The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,483
|
Post by The Bishop on Feb 1, 2023 13:40:34 GMT
Inverness - only won twice at the height of Blair while winning Caithness & Sutherland, on paper far less fertile Labour territory for years with a popular candidate. Which does rather emphasise that many long term Labour "underperformances" were places where the Liberals retained a strong presence even in their worst years. And a late 1954 byelection in Inverness was arguably "Ground Zero" for the original "Liberal Revival" come the Grimond years.
|
|
|
Post by stb12 on Feb 1, 2023 13:45:39 GMT
Sounds like he’ll have been taking the credit for your own election! The bit where this struck me was in the last week of the long 1997 campaign. A load of purple (I think - I'm a bit colour blind but they definitely weren't red!) posters arrived with Blair's face on them and we were asked to go round and get people to put those up instead of the standard stuff. Fantasy stuff in most constituencies where there weren't the foot soldiers for what was essentially a task of duplication - the little team had loads to do without that. But it suggested a presidential approach that I instinctively distrust. And this by-election compounded that (together with other unfortunate centralising initiatives in party and PLP matters). It wasn't a personal Blair victory although undoubtedly he contributed heavily to its scale. Obviously it was before internet was as big a thing with social media etc but it does sound like they were borderline trying to create a personality cult. Tony Blair certainly had his talents but I’m very uncomfortable with any politician being treated like that, whatever side of the spectrum
|
|
European Lefty
Labour
Can be bribed with salted liquorice
Posts: 5,489
|
Post by European Lefty on Feb 1, 2023 15:39:33 GMT
West-Super-Mare is definitely up there, and notable for not being exclusively down to the LDs. Gloucester is another one
|
|
|
Post by loderingo on Feb 1, 2023 15:40:11 GMT
Wycombe until recently Aylesbury Woking Southend Chelmsford Maidstone Currently underperforming in the Medway towns (but held in the Blair era) Basingstoke Weston-Super-Mare Bracknell Eastleigh Sutton Coldfield?
|
|
Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,263
Member is Online
|
Post by Sibboleth on Feb 1, 2023 15:43:24 GMT
One often missed would be North West Wales in the 1980s and for the first half of the 1990s. I think that's long enough to count. It's an especially curious example as Labour was stronger at local government level there than it often has been subsequently (and in some areas than it was before: at least superficially), though to an extent that's a comment on how weird and personality-driven local government has always been there.
|
|
sirbenjamin
IFP
True fame is reading your name written in graffiti, but without the words 'is a wanker' after it.
Posts: 4,979
|
Post by sirbenjamin on Feb 1, 2023 15:50:08 GMT
The same arguably goes for the non-Swindon parts of Wiltshire.
Salisbury always struck me as somewhere that I'd expect Labour to do a bit better.
|
|
Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,263
Member is Online
|
Post by Sibboleth on Feb 1, 2023 16:11:22 GMT
In terms of individual constituencies, a current example would be Brecon & Radnor. Though that's for tactical factors that can't be expected to survive boundary changes, at least on their current projections. A good example historically would have been Chester.
|
|
|
Post by timrollpickering on Feb 1, 2023 16:20:51 GMT
North Cornwall is the only British seat where Labour have never finished in one of the top two spots. How many others have they only ever taken second place because a significant party didn't stand? Montgomeryshire (1924, 1950 & 1951 when the Conservatives didn't stand) springs to mind but have there been others?
|
|
batman
Labour
Posts: 8,642
Member is Online
|
Post by batman on Feb 1, 2023 16:46:14 GMT
Wycombe until recently Aylesbury Woking Southend Chelmsford Maidstone Currently underperforming in the Medway towns (but held in the Blair era) Basingstoke Weston-Super-Mare Bracknell Eastleigh Sutton Coldfield? That's quite a mixed bag. Wycombe was actually won by Labour in 1945 (on extremely unfavourable boundaries) and again in 1950 (on ones more similar to the present ones). Bracknell is perhaps not such a good example either, the non-new-town elements are definitely not natural Labour territory & even the new town itself is not poor by any means. Sutton Coldfield definitely not, it's very middle class & nothing like natural Labour territory despite a recent improvement by Labour in its southern ward. The others are better examples I think. Labour would have won Basingstoke certainly in 2001 & probably in 1997 had the boundaries post-2005 been in operation then but it's surprising that it's not yet been won, even so.
|
|
|
Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Feb 1, 2023 16:50:43 GMT
Sounds like he’ll have been taking the credit for your own election! The bit where this struck me was in the last week of the long 1997 campaign. A load of purple (I think - I'm a bit colour blind but they definitely weren't red!) posters arrived with Blair's face on them and we were asked to go round and get people to put those up instead of the standard stuff. Fantasy stuff in most constituencies where there weren't the foot soldiers for what was essentially a task of duplication - the little team had loads to do without that. But it suggested a presidential approach that I instinctively distrust. And this by-election compounded that (together with other unfortunate centralising initiatives in party and PLP matters). It wasn't a personal Blair victory although undoubtedly he contributed heavily to its scale.
