Post by Robert Waller on Aug 16, 2023 13:52:27 GMT
The ’Medway towns’ in Kent, like other places in that county such as Gravesend and Dover, have a justified reputation as being the sites of key marginal battles that reflect, and help to influence, the outcome of UK general elections. Rochester and Strood is very similar to the Medway seat that existed between 1983 and 2010, and that in turn was the lineal successor of Rochester & Chatham, itself created in 1950. Between them, these constituencies changed hands in 1959, 1964, 1970, October 1974, 1979, 1997 and 2010 – usually at the same time as a change of government. Throw in a remarkable byelection in 2014, prescient in some ways but not in others, and Rochester & Strood can be said to have had a fascinating pedigree as an entertaining and key player in parliamentary history.
Rochester & Strood sits mainly along the north bank of the Medway as it approaches the North Sea, and covers the low lying land between it and the estuary of an even more important river, the Thames, though it does encompass both Medway banks in a key section as it passes through Rochester and Chatham. The largest community in this seat, Rochester, cannot be accused of a lack of history. Indeed it was officially designated as a city until 1998, when the unitary authority of Medway was formed; it can plausibly be argued that its heritage justifies that it should still be regarded as a city now: it has significant medieval connections, and its cathedral denotes an episcopal see second only to its Kent neighbour Canterbury in antiquity, founded by Augustine in 604. Rochester’s mighty castle dating back to the 11th century looms over the river, dominating the Medway’s lowest bridge crossing. The town/city centre is also full of references to that world renowned English icon Charles Dickens (although he was neither born nor grew up here; his country home from 1857 till his death in 1870 being at Gad’s Hill Place, Higham, which is in just over the local authority border in Gravesham rather than this constituency).
Rochester is otherwise less distinguished and attractive, and in its East ward was Labour’s stronghold within the seat, outpolling the Conservatives by more than two to one in the municipal elections in May 2019. By the time of the most recent municipal elections in May 2023, Medway had been re-warded, but Labour still won the new Rochester East & Warren Wood, again with over twice the number of Tory votes. Rochester West & Borstal is likely to be a marginal ward but Labour took all three council seats in 2023. The Conservatives, however took the Fort Horsted ward at the south end of Rochester. Therefore overall Rochester is a microcosm of marginality within the wider electoral picture.
Strood, not to be confused with Stroud in Gloucestershire, is on the north bank of the Medway opposite Rochester, extending west to the M2. Strood North and South were both wards where election results tend to be close. In Strood North in 2019 Labour and Conservatives took one seat each; in South the Tories won all three, but their lowest vote was only 19 higher than Labour’s best. However n 2023 Labour took all the council seats in the town of Strood: three each in Strood North & Frindsbury and Strood West. A tour of wards within the seat does not end here, though.
Strood Rural includes a section reaching north to the bank of the Thames, including Cliffe, but most of the land between the Medway and the Thames is in the Hoo St Werburgh &High Halstow and All Saints wards. This section stretches from Hoo St Werburgh all the way to the Isle of Grain, long known for an oil refinery and still housing a power station and the Thamesport container terminal. The scenery is dramatic rather than picturesque. One can easily imagine the Dickensian menace of the marshes and of murderous figures like Magwitch. Also on the Hoo peninsula is the thoroughly odd caravan park holiday resort of Allhallows by Sea; an attempt to visit this by Google street view will reveal how strange it is. Strood Rural ward was solidly Conservative even in 2023, but the other ‘peninsula’ wards, perhaps unsurprisingly, went their own way: five Independents were elected but no party representatives. Two UKIP candidates had been elected here in 2015, in circumstances which bear further discussion below.
