Where has Labour serially underperformed the most?

[Deleted]

Feb 1, 2023 15:50:08 GMT sirbenjamin said:

Jan 31, 2023 22:55:05 GMT greenhert said:

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.

Salisbury is an interesting one. I'm not sure there is all that much scope for Labour to do better - yes, there are some run down areas where Labour win councillors and probably have a decent parliamentary vote, but there are also a lot of more middle-class areas that should and do vote Tory. Once you add the surrounding countryside to the Tory bits of Salisbury proper you get a seat that should be fairly solidly Conservative

[The Bishop]

Aylesbury is actually a very good example of *long term* Labour underperformance.

[John Chanin]

There’s a longstanding general issue, that going by demographics, the Conservatives underperform in many places in the north, and Labour underperform by many places in the south. Essex and Hampshire come to mind, and also Cornwall. There are signs that this discrepancy is correcting itself. The next General Election will be very interesting from that point of view.

[bjornhattan]

Feb 2, 2023 13:55:43 GMT @europeanlefty said:

Feb 1, 2023 15:50:08 GMT sirbenjamin said:

Salisbury always struck me as somewhere that I'd expect Labour to do a bit better.

Salisbury is an interesting one. I'm not sure there is all that much scope for Labour to do better - yes, there are some run down areas where Labour win councillors and probably have a decent parliamentary vote, but there are also a lot of more middle-class areas that should and do vote Tory. Once you add the surrounding countryside to the Tory bits of Salisbury proper you get a seat that should be fairly solidly Conservative

It's more a Tory overperformance really - Winchester, a city very similar in character to Salisbury (albeit a little more affluent) is even weaker for Labour - but considerably weaker for the Tories because of the Lib Dem strength locally.

[matureleft]

Feb 2, 2023 14:45:12 GMT The Bishop said:

Aylesbury is actually a very good example of *long term* Labour underperformance.

Yup. Another London overspill destination, but I'm not sure how many actually made it there. 

[bsjmcr]

Aldridge Brownhills? Tory seats with higher majorities in 1992 were lost in the ‘97 landslide (and many of those had long standing incumbents too so incumbency is only part of the picture here) but Richard Shepherd hung on by 2,500, down from 11,000, which seems like an underperformance/Tory overperformance. I don’t know much about the area, is it really up there in status with Sutton Coldfield, Solihull (and we know what happened there in 2005) or Meridian? The latter illustrates this perfectly as it was only held by ~500 votes down from almost 15,000 albeit with a new candidate. 

[The Bishop]

Aldridge Brownhills is maybe the only place to have voted Labour just in 1974 and never before or since.

[John Chanin]

Feb 2, 2023 16:17:54 GMT bsjmcr said:

Aldridge Brownhills? Tory seats with higher majorities in 1992 were lost in the ‘97 landslide (and many of those had long standing incumbents too so incumbency is only part of the picture here) but Richard Shepherd hung on by 2,500, down from 11,000, which seems like an underperformance/Tory overperformance. I don’t know much about the area, is it really up there in status with Sutton Coldfield, Solihull (and we know what happened there in 2005) or Meridian? The latter illustrates this perfectly as it was only held by ~500 votes down from almost 15,000 albeit with a new candidate. 

The non-Solihull parts of Solihull borough are well west of the meridian….Much of Aldridge-Brownhills is indeed very similar to commuter territory further east.  Streetly is actually up market of Sutton Coldfield.  Aldridge itself and Walsall Wood are very prosperous towns. Pelsall and Shelfield are fairly ordinary exurbs of the sort you would expect to be Conservative, and Brownhills is part of the Cannock/North Warwickshire area that has swung violently to the Conservatives over the last 20 years.

The real conundrum is how Labour ever won the seat in 1974. This is generally put down to a Powell factor in right-wing west Midlands circles.  An anomalous result similar to Labour winning Castle Point and Clacton in 1997.

[The Bishop]

To be strictly accurate, Labour won Harwich in 1997 and 2001 - the present day Clacton seat would have voted Tory even then.

[batman]

Feb 2, 2023 12:18:30 GMT mattbewilson said:

Feb 2, 2023 9:53:49 GMT batman said:

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

it does but that is clearly the minority of the constituency, and it's clear that Labour would have lost the constituency even without its rural element on a number of occasions

[batman]

Feb 2, 2023 16:29:17 GMT John Chanin said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:17:54 GMT bsjmcr said:

Aldridge Brownhills? Tory seats with higher majorities in 1992 were lost in the ‘97 landslide (and many of those had long standing incumbents too so incumbency is only part of the picture here) but Richard Shepherd hung on by 2,500, down from 11,000, which seems like an underperformance/Tory overperformance. I don’t know much about the area, is it really up there in status with Sutton Coldfield, Solihull (and we know what happened there in 2005) or Meridian? The latter illustrates this perfectly as it was only held by ~500 votes down from almost 15,000 albeit with a new candidate. 

The non-Solihull parts of Solihull borough are well west of the meridian….Much of Aldridge-Brownhills is indeed very similar to commuter territory further east.  Streetly is actually up market of Sutton Coldfield.  Aldridge itself and Walsall Wood are very prosperous towns. Pelsall and Shelfield are fairly ordinary exurbs of the sort you would expect to be Conservative, and Brownhills is part of the Cannock/North Warwickshire area that has swung violently to the Conservatives over the last 20 years.

