Post by John Chanin on Aug 11, 2023 7:06:49 GMT
This is a very distinctive seat, with unusual demographics and an interesting recent political history. The occupational and educational statistics suggest that it is a very working class seat, but this is only partly true. There is virtually no council housing, but quite a lot of private renting associated with its history as a seaside resort. However the percentage in managerial jobs is amongst the lowest 50 in the whole country, and those with degrees the second lowest. It is however an old constituency, with a lot of retirees, the sixth highest percentage of people over 65 in the country.
Half the seat consists of Clacton town. The town has been one of the worst victims of the decline of the English seaside resort, and is sadly rundown. Being a long way from anywhere makes it hard to attract alternative economic activity. The north part of the town (Holland on Sea) is slightly better off, with more than 40% over 65, and there are some council estates inland in the south. The town centre contains what’s left of the resort with its pier and other seaside amenities, where private renting is high in what were once rows of guest houses. Most of the housing inland was constructed in the boom years between the wars and in the immediate postwar period. To the south of the main town, slightly detached is Jaywick, famously one of the most deprived areas in the whole country. This was one of the Essex plotlands, where small plots were sold off after the first world war at minimal prices for people to build their own homes. No planning in those days, and many of the homes were and are very rough and ready. Jaywick unsurprisingly has the lowest figures for both managerial jobs, and educational qualifications, with a high proportion of private renting.
Another quarter of the seat consists of the retirement ghettos of Frinton and Walton-on-the-Naze. The Naze is the headland, north of Clacton, and south of the watery maze of Hamford Water and its extensive marshy hinterland (a nature reserve), that separate the area from Harwich. These are much better off than Clacton, with wealthy retirees in bungalows, and a lot of purpose built housing for the elderly, some of which is rented. Frinton is famously genteel with next to no entertainment facilities or pubs, but suits those who choose to move here. The remaining quarter is rural and inland, enhanced in the boundary changes by 5500 voters around the villages of Great Bentley and Great Oakley, and including the remote village of St Osyth with its priory, separated by more marshes from Brightlingsea, and just across the muddy estuary of the Colne from Mersea island. This area is much higher status than Clacton town, much younger than Frinton/Walton/Holland, and much higher owner-occupation, and a safe reservoir of Conservative votes at national level.
Politically the seat was one of the hotbeds of UKIP activity, famously won by Douglas Carswell, who resigned from the Conservatives, forced a by-election, and then held onto the seat at the 2015 General Election, the only seat won by UKIP. Tendring District voted 70% Leave at the 2016 referendum, and the figure would have been even higher in the Clacton part of the district. Locally the UKIP upsurge caused chaos. UKIP won almost all the seats at the 2015 council elections (only Frinton and the central Pier ward stayed with the Conservatives). But splits then abounded, as in Thanet, with the formation of Tendring First, and some other councillors becoming independent. Things didn’t improve much in 2019 with a plethora of Residents Groups and Independents taking over from UKIP, although the Conservatives did win enough seats (including those outside this constituency) to run a minority administration. In 2023 the Conservatives re-established their dominance in the Walton/Frinton area, and coastal Clacton, and Labour won their first councillors for many years in the council estate areas of inland Clacton. But there are still plenty of independents, in the rural areas and Holland-on-Sea, and the council is now run by a coalition of most of the Independents and Labour, one of whose cabinet members is Ivan Henderson, the MP from 1997-2005. He won a surprise victory here (although the seat then included Harwich), from the luckless Ian Sproat, who famously did an unsuccessful chicken run in 1983, losing his new seat, while the new Conservative candidate held his former seat. Sproat finally landed in Essex in 1992, in a ‘safe’ seat, only to promptly lose it in 1997 to a swing of 15%. Carswell won the seat back for the Conservatives in 2005, before his defection to UKIP, and when he stood down in 2017, the parliamentary seat reverted to safe Conservative status. In 2019 with the anti-EU vote folded into the Conservatives, this was the 5th safest seat in the country, behind just the two south Lincolnshire seats, and two other Essex seats to the south (Maldon and Castle Point). With Nigel Farage back at the helm of the renamed Reform Party, this seat was the number one target for them at the 2024 election, with Farage himself as the candidate. And indeed Reform won very easily, with the Conservative vote collapsing.
Census data: Owner-occupied 72% (121/575 in England & Wales), private rented 20% (192nd), social rented 8% (562nd).
: White 96%(124th), Black 1%(413th), South Asian 0%(501st), Mixed 2%(387th), Other 1%(446th)
: Managerial & professional 28% (539th), Routine & Semi-routine 35% (106th)
: Degree level 18%(574th), Minimal qualifications 42%(3rd)
: Students 4% (573rd), Over 65: 32% (6th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 93% from Clacton and 7% from Harwich & N Essex.
All of the old Clacton seat is in the new one.