Two final areas complete the Rochester & Strood constituency as it is drawn at present, and both, like the two on the Hoo peninsula, further strengthen the Conservative position. Cuxton, Halling & Riverside is set on the north bank of the Medway west of the M2 crossing The Conservatives have always won this area in local elections, but a Green came within 44 votes of the second Tory in 2023. Finally, the former River ward ran along the south bank of the Medway from the bridge at Rochester Castle all the way into Chatham, taking in Brompton and even a goodly portion of the historic Chatham dockyard, one of the great centres of the Royal Navy. In fact, so much of Chatham town centre was in River ward that a claim that the constituency under discussion is the successor to the classic Rochester & Chatham marginal may be sustained (as well as making the naming of the Chatham & Aylesford seat slightly misleading). River also included the extensive new housing developments in the old dockland area at St Mary’s Island, which meant that its electorate was too large and it was divided in the ward restructuring: in 2023 River was divided into two. Labour won the Chatham Central & Brompton successor but the Conservative took St Mary’s Island, winning in new ‘docklands’ housing developments as they have in the East End of London.
Rochester & Strood had an electorate of 82,056 in December 2019 and needed to lose a ward in the most recent boundary review. The Commission were still operating with the former wards, which means there will now be wards split between parliamentary constituencies in the Medway area.
Old and new Medway wards
www.medwayelects.co.uk/?page=wards#currentwards
It might be thought that the River ward would have been be a candidate for transfer, but in fact the one moved is not the ward which is mainly Chatham, but one that has Rochester in its name. Rochester South & Horsted’s departure to Chatham & Aylesford will slightly weaken the Tory lead in the donating constituency as well as making the nomenclature even more peculiar, so that the Chatham seat will contain part of Rochester and the Rochester seat part of Chatham. In its final contest before the re-warding, in 2019, Rochester South & Horsted, further from the river and the town centre, and 80% owner occupied, mirrored East in the sense that here the Tories took twice the share that Labour did. But any damage can almost certainly be absorbed, as in 2019 Kelly Tolhurst had a majority of over 17,000. This is a relief for her, as she actually lost in her first attempt to be elected here. That was because the Conservative MP elected in 2010, Mark Reckless, rather lived up to his name by not only becoming the second parliamentary defector to UKIP after Douglas Carswell, but bravely putting himself forward for re-election in a byelection in November 2014. He defeated Kelly Tolhurst and eleven other candidates, including a Labour campaign most noted for a tweet by Emily Thornberry that appeared to mock the popular culture of the constituency.
Reckless lost in 2015 but Rochester & Strood will forever be known for its place in Brexit history, as David Cameron was pushed by the UKIP electoral threat into promising a referendum on EU membership. The seat’s vote in 2016 were not at the extreme end of those for departure, but were more than average: Leave 63.7%. The explanation for why Rochester & Strood can no longer be considered a bellwether seat is reinforced by its demographics. Overall it is in fact slightly more working class than average and distinctly with fewer educated to degree level, but these are now variables that do not hurt the Conservative chances as much as they did: 2019 was the first general election since such analysis began when the Tories did as well among working class as middle class voters in England. This remarkable change may be reversed somewhat if and when the European issue fades as a key cleavage in British politics.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 16.1% 409/575
Owner occupied 66.7% 270/575
Private rented 18.4% 221/575
Social rented 14.9% 293/575
White 85.8% 347/575
Black 5.1% 136/575
Asian 5.1% 263/575
Managerial & professional 31.0% 328/575
Routine & Semi-routine 24.3% 266/575
Degree level 26.9% 435/575
Level 2 qualifications 15.8% 31/575
No qualifications 18.7% 237/575
Students 6.0% 240/575
General Election 2019: Rochester and Strood
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Kelly Tolhurst 31,151 60.0 +5.7
Labour Teresa Murray 14,079 27.1 –8.9
Liberal Democrats Graham Colley 3,717 7.2 +5.0
Green Sonia Hyner 1,312 2.5 +1.0
UKIP Roy Freshwater 1,080 2.1 –3.3
Independent Chris Spalding 587 1.1 New
C Majority 17,072 32.9 +14.6
2019 electorate 82,056
Turnout 51,926 63.3 –1.8
Conservative hold
Swing 7.3 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The new seat will consist of
87.5% of the existing Rochester and Strood
The other 12.5% is transferred to Chatham and Aylesford