The real conundrum is how Labour ever won the seat in 1974. This is generally put down to a Powell factor in right-wing west Midlands circles.  An anomalous result similar to Labour winning Castle Point and Clacton in 1997.

If I'm not entirely mistaken quite a lot of the wealthier parts of the constituency were not yet entirely built in 1974

[iainbhx]

Feb 2, 2023 17:17:43 GMT batman said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:29:17 GMT John Chanin said:

The non-Solihull parts of Solihull borough are well west of the meridian….Much of Aldridge-Brownhills is indeed very similar to commuter territory further east.  Streetly is actually up market of Sutton Coldfield.  Aldridge itself and Walsall Wood are very prosperous towns. Pelsall and Shelfield are fairly ordinary exurbs of the sort you would expect to be Conservative, and Brownhills is part of the Cannock/North Warwickshire area that has swung violently to the Conservatives over the last 20 years.

The real conundrum is how Labour ever won the seat in 1974. This is generally put down to a Powell factor in right-wing west Midlands circles.  An anomalous result similar to Labour winning Castle Point and Clacton in 1997.

If I'm not entirely mistaken quite a lot of the wealthier parts of the constituency were not yet entirely built in 1974

This is true, but the 1974 seat contained Pheasey, which then was mainly the Pheasey Estate and back in 1974 was probably worth +1500 to Labour, it was competitive through the 1980's and 1990's but became more Tory as houses were sold off (although at lot were sold in the 1960's) and there was a lot of infill and private development. Although personally, I blame Ianrobo.

[finsobruce]

Feb 2, 2023 20:09:49 GMT iainbhx said:

Feb 2, 2023 17:17:43 GMT batman said:

If I'm not entirely mistaken quite a lot of the wealthier parts of the constituency were not yet entirely built in 1974

This is true, but the 1974 seat contained Pheasey, which then was mainly the Pheasey Estate and back in 1974 was probably worth +1500 to Labour, it was competitive through the 1980's and 1990's but became more Tory as houses were sold off (although at lot were sold in the 1960's) and there was a lot of infill and private development. Although personally, I blame Ianrobo.

I thought we might get there eventually.

[Khunanup]

Feb 2, 2023 15:46:45 GMT bjornhattan said:

Feb 2, 2023 13:55:43 GMT @europeanlefty said:

Salisbury is an interesting one. I'm not sure there is all that much scope for Labour to do better - yes, there are some run down areas where Labour win councillors and probably have a decent parliamentary vote, but there are also a lot of more middle-class areas that should and do vote Tory. Once you add the surrounding countryside to the Tory bits of Salisbury proper you get a seat that should be fairly solidly Conservative

It's more a Tory overperformance really - Winchester, a city very similar in character to Salisbury (albeit a little more affluent) is even weaker for Labour - but considerably weaker for the Tories because of the Lib Dem strength locally.

Agreed. With my county town comment above, Salisbury is an area of Lib Dem underperformance, especially with the scope in the hinterland realised or not that has happened in the past.

[iang]

I think AB was the most marginal / least safe Tory seat to survive in 1997. There's lots more discussion on the Almanac thread. Walsall North might be a candidate too - the Labour loss in 2017 in many ways foreshadowed what was to happen in similar seats in 2019

[michaelarden]

Poor rural areas in places like Lincolnshire and Norfolk - was it down to the low levels of union membership among agricultural workers?

[greenhert]

Feb 2, 2023 23:04:52 GMT michaelarden said:

Poor rural areas in places like Lincolnshire and Norfolk - was it down to the low levels of union membership among agricultural workers?

Not just that but the decline of the long-term agricultural worker population, which partly accounts for Labour having not won Boston & Skegness since 1924, and their narrow misses in SW Norfolk and Mid Norfolk in 1997 (margins were 2,464 and 1,336 respectively that year). As for North Norfolk, Sir Norman Lamb is almost entirely accountable for the Labour under-performance there; whilst he was Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk he squeezed the Labour vote to as low as 5.8% in 2010, although arguably North Norfolk is now closer to being the East Anglian equivalent of Westmorland & Lonsdale.

And speaking of the Fens, North East Cambridgeshire (the main successor to the Isle of Ely from 1983 onwards).

[John Chanin]

Feb 2, 2023 14:45:12 GMT The Bishop said:

Aylesbury is actually a very good example of *long term* Labour underperformance.

Many of the peripheral estates are remarkably grim (overspill showing its age I presume), and the central area inside the ring road is tatty.  But there are swathes of new housing on the outskirts now which are perfectly pleasant.  Curiously all areas currently vote Liberal Democrat at local elections.  I don’t have any evidence, but I suspect that because both the District and Constituency include a large amount of rural territory, there is relatively little incentive to vote Labour (or at all).  Still you’d expect some of these decaying estates to elect Labour councillors if they did some campaigning.

[nodealbrexiteer]

To the main question-General Elections

[londonseal80]

Feb 2, 2023 9:39:00 GMT wallington said:

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.

Yes indeed though in bad Labour years like 2006 and 2010 it could have ended up Conservative full house. Labour would likely win places like Sutton Central, The Wrythe and Beddington North in good Labour years (too win control would be too difficult, it’s too much like Bromley to go Labour). Kingston upon Thames (which is more like Barnet) could actually be even better for Labour for Sutton. Though a more affluent borough, areas like Kingston Town and St Marks could be good for the party. Tolworth and Chessington used to good areas for Labour. Across the boundary into Epsom and Ewell, Ruxley should be a strong Labour ward on paper, Town should be competitive at least.