Post by Robert Waller on Aug 11, 2023 23:50:40 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. Before the 2023 boundary changes there were 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 11,000 in 2021), Watton (up to 11,500 from 7,500 in 2001) on the south-western edge, and Wymondham (16,000) 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 nearly 21,000 souls. All of these towns have grown in recent decades. However much of the electorate still 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, and currently George Freeman. 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%.
In the May 2021 Norfolk county elections, the Tories 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 has Mid Norfolk so consistently been Conservative? Its occupational class makeup is, if anything, skewed to the routine and semi routine occupations, the percentages of these in the 2021 census (27.3%) lying in the top quartile of all seats in England and Wales. However, its housing is still over 70% owner occupied, and the white population over 96%, even in 2021, after ten years in which these indicators both declined. It is just outside the top 60 in the list of seats in England and Wales as far as over 65s in age are concerned. 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 2019 general election its electorate had reached 81,795, which needed some trimming to fit the quota. The main change, as mentioned above, was 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.
Overall the new ‘Mid’ has around 10,000 fewer electors, and for '2019' a notional or majority a couple of thousand lower – Wymondham’s departure did not in itself weaken the Conservative grip, that is assuming it behaves in the same way in general as in local elections. As pretty much everywhere else, there was some movement away from the nationally governing party in the May 2023 council elections within the Mid Norfolk constituency. In Breckland, Labour gained both seats in Dereham Toftwood and one 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). On the other hand they did unseat a Green councillor who finished had finished top of the poll in Dereham Neatherd ward in 2019 while still sharing the representation of Saham Toney with the Greens, and losing Hermitage to the Liberal Democrats. In the smaller, South Norfolk council, section the Tories won no seats in the two Wymondham wards, which will be removed in the forthcoming boundary changes, but held both Hingham & Deopham and Wicklewood which will remain in the Mid Norfolk seat. Therefore there was minimal chance that this constituency would attract much attention in the 2024 general election - in which the Conservatives suffered a massive drop of 28% in their share but still held on by 3,000 votes - and indeed it is true that Mid Norfolk was almost the last seat to be taken up for coverage in the most recent version of the Vote UK Almanac.
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; and it will not be left to the end this time.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 25.9% 62/575
Owner-occupied 71.5% 139/575
Private rented 16.9% 340/575
Social rented 11.6% 447/575
White 96.8% 82/575
Black 0.7% 398/575
Asian 0.9% 533/575
Managerial & professional 30.1% 349/575
Routine & Semi-routine 27.3% 147/575
Degree level 24.5% 503/573
No qualifications 20.7% 158/575
Students 4.1% 545/575
General Election 2024: Mid Norfolk
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative George Freeman 16,770 36.5 −27.9
Labour Michael Rosen 13,716 29.9 +7.0
Reform UK Kabeer Kher 9,427 20.5 N/A
Liberal Democrats Stuart Howard 3,126 6.8 −3.6
Green Ash Haynes 2,858 6.2 +5.9
C Majority 3,054 6.7 –34.8
Turnout 45,897 61.0 –8.1
Registered electors 75,238
Conservative hold
Swing 17.5 C to Lab
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
Boundary Changes
The new Mid Norfolk seat consists of
81.6% of Mid Norfolk
4.6% of South West Norfolk
0.6% of South West Norfolk
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/E_32_Mid%20Norfolk%20CC.pdf
2019 Notional Result (Rallings & Thrasher)
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. Before the 2023 boundary changes there were 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 11,000 in 2021), Watton (up to 11,500 from 7,500 in 2001) on the south-western edge, and Wymondham (16,000) 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 nearly 21,000 souls. All of these towns have grown in recent decades. However much of the electorate still 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, and currently George Freeman. 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%.
In the May 2021 Norfolk county elections, the Tories 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 has Mid Norfolk so consistently been Conservative? Its occupational class makeup is, if anything, skewed to the routine and semi routine occupations, the percentages of these in the 2021 census (27.3%) lying in the top quartile of all seats in England and Wales. However, its housing is still over 70% owner occupied, and the white population over 96%, even in 2021, after ten years in which these indicators both declined. It is just outside the top 60 in the list of seats in England and Wales as far as over 65s in age are concerned. 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 2019 general election its electorate had reached 81,795, which needed some trimming to fit the quota. The main change, as mentioned above, was 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.
Overall the new ‘Mid’ has around 10,000 fewer electors, and for '2019' a notional or majority a couple of thousand lower – Wymondham’s departure did not in itself weaken the Conservative grip, that is assuming it behaves in the same way in general as in local elections. As pretty much everywhere else, there was some movement away from the nationally governing party in the May 2023 council elections within the Mid Norfolk constituency. In Breckland, Labour gained both seats in Dereham Toftwood and one 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). On the other hand they did unseat a Green councillor who finished had finished top of the poll in Dereham Neatherd ward in 2019 while still sharing the representation of Saham Toney with the Greens, and losing Hermitage to the Liberal Democrats. In the smaller, South Norfolk council, section the Tories won no seats in the two Wymondham wards, which will be removed in the forthcoming boundary changes, but held both Hingham & Deopham and Wicklewood which will remain in the Mid Norfolk seat. Therefore there was minimal chance that this constituency would attract much attention in the 2024 general election - in which the Conservatives suffered a massive drop of 28% in their share but still held on by 3,000 votes - and indeed it is true that Mid Norfolk was almost the last seat to be taken up for coverage in the most recent version of the Vote UK Almanac.
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; and it will not be left to the end this time.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 25.9% 62/575
Owner-occupied 71.5% 139/575
Private rented 16.9% 340/575
Social rented 11.6% 447/575
White 96.8% 82/575
Black 0.7% 398/575
Asian 0.9% 533/575
Managerial & professional 30.1% 349/575
Routine & Semi-routine 27.3% 147/575
Degree level 24.5% 503/573
No qualifications 20.7% 158/575
Students 4.1% 545/575
General Election 2024: Mid Norfolk
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative George Freeman 16,770 36.5 −27.9
Labour Michael Rosen 13,716 29.9 +7.0
Reform UK Kabeer Kher 9,427 20.5 N/A
Liberal Democrats Stuart Howard 3,126 6.8 −3.6
Green Ash Haynes 2,858 6.2 +5.9
C Majority 3,054 6.7 –34.8
Turnout 45,897 61.0 –8.1
Registered electors 75,238
Conservative hold
Swing 17.5 C to Lab
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
Boundary Changes
The new Mid Norfolk seat consists of
81.6% of Mid Norfolk
4.6% of South West Norfolk
0.6% of South West Norfolk
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/E_32_Mid%20Norfolk%20CC.pdf
2019 Notional Result (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 31639 | 64.4% |
| Lab | 11251 | 22.9% |
| LD | 5127 | 10.4% |
| Ind | 939 | 1.9% |
| Grn | 154 | 0.3% |
| maj | 20388 | 41.5% |