|
|
Post by heslingtonian on Feb 5, 2023 7:29:15 GMT
Recently I'm nominate several largely working class Midlands towns which have their own Parliamentary constituencies albeit combined with more traditionally Conservative rural areas - Burton, Cannock, Nuneaton and Rugby all spring to mind.
|
|
|
|
Post by batman on Feb 5, 2023 8:03:53 GMT
I don't think there could ever have been a time when Burton or Rugby, however drawn, could ever have been more than marginal seats. Burton as a town has generally voted pretty heavily Labour but the rural areas in the constituency have always been just as strongly Conservative with, in the past, Uttoxeter the only marginal element to the seat (it's more strongly Tory these days). And the rural areas outside Rugby are similarly very Conservative, although the constituency has latterly included the ex-mining town of Bulkington which has gone very quickly from being pretty strongly Labour to strongly Conservative - a council by-election there would be interesting right now.
|
|
|
|
Post by swindonlad on Feb 5, 2023 8:07:38 GMT
Swindon was a perpetually Labour seat (apart from a 1969 by-election) until 1983 though. And I'd argue that Labour distinctly overperformed in South Swindon from 1997 until the seat was lost in 2010, the party has done much less well in North Swindon despite holding the seat during that period. The others are all good examples for sure. I’m always disappointed that the 1997-2005 MP for Swindon South didn’t double-barrel her surname on marriage. Drown-Child would be a great name for a politician. The Labour posters did say 'Drown Labour', someone really should have spotted that! Swindon Labour really should have taken back control of the council by now and at least 1 constituency, as with other 2 seat southern seats such as Plymouth & Reading. |
|
|
|
Post by batman on Feb 5, 2023 10:22:25 GMT
Reading has a much larger student population, I think Plymouth has too.
|
|
|
|
Post by swindonlad on Feb 5, 2023 13:34:49 GMT
Reading has a much larger student population, I think Plymouth has too. Definitely, Swindon doesn't have a university |
|
|
|
Post by bjornhattan on Feb 5, 2023 13:53:16 GMT
Reading has a much larger student population, I think Plymouth has too. Definitely, Swindon doesn't have a university In my experience, there are parts of Swindon which wouldn't look too out of place in a university town (other than the lack of students there). Eastcott ward has a lot of young professionals and graduates, as do parts of the neighbouring wards like Old Town. These seem to have shifted strongly towards Labour in local elections and will have voted pretty strongly Remain in the referendum - I suspect shifts there have responsible for South becoming a much better Labour than prospect than North in recent years. But they aren't really big enough to swing the whole constituency; the rural areas will always vote Conservative and the peripheral estates like Covingham and Dorcan seem to have moved strongly to the Conservatives. Mind, I do wonder whether Labour might have gained the proposed Swindon South seat in 2017 - the boundary changes aren't huge but they do trim the seat to its urban core and the 2017 Tory majority wasn't huge. |
|
bsjmcr
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,591 
|
Post by bsjmcr on Feb 5, 2023 15:34:25 GMT
Dewsbury? Yes I know the current boundaries mean there is more to Dewsbury than it seems with it being a straight battle, almost 50-50, between the town and the rural and more Conservative parts, lending to its current marginal status, but the 1997 result seems to be an underperformance, on boundaries that should have been favourable as it had Heckmondwike and the rural parts were put into Wakefield, leaving only Mirfield as the bastion of conservative votes. Yet Ann Taylor got just under 50% of the vote and a modest swing compared to some other areas.
Of course boundary changes/'gerrymandering' has now created a super-safe Batley and Dewsbury and has effectively created two 'potentially' (as unlikely on current polling!) conservative seats out of it, Spen Valley and Wakefield West and Denby Dale. You could even add to this the seemingly minor change to Colne Valley where in an even year the removal of Crossland Moor into Huddersfield would make all the difference in helping the Conservative.
|
|
maxque
Non-Aligned
Posts: 9,306
Member is Online
|
Post by maxque on Feb 5, 2023 17:39:29 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 At the 2019 local election, Labour got the most votes in Thetford, while you have to go back to 2003 in Haverhill. |
|
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 5, 2023 18:03:46 GMT
Poor rural areas in places like Lincolnshire and Norfolk - was it down to the low levels of union membership among agricultural workers?
There was once a fairly strong Labour vote amongst agricultural workers, but people tend not to talk about it.
Like KKK Democrats, there's an interesting question around whether they simply died out, or if they changed allegiences before dying out.
|
|
|
|
Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Feb 5, 2023 20:48:43 GMT
Poor rural areas in places like Lincolnshire and Norfolk - was it down to the low levels of union membership among agricultural workers? There was once a fairly strong Labour vote amongst agricultural workers, but people tend not to talk about it. The story of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers is actually quite well recorded, with the union archives having been deposited at Reading University. Its post-war official history is Bob Wynn's "Skilled at All Trades: History of the Farmworkers' Union, 1947-1984", published in 1993. |
|
|
|
Post by jakegb on Feb 5, 2023 21:02:51 GMT
As discussed earlier in the page, large parts of suburban Hampshire remain resistant to Labour, with the Tories enjoying towering support in Havant and Gosport (at least at parliamentary level), and strong support in Aldershot and Basingstoke.
I know these areas well. They contain pockets of significant disadvantage; they were very much for the taking in 1997/2001, but their chances have faded away since (at least nationally).
|
|
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 6, 2023 15:16:48 GMT
Hearing that former Salisbury MP Robert Key sadly RIP.
|
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Feb 6, 2023 15:20:47 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by rockefeller on Feb 7, 2023 8:24:50 GMT
Aldridge-Brownhills? Labour won it in 1974 but failed to do so in 1997.
|
|
|
|
Post by batman on Feb 7, 2023 8:51:50 GMT
Quite major demographic changes in that constituency since 1974. I'm not sure that Labour is underperforming by all that much there - not by as much as in Walsall North next door anyway.
|
|
|
|
Post by mattbewilson on Feb 7, 2023 9:45:56 GMT
Buckingham is another seat that was won by Wilson but not Blair
|
|
|
|
Post by matureleft on Feb 7, 2023 9:58:34 GMT
Buckingham is another seat that was won by Wilson but not Blair Buckingham then included Milton Keynes did it not? Of course the candidate may have had something to do with it…! |
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,908
|
Post by YL on Feb 7, 2023 10:05:32 GMT
Buckingham is another seat that was won by Wilson but not Blair Buckingham then included Milton Keynes did it not? Of course the candidate may have had something to do with it…! Yes, Buckingham included (what is now) Milton Keynes until 1983, and Bletchley and Wolverton provided a substantial Labour vote. It's hard to imagine the current Buckingham constituency ever voting Labour; even the current Election Maps UK nowcast has a Tory majority there of over 8000. |
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,925
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Feb 7, 2023 11:18:00 GMT
Another "misleading" one in this context is Maldon, which contained Braintree in its Labour voting days.
|
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Feb 7, 2023 12:46:01 GMT
Buckingham is another seat that was won by Wilson but not Blair Buckingham then included Milton Keynes did it not? Of course the candidate may have had something to do with it…! Well, labour polled up to the Max. |
|