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_354_Rochester%20and%20Strood_Landscape.pdf
Notional Result 2019
Rochester & Strood sits mainly along the north bank of the Medway as it approaches the North Sea, and covers the low lying land between it and the estuary of an even more important river, the Thames, though it does encompass both Medway banks in a key section as it passes through Rochester and Chatham. The largest community in this seat, Rochester, cannot be accused of a lack of history. Indeed it was officially designated as a city until 1998, when the unitary authority of Medway was formed; it can plausibly be argued that its heritage justifies that it should still be regarded as a city now: it has significant medieval connections, and its cathedral denotes an episcopal see second only to its Kent neighbour Canterbury in antiquity, founded by Augustine in 604. Rochester’s mighty castle dating back to the 11th century looms over the river, dominating the Medway’s lowest bridge crossing. The town/city centre is also full of references to that world renowned English icon Charles Dickens (although he was neither born nor grew up here; his country home from 1857 till his death in 1870 being at Gad’s Hill Place, Higham, which is in just over the local authority border in Gravesham rather than this constituency).
Rochester is otherwise less distinguished and attractive, and in its East ward was Labour’s stronghold within the seat, outpolling the Conservatives by more than two to one in the municipal elections in May 2019. By the time of the most recent municipal elections in May 2023, Medway had been re-warded, but Labour still won the new Rochester East & Warren Wood, again with over twice the number of Tory votes. Rochester West & Borstal is likely to be a marginal ward but Labour took all three council seats in 2023. The Conservatives, however took the Fort Horsted ward at the south end of Rochester. Therefore overall Rochester is a microcosm of marginality within the wider electoral picture.
Strood, not to be confused with Stroud in Gloucestershire, is on the north bank of the Medway opposite Rochester, extending west to the M2. Strood North and South were both wards where election results tend to be close. In Strood North in 2019 Labour and Conservatives took one seat each; in South the Tories won all three, but their lowest vote was only 19 higher than Labour’s best. However n 2023 Labour took all the council seats in the town of Strood: three each in Strood North & Frindsbury and Strood West. A tour of wards within the seat does not end here, though.
Strood Rural includes a section reaching north to the bank of the Thames, including Cliffe, but most of the land between the Medway and the Thames is in the Hoo St Werburgh &High Halstow and All Saints wards. This section stretches from Hoo St Werburgh all the way to the Isle of Grain, long known for an oil refinery and still housing a power station and the Thamesport container terminal. The scenery is dramatic rather than picturesque. One can easily imagine the Dickensian menace of the marshes and of murderous figures like Magwitch. Also on the Hoo peninsula is the thoroughly odd caravan park holiday resort of Allhallows by Sea; an attempt to visit this by Google street view will reveal how strange it is. Strood Rural ward was solidly Conservative even in 2023, but the other ‘peninsula’ wards, perhaps unsurprisingly, went their own way: five Independents were elected but no party representatives. Two UKIP candidates had been elected here in 2015, in circumstances which bear further discussion below.
Two final areas complete the Rochester & Strood constituency as it is drawn at present, and both, like the two on the Hoo peninsula, further strengthen the Conservative position. Cuxton, Halling & Riverside is set on the north bank of the Medway west of the M2 crossing The Conservatives have always won this area in local elections, but a Green came within 44 votes of the second Tory in 2023. Finally, the former River ward ran along the south bank of the Medway from the bridge at Rochester Castle all the way into Chatham, taking in Brompton and even a goodly portion of the historic Chatham dockyard, one of the great centres of the Royal Navy. In fact, so much of Chatham town centre was in River ward that a claim that the constituency under discussion is the successor to the classic Rochester & Chatham marginal may be sustained (as well as making the naming of the Chatham & Aylesford seat slightly misleading). River also included the extensive new housing developments in the old dockland area at St Mary’s Island, which meant that its electorate was too large and it was divided in the ward restructuring: in 2023 River was divided into two. Labour won the Chatham Central & Brompton successor but the Conservative took St Mary’s Island, winning in new ‘docklands’ housing developments as they have in the East End of London.