Half the seat consists of Clacton town. The town has been one of the worst victims of the decline of the English seaside resort, and is sadly rundown. Being a long way from anywhere makes it hard to attract alternative economic activity. The north part of the town (Holland on Sea) is slightly better off, with more than 40% over 65, and there are some council estates inland in the south. The town centre contains what’s left of the resort with its pier and other seaside amenities, where private renting is high in what were once rows of guest houses. Most of the housing inland was constructed in the boom years between the wars and in the immediate postwar period. To the south of the main town, slightly detached is Jaywick, famously one of the most deprived areas in the whole country. This was one of the Essex plotlands, where small plots were sold off after the first world war at minimal prices for people to build their own homes. No planning in those days, and many of the homes were and are very rough and ready. Jaywick unsurprisingly has the lowest figures for both managerial jobs, and educational qualifications, with a high proportion of private renting.
Another quarter of the seat consists of the retirement ghettos of Frinton and Walton-on-the-Naze. The Naze is the headland, north of Clacton, and south of the watery maze of Hamford Water and its extensive marshy hinterland (a nature reserve), that separate the area from Harwich. These are much better off than Clacton, with wealthy retirees in bungalows, and a lot of purpose built housing for the elderly, some of which is rented. Frinton is famously genteel with next to no entertainment facilities or pubs, but suits those who choose to move here. The remaining quarter is rural and inland, enhanced in the boundary changes by 5500 voters around the villages of Great Bentley and Great Oakley, and including the remote village of St Osyth with its priory, separated by more marshes from Brightlingsea, and just across the muddy estuary of the Colne from Mersea island. This area is much higher status than Clacton town, much younger than Frinton/Walton/Holland, and much higher owner-occupation, and a safe reservoir of Conservative votes at national level.
Politically the seat was one of the hotbeds of UKIP activity, famously won by Douglas Carswell, who resigned from the Conservatives, forced a by-election, and then held onto the seat at the 2015 General Election, the only seat won by UKIP. Tendring District voted 70% Leave at the 2016 referendum, and the figure would have been even higher in the Clacton part of the district. Locally the UKIP upsurge caused chaos. UKIP won almost all the seats at the 2015 council elections (only Frinton and the central Pier ward stayed with the Conservatives). But splits then abounded, as in Thanet, with the formation of Tendring First, and some other councillors becoming independent. Things didn’t improve much in 2019 with a plethora of Residents Groups and Independents taking over from UKIP, although the Conservatives did win enough seats (including those outside this constituency) to run a minority administration. In 2023 the Conservatives re-established their dominance in the Walton/Frinton area, and coastal Clacton, and Labour won their first councillors for many years in the council estate areas of inland Clacton. But there are still plenty of independents, in the rural areas and Holland-on-Sea, and the council is now run by a coalition of most of the Independents and Labour, one of whose cabinet members is Ivan Henderson, the MP from 1997-2005. He won a surprise victory here (although the seat then included Harwich), from the luckless Ian Sproat, who famously did an unsuccessful chicken run in 1983, losing his new seat, while the new Conservative candidate held his former seat. Sproat finally landed in Essex in 1992, in a ‘safe’ seat, only to promptly lose it in 1997 to a swing of 15%. Carswell won the seat back for the Conservatives in 2005, before his defection to UKIP, and when he stood down in 2017, the parliamentary seat reverted to safe Conservative status. In 2019 with the anti-EU vote folded into the Conservatives, this was the 5th safest seat in the country, behind just the two south Lincolnshire seats, and two other Essex seats to the south (Maldon and Castle Point). With Nigel Farage back at the helm of the renamed Reform Party, this seat was the number one target for them at the 2024 election, with Farage himself as the candidate. And indeed Reform won very easily, with the Conservative vote collapsing.
Census data: Owner-occupied 72% (121/575 in England & Wales), private rented 20% (192nd), social rented 8% (562nd).
: White 96%(124th), Black 1%(413th), South Asian 0%(501st), Mixed 2%(387th), Other 1%(446th)
: Managerial & professional 28% (539th), Routine & Semi-routine 35% (106th)
: Degree level 18%(574th), Minimal qualifications 42%(3rd)
: Students 4% (573rd), Over 65: 32% (6th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 93% from Clacton and 7% from Harwich & N Essex.
All of the old Clacton seat is in the new one.
| 2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | 2024 | % | |
| Conservative | 27,031 | 61.2 | 31,438 | 72.3 | 32,825 | 71.9 | 12,820 | 27.9 |
| Labour | 11,203 | 25.4 | 6,736 | 15.5 | 7,108 | 15.6 | 7,448 | 16.2 |
| Liberal Democrat | 887 | 2.0 | 2,541 | 5.8 | 2,829 | 6.2 | 2,016 | 4.4 |
| UKIP/Reform | 3,357 | 7.6 | 21,225 | 46.2 | ||||
| Green | 719 | 1.6 | 1,225 | 2.8 | 1,341 | 2.9 | 1,935 | 4.2 |
| Other | 948 | 2.2 | 1,566 | 3.6 | 1,566 | 3.4 | 514 | 1.1 |
| Majority | 15,828 | 35.9 | 24,702 | 56.8 | 25,717 | 56.3 | -8,405 | -18.3 |