1997 in Sheffield, the Labour leaflets were given with Prescott's face showing as they then got a much better reception than when Blair's face was showing.
|
|
|
Post by matureleft on Feb 1, 2023 17:14:50 GMT
There are a few places where heavily working class populations were transplanted to smallish towns from big cities. Havant has already come up. Andover, Haverhill, Huntingdon and Thetford come to mind. Admittedly they've normally arrived in fairly Tory territory but even in local government terms they've often faded into the broader Tory picture over time.
|
|
batman
Labour
Posts: 8,642
Member is Online
|
Post by batman on Feb 1, 2023 20:00:34 GMT
Mind you Labour used to win pretty big locally in Haverhill, and sometimes still does in Thetford. Andover is a surprisingly poor area for Labour & has been for many decades. Huntingdon seems to be experiencing a bit of a Labour revival
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Feb 1, 2023 20:15:29 GMT
The same arguably goes for the non-Swindon parts of Wiltshire.
Salisbury always struck me as somewhere that I'd expect Labour to do a bit better.
Corbin finished second in 2017 , although Uther Pendragon may have split the mystical saviour vote.
The patterns of Liberals/Labour not standing make a difference in these sort of constituencies, but the effect is not necessarily predictable. In Salisbury the Liberals missed 1966 and 1970 having stood in 1945, 1950, 1955, 1959, 1964 and the 1965 by election. Labour didn't stand until 1924, but continuously after that with the Liberals also missing in 1931 and 1935 which often indicated that they would be missing for large parts of the post war period until the 50s, 60s or even the 70s but not here. And the 1942 by election didn't provide a political earthquake either unlike in some other places. The Independent candidate Reg Hipwell had done much better in the previous year at Scarborough and did much worse at The Hartlepools the following year , where there were three non government candidates, but where their combined vote still didn't add up to much more than half the government total. The 1965 by election similarly failed to deliver a Labour gain - the Labour vote went up and the Liberal vote down but even if all the Liberal votes had gone to Labour (they wouldn't have) it still wouldn't have seen them over the line. And there was an Independent Tory.
In other news the 1402 and 1404 elections saw John Wallop elected.
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Feb 1, 2023 21:24:08 GMT
When William Royce died in 1924 the by election candidate for Labour was none other than Hugh Dalton. The fact that he nearly held it is one of the most genuinely baffling constituency results in British electoral history. There was a sort of similar situation in North Norfolk where Labour held the seat (1922-31) with Noel Buxton and then for one year his wife Lucy Noel Buxton (majority 179) after he had been raised to the peerage.
Buxton had previously been the Liberal MP for the seat (1910-18) which obviously made a huge difference.
|
|
Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 11,506
|
Post by Khunanup on Feb 2, 2023 1:25:35 GMT
Wycombe until recently Aylesbury Woking Southend Chelmsford Maidstone Currently underperforming in the Medway towns (but held in the Blair era) Basingstoke Weston-Super-Mare Bracknell Eastleigh Sutton Coldfield? County towns, especially in the South & South East, are bad for Labour but not because it's an underperformance, but because the party is always a pretty poor fit and the Liberal presence/attitudes either survived through or were much more easily reactivated come the revival. If anything, they continue to be a source of underperformance for the Lib Dems at parliamentary level, especially as at local level they are often the dominant party. Basingstoke should be better than it is, but the local party is not particularly successful at breaking out of its strongholds and the new builds going on aren't necessarily particularly conducive to Labour as many are on the periphery. Still, the seat will continue to get geographically smaller so that should help them, unless it splits which would destroy their chances. As for Woking, that ship has long sailed. Labour had a sweet spot of it becoming a large minority population (when such minorities were overwhelmingly in the Labour camp) and it not having made the full transition to expensive commuter town (so having more of its railway town demographic), but that has come and gone, with it falling very much into the political sphere that the settlements to the north are in and/or moving towards.
