Post by Robert Waller on Aug 18, 2023 19:46:37 GMT
Please do not confuse Tonbridge with Tunbridge Wells. The latter is the Kent spa town long reputed to be the home of retired blimpish colonels who have not forgotten the Raj, and send angry and definitely right-wing letters of complaint to the public prints. The former, Tonbridge, has in fact been an even safer Conservative constituency.
Paired since 1974 with Malling, Tonbridge gives its name to a constituency that in many ways represents the true-blue heart of south east England. The seat on present boundaries covers a swathe of inland Kent, on both banks of the river Medway, stretching from East and West Malling in its north east and Wrotham in the north through Tonbridge itself south-westwards to Edenbridge on the border with Surrey. The terrain is extensively wooded (such as Shipbourne Forest) and hilly (North Downs, such as Wrotham Hill, 235 metres). There are dozens of douce villages and oodles of oast houses, that distinctive symbol of rural Kent. There are hop fields and orchards; the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) is at East Malling, and 85% of all world apple production is based on Malling root stocks. There are also a collection of country houses of various periods, some fortified, such as Hever Castle, Penshurst Place, Chiddingstone Castle and Ightham Mote. This constituency is perhaps the best example of Kent as the Garden of England, and it has some of the stately gardens of England too.
Not surprisingly, Tonbridge & Malling is now one of the 25 safest Tory seats. In December 2019 Tom Tugendhat’s majority was over 26,000, his share nearly 63%. The extent of that lead was further assisted by the Liberal Democrats and Labour being closely matched for a very distant second place, with around 15% each. This is not a one party state though, if the local election results within the division are considered. In May 2023 the Tories lost control of Tonbridge & Malling council, their number of councillors being diminished by no fewer than 19. The gainers were the Liberal Democrats (net up two), the Greens (six), and Labour (two – in Snodland, not in this seat). The figures do not add up to zero as the council was all out in new ward boundaries, which reduced the total number of councillors.
It is not unusual in any area to find that the Liberal Democrats can take some wards at municipal level. In May 2023, they won Vauxhall ward in Tonbridge itself, situated due south of its station, all the seats in East Malling, West Malling & Offham, and Larkfield, which is north of East Malling and in Chatham & Aylesford constituency. In the Kent county council elections of May 2021 they also easily won the Malling Central division, which is divided 50% each between this seat and Chatham & Aylesford. But an interesting and less familiar challenge is provided by the Green Party.
Not only did the Greens established a foothold on the Tonbridge & Malling council in 2019 by winning Judd ward, in south-west Tonbridge (and sharing a name origin with Judd School, the alma mater of the late Almanac joint author Byron Criddle). In May 2021 they won both county council seats in the enormous unified Tonbridge division, which had no fewer than 27,673 electors, over a third of the entire constituency. Their two candidates received 6,346 and 5,424 votes adding to a very impressive share (top candidate) of 54%. In the December 2019 general election, the Green party saved their deposit with a respectable 4,090 votes (7.2%) – one of only 29 places where they obtained more than the necessary 5%. It could be argued that this ‘garden’ seat offers very fruitful soil for Greens to grow, though on the other hand it has to be pointed out that their strongest area is the town of Tonbridge. Not only did they win the county council election in 2021 and Judd ward in 2019, but they also gained Castle ward in the heart of Tonbridge in a local government byelection in December 2021. In 2023 they won Judd again, one of the two seats in Hildenborough ward, finished top in rural Bourne and Higham (just outside Tonbridge to its north east), and won all three in the new Cage Green & Angel (north Tonbridge)
Within Tonbridge, the Conservatives’ safest ward now appears, perhaps counter-intuitively, to be Trench on its northern outskirts – which is in effect the council estate ward (32% social rented in 2021) and clearly the most working class in the whole borough (28% routine and semi-routine jobs), with the earliest terminal education age (31% no qualifications 2011, high twenties 2021). The Tories won Trench in a December 2016 byelection and dug in further in the all out May 2019 contests, when the Greens did not even put up a candidate. It may be that they increase their share further to split the opposition to the sitting Conservative even more evenly, now three ways with Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In May 2023 their top candidate even came within 6 votes of ousting a Tory in trench (entrenched?). It will be interesting to see if the Greens can maintain their advance across the constituency as a whole when it comes to the electorate’s choice in the formation of a new national government, probably in 2024.
There are to be major boundary changes before then. The Commission has proposed moving around 22% of the seat at its eastern end to join Kent’s county town in a new Maidstone and Malling division. The rest will be named just Tonbridge (a very rare shortening), though it also takes some terrain from both Dartford and Sevenoaks constituencies. Being in the rural hinterland, these are among the more Conservative parts of those seats. From Dartford comes Hartley & Hodsoll Street, where the Tories beat the Greens by three to one on Sevenoaks council in May 2023. From Sevenoaks constituency Ash & New Ash Green is transferred. What happened there in 2023? The Greens gained the ward in a straight fight, returning all three councillors, with the top candidates’ shares breaking almost 2:1 Green to Tory.
There is little local evidence that the Liberal Democrats are likely to surge forward from their recapture of second place in the last general election for the first time since before the coalition, in 2010. The advance in December 2019, more than doubling their share, is likely to be the result if gaining votes among the ‘Remainers’ in Tonbridge & Malling, which were more numerous here (48%) than the Kent average. This is a relatively highly educated part of England, especially Tonbridge town, where the most recently released figures show that over 40% of the adult population have university degrees; but that may in fact be a stimulus to the very strong local election Green vote. As the European issue fades somewhat, whole environmental concerns are only likely to grow over the long term. In the boundary changes the wards removed are those where the Liberal Democrats have been relatively strong in local contests, while in those which are to arrive the Greens have clearly been the challengers in recent years. To an extent the Greens and LDs must be competing for the same voters in the next general election, which will make the result interesting, but would seem to make even a much less popular Conservative party safer from defeat at that level.
Tonbridge is well known for its educational establishments - not universities as in Canterbury, which undoubtedly play a role in that being the only one of Kent’s eighteen seats whose parliamentary representation is currently in the kinds of the Labour party – but secondary schools. An even better known establishment than the voluntary aided grammar, Judd School, is the independent Tonbridge School (boys only, rare now, no plans for turning co-ed, even rarer). There are indeed many famous Old Tonbridgians, from Aleister Crowley to Anthony Seldon:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Tonbridgians
However, one field in which the school has been quite exceptional has been in producing cricketers, from the Cowdrey clan to Zak Crawley in the recent dynamic England team (and even the Test Match Special scorer and News Quiz host Andy Zaltzmann). The progress of the Green Party in the Tonbridge constituency will be well worth watching, and notching, but the likelihood is that the Conservatives will continue to win the parliamentary contest here by the equivalent of an innings and several hundred runs.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 21.5% 187/575
Owner occupied 71.9% 128/575
Private rented 13.5% 504/575
Social rented 14.5% 309/575
White 93.3% 232/575
Black 0.7% 368/575
Asian 3.1% 334/575
Managerial & professional 40.3% 104/575
Routine & Semi-routine 18.2% 460/575
Degree level 35.3% 198/575
No qualifications 15.1% 420/575
Students 5.3% 331/575
General Election 2019: Tonbridge and Malling
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Tom Tugendhat 35,784 62.8 −0.8
Liberal Democrats Richard Morris 8,843 15.5 +8.8
Labour Dylan Jones 8,286 14.5 −7.8
Green April Clark 4,090 7.2 +3.1
C Majority 26,941 47.3 +6.0
2019 electorate 77,380
Turnout 57,003 73.7 0.0
Conservative hold
Swing 4.8 C to LD
Boundary changes
The new Tonbridge will consist of
79.9% of Tonbridge & Malling
5.9% of Dartford
6.4% of Sevenoaks
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_365_Tonbridge_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
Paired since 1974 with Malling, Tonbridge gives its name to a constituency that in many ways represents the true-blue heart of south east England. The seat on present boundaries covers a swathe of inland Kent, on both banks of the river Medway, stretching from East and West Malling in its north east and Wrotham in the north through Tonbridge itself south-westwards to Edenbridge on the border with Surrey. The terrain is extensively wooded (such as Shipbourne Forest) and hilly (North Downs, such as Wrotham Hill, 235 metres). There are dozens of douce villages and oodles of oast houses, that distinctive symbol of rural Kent. There are hop fields and orchards; the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) is at East Malling, and 85% of all world apple production is based on Malling root stocks. There are also a collection of country houses of various periods, some fortified, such as Hever Castle, Penshurst Place, Chiddingstone Castle and Ightham Mote. This constituency is perhaps the best example of Kent as the Garden of England, and it has some of the stately gardens of England too.
Not surprisingly, Tonbridge & Malling is now one of the 25 safest Tory seats. In December 2019 Tom Tugendhat’s majority was over 26,000, his share nearly 63%. The extent of that lead was further assisted by the Liberal Democrats and Labour being closely matched for a very distant second place, with around 15% each. This is not a one party state though, if the local election results within the division are considered. In May 2023 the Tories lost control of Tonbridge & Malling council, their number of councillors being diminished by no fewer than 19. The gainers were the Liberal Democrats (net up two), the Greens (six), and Labour (two – in Snodland, not in this seat). The figures do not add up to zero as the council was all out in new ward boundaries, which reduced the total number of councillors.
It is not unusual in any area to find that the Liberal Democrats can take some wards at municipal level. In May 2023, they won Vauxhall ward in Tonbridge itself, situated due south of its station, all the seats in East Malling, West Malling & Offham, and Larkfield, which is north of East Malling and in Chatham & Aylesford constituency. In the Kent county council elections of May 2021 they also easily won the Malling Central division, which is divided 50% each between this seat and Chatham & Aylesford. But an interesting and less familiar challenge is provided by the Green Party.
Not only did the Greens established a foothold on the Tonbridge & Malling council in 2019 by winning Judd ward, in south-west Tonbridge (and sharing a name origin with Judd School, the alma mater of the late Almanac joint author Byron Criddle). In May 2021 they won both county council seats in the enormous unified Tonbridge division, which had no fewer than 27,673 electors, over a third of the entire constituency. Their two candidates received 6,346 and 5,424 votes adding to a very impressive share (top candidate) of 54%. In the December 2019 general election, the Green party saved their deposit with a respectable 4,090 votes (7.2%) – one of only 29 places where they obtained more than the necessary 5%. It could be argued that this ‘garden’ seat offers very fruitful soil for Greens to grow, though on the other hand it has to be pointed out that their strongest area is the town of Tonbridge. Not only did they win the county council election in 2021 and Judd ward in 2019, but they also gained Castle ward in the heart of Tonbridge in a local government byelection in December 2021. In 2023 they won Judd again, one of the two seats in Hildenborough ward, finished top in rural Bourne and Higham (just outside Tonbridge to its north east), and won all three in the new Cage Green & Angel (north Tonbridge)
Within