-eastern border with South Norfolk constituency. Right in the centre of Mid Norfolk is the largest of the towns, Dereham, home to over 18,000 souls. However the majority of the electorate lives in a very large number of villages spread across over twenty rural wards in Breckland and South Norfolk Districts, outside those four towns.
A flavour of the constituency may be given by a roll call of some of the names of villages in Mid Norfolk. The agricultural element is recalled by Beetley and Old Beetley. Weasenham St Peter is at the northern end of the constituency and Rockland All Saints and Morley St Botolph at the other. There are Great Dunham and Great Fransham, although both are now small. There are also Bintree and Billingford and Bawdeswell. Clint Green sounds like an eco-warrior and Fiddlers Green like a centre of the rural black economy. There are areas called The Warren and The Grazing Grounds. It sounds like something from The Slow Train, by Flanders and Swann. That so few, if any, of these are widely known names confirms that the Mid Norfolk seat though central in the county is now something of a backwater.
Created as an extra division in the 1983 boundary review (though there had been a Central Norfolk with different boundaries between 1950 and February 1974), the seat named Mid Norfolk has only ever been won by the Conservative party since then, and has had three MPs: Richard Ryder (1983-97), Chief Whip in John Major’s government, then Keith Simpson (1997-2010), the military historian who switched to the Broadland constituency on its creation in 2010 - this was logical as Mid Norfolk supplied over 65% of its voters. The closest the party ever came to losing it on its old boundaries was in 1997, when Ryder retired and the Blair surge reduced the majority to just 1,336. It could be argued that the version of Mid Norfolk that George Freeman won in 2010 was the new and extra seat in the county in that review too, as it took less than half of its electorate from the old Mid, and a third from SW Norfolk and a fifth from South Norfolk. This version has never been anywhere near marginal. In December 2019 Freeman won by over 22,500, and Mid Norfolk ranked outside the top 250 on Labour’s target list, requiring a swing of 20.2%.
Local election results reinforce this impression of adamantine safety. In the most recent contests at district level in May 2019, in Breckland the Tory hegemony was broken only by a solitary Green candidate who finished top of the poll in Dereham Neatherd ward, elected along with two Conservatives; two Labour out of three in Dereham Withburga (if you wish to know, named after an 8th century saint, a, East Anglian princess who founded an abbey in the town); a Green sharing the representation of Saham Toney; and an Independent likewise in Watton. The Conservatives, therefore, won at least one seat in every ward. In the smaller, South Norfolk council, section they lost only to a pair of Liberal Democrats in South Wymondham, a ward which will be removed in the forthcoming boundary changes.
In the more recent May 2021 Norfolk county elections, the Tories simply won all seven electoral divisions entirely within Mid Norfolk and all three partly included – all easily, except for a reasonable Liberal Democrat showing in Wymondham. The villages in particular produced some very one sided contests, such as the four to one trouncing of Labour who were second in Necton & Launditch, and five to one ahead of the Greens in Elmton & Mattishall. That the opposition is often evenly divided between Labour, LD and Green makes the scope of the victories even more convincing.
Why is Mid Norfolk so consistently Conservative? Its occupational class makeup is, if anything, skewed to the routine and semi routine occupations, the percentages of these in the 2021 census (26.8%) lying in the top quartile of all seats in England and Wales. However its housing is still over 70% owner occupied, and the population over 96% even in 2021, after ten years in which these indicators both declined. Looking at those still working in agricultural occupations in 2021, although the overall numbers are no longer great, it was nevertheless over 5% in the MSOAs of Mundford, Weeting & Forest (between Attleborough and Watton) and Necton & Gressenhall, west of Dereham, reaching a peak of over 7% in Whissonsett, Litcham & Narborough at the northern end of Mid Norfolk. Since the decline of agricultural trade unionism, this economic sector has been solidly Conservative. Finally, there is the regional factor. Outside the cities, East Anglia and indeed the whole East of England has swung, long term, to the right.
The region has also grown in population, necessitating significant boundary changes at each successive review. Those affecting Mid Norfolk in the latest, 2023, edition are not as drastic as others in East Anglia, but at the time of the last general election its electorate had reached 81,795, which needed some trimming to fit the quota. The main change, as mentioned above, is to transfer the Wymondham area to South Norfolk, and the alignment of ward boundaries means a very small further loss to SW Norfolk. However there is a slightly larger movement of voters in the other direction, because the whole of All Saints & Wayland ward will now be included in Mid Norfolk, thus moving the boundary somewhat in a south-westerly direction.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/E_32_Mid%20Norfolk%20CC.pdf
Overall the new ‘Mid’ will have around 10,000 fewer electors, and a notional or majority a couple of thousand lower – Wymondham’s departure will not weaken the Conservative grip, that is assuming it behaves in the same way in general as in local elections.
Norfolk may not be as central to the nation’s economy as it once was, and this constituency at its heart may be one of its less well known – and indeed not critical to the overall outcome of a general election and the formation of a government. But it is a principle of the Almanac of British Politics (as indeed of the theory of liberal democracy) that all constituencies are of interest – whether they are among the first we turn our attention to, or almost the last.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 22.2% 49/650
Owner-occupied 72.2% 154/650
Private rented 13.7% 354 /650
Social rented 11.8% 505/650
White 97.8% 147 /650
Black 0.4% 427/650
Asian 0.7% 582/650
Managerial & professional 29.2%
Routine & Semi-routine 28.7%
Degree level 21.3% 464/650
No qualifications 26.3% 204/650
Students 5.4% 595/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 71.6% 129/573
Private rented 16.3% 369 /573
Social rented 12.0% 422/573
White 96.7%
Black 0.3%
Asian 1.3%
Managerial & professional 31.0% 317/573
Routine & Semi-routine 26.8% 185/573
Degree level 25.6% 463/573
No qualifications 20.1% 191/573
General Election 2019: Mid Norfolk
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative George Freeman 35,051 62.4 +3.4
Labour Adrian Heald 12,457 22.2 -7.9
Liberal Democrats Steffan Aquarone 7,739 13.8 +8.7
Independent P J O'Gorman 939 1.7 New
C Majority 22,594 40.2 +11.3
2019 electorate 81,795
Turnout 56,186 68.5 -1.1
Conservative hold
Swing 5.7 Lab to C