|
|
|
Post by matureleft on Feb 2, 2023 7:58:33 GMT
Wycombe until recently Aylesbury Woking Southend Chelmsford Maidstone Currently underperforming in the Medway towns (but held in the Blair era) Basingstoke Weston-Super-Mare Bracknell Eastleigh Sutton Coldfield? County towns, especially in the South & South East, are bad for Labour but not because it's an underperformance, but because the party is always a pretty poor fit and the Liberal presence/attitudes either survived through or were much more easily reactivated come the revival. If anything, they continue to be a source of underperformance for the Lib Dems at parliamentary level, especially as at local level they are often the dominant party. Basingstoke should be better than it is, but the local party is not particularly successful at breaking out of its strongholds and the new builds going on aren't necessarily particularly conducive to Labour as many are on the periphery. Still, the seat will continue to get geographically smaller so that should help them, unless it splits which would destroy their chances. As for Woking, that ship has long sailed. Labour had a sweet spot of it becoming a large minority population (when such minorities were overwhelmingly in the Labour camp) and it not having made the full transition to expensive commuter town (so having more of its railway town demographic), but that has come and gone, with it falling very much into the political sphere that the settlements to the north are in and/or moving towards. You touch on the relationship between local government strength and parliamentary success. A small book could be written on the difficulties Lib Dems have in managing that path but I’m wondering about Labour examples. There are examples of the reverse - a parliamentary failure not being translated into local government collapse and decay. We are seeing in Worthing the construction of a local government path to parliamentary success which seems likely, even with less helpful boundaries, to yield success. From personal experience in Cambridge patience is required - I could have dined out on monetising the “we vote for you locally but…” remarks. But an example where Labour has built a strong local base without, so far, translating it into at least some parliamentary success?
|
|
wallington
Green
The Pride of Croydon 2022 award winner
Posts: 1,242
|
Post by wallington on Feb 2, 2023 9:39:00 GMT
Sutton, obviously it's due to the strength locally of the Liberal Democrats, but Labour were pretty strong in the Borough before the rise of the Liberals and weren't far behind the Conservatives in number of Councillors in 1971. Labour were absent on the council from 2006 until last year and now have councillors in Hackbridge and St Helier West. There are a number of wards Labour would probably hold or at least be competitive in if the Lib Dems never broke out past a couple of wards.
|
|
batman
Labour
Posts: 8,642
Member is Online
|
Post by batman on Feb 2, 2023 9:53:49 GMT
County towns, especially in the South & South East, are bad for Labour but not because it's an underperformance, but because the party is always a pretty poor fit and the Liberal presence/attitudes either survived through or were much more easily reactivated come the revival. If anything, they continue to be a source of underperformance for the Lib Dems at parliamentary level, especially as at local level they are often the dominant party. Basingstoke should be better than it is, but the local party is not particularly successful at breaking out of its strongholds and the new builds going on aren't necessarily particularly conducive to Labour as many are on the periphery. Still, the seat will continue to get geographically smaller so that should help them, unless it splits which would destroy their chances. As for Woking, that ship has long sailed. Labour had a sweet spot of it becoming a large minority population (when such minorities were overwhelmingly in the Labour camp) and it not having made the full transition to expensive commuter town (so having more of its railway town demographic), but that has come and gone, with it falling very much into the political sphere that the settlements to the north are in and/or moving towards. You touch on the relationship between local government strength and parliamentary success. A small book could be written on the difficulties Lib Dems have in managing that path but I’m wondering about Labour examples. There are examples of the reverse - a parliamentary failure not being translated into local government collapse and decay. We are seeing in Worthing the construction of a local government path to parliamentary success which seems likely, even with less helpful boundaries, to yield success. From personal experience in Cambridge patience is required - I could have dined out on monetising the “we vote for you locally but…” remarks. But an example where Labour has built a strong local base without, so far, translating it into at least some parliamentary success? although Labour has often won the parliamentary seat, Stevenage is a strong example of an answer to your last question.
|
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,483
|
Post by The Bishop on Feb 2, 2023 11:10:13 GMT
Sutton, obviously it's due to the strength locally of the Liberal Democrats, but Labour were pretty strong in the Borough before the rise of the Liberals and weren't far behind the Conservatives in number of Councillors in 1971. Labour were absent on the council from 2006 until last year and now have councillors in Hackbridge and St Helier West. There are a number of wards Labour would probably hold or at least be competitive in if the Lib Dems never broke out past a couple of wards. Labour also won the Carshalton GLC seat in 1973.
|
|
|
Post by mattbewilson on Feb 2, 2023 12:18:30 GMT
You touch on the relationship between local government strength and parliamentary success. A small book could be written on the difficulties Lib Dems have in managing that path but I’m wondering about Labour examples. There are examples of the reverse - a parliamentary failure not being translated into local government collapse and decay. We are seeing in Worthing the construction of a local government path to parliamentary success which seems likely, even with less helpful boundaries, to yield success. From personal experience in Cambridge patience is required - I could have dined out on monetising the “we vote for you locally but…” remarks. But an example where Labour has built a strong local base without, so far, translating it into at least some parliamentary success? although Labour has often won the parliamentary seat, Stevenage is a strong example of an answer to your last question. though Stevenage includes rural and leafy places outside the borough like knebworth
|
|