Rochester & Strood had an electorate of 82,056 in December 2019 and needed to lose a ward in the most recent boundary review. The Commission were still operating with the former wards, which means there will now be wards split between parliamentary constituencies in the Medway area.
Old and new Medway wards
www.medwayelects.co.uk/?page=wards#currentwards
It might be thought that the River ward would have been be a candidate for transfer, but in fact the one moved is not the ward which is mainly Chatham, but one that has Rochester in its name. Rochester South & Horsted’s departure to Chatham & Aylesford will slightly weaken the Tory lead in the donating constituency as well as making the nomenclature even more peculiar, so that the Chatham seat will contain part of Rochester and the Rochester seat part of Chatham. In its final contest before the re-warding, in 2019, Rochester South & Horsted, further from the river and the town centre, and 80% owner occupied, mirrored East in the sense that here the Tories took twice the share that Labour did. But any damage can almost certainly be absorbed, as in 2019 Kelly Tolhurst had a majority of over 17,000. This is a relief for her, as she actually lost in her first attempt to be elected here. That was because the Conservative MP elected in 2010, Mark Reckless, rather lived up to his name by not only becoming the second parliamentary defector to UKIP after Douglas Carswell, but bravely putting himself forward for re-election in a byelection in November 2014. He defeated Kelly Tolhurst and eleven other candidates, including a Labour campaign most noted for a tweet by Emily Thornberry that appeared to mock the popular culture of the constituency.
Reckless lost in 2015 but Rochester & Strood will forever be known for its place in Brexit history, as David Cameron was pushed by the UKIP electoral threat into promising a referendum on EU membership. The seat’s vote in 2016 were not at the extreme end of those for departure, but were more than average: Leave 63.7%. The explanation for why Rochester & Strood can no longer be considered a bellwether seat is reinforced by its demographics. Overall it is in fact slightly more working class than average and distinctly with fewer educated to degree level, but these are now variables that do not hurt the Conservative chances as much as they did: 2019 was the first general election since such analysis began when the Tories did as well among working class as middle class voters in England. This remarkable change may be reversed somewhat if and when the European issue fades as a key cleavage in British politics.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 16.1% 409/575
Owner occupied 66.7% 270/575
Private rented 18.4% 221/575
Social rented 14.9% 293/575
White 85.8% 347/575
Black 5.1% 136/575
Asian 5.1% 263/575
Managerial & professional 31.0% 328/575
Routine & Semi-routine 24.3% 266/575
Degree level 26.9% 435/575
Level 2 qualifications 15.8% 31/575
No qualifications 18.7% 237/575
Students 6.0% 240/575
General Election 2019: Rochester and Strood
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Kelly Tolhurst 31,151 60.0 +5.7
Labour Teresa Murray 14,079 27.1 –8.9
Liberal Democrats Graham Colley 3,717 7.2 +5.0
Green Sonia Hyner 1,312 2.5 +1.0
UKIP Roy Freshwater 1,080 2.1 –3.3
Independent Chris Spalding 587 1.1 New
C Majority 17,072 32.9 +14.6
2019 electorate 82,056
Turnout 51,926 63.3 –1.8
Conservative hold
Swing 7.3 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The new seat will consist of
87.5% of the existing Rochester and Strood
The other 12.5% is transferred to Chatham and Aylesford
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_354_Rochester%20and%20Strood_Landscape.pdf
Notional Result 2019
| Con | 26098 | 58.5% |
| Lab | 12545 | 28.1% |
| LD | 3170 | 7.1% |
| Grn | 1155 | 2.6% |
| Oths | 1667 | 3.7% |
| Majority | 13553 | 30.4% |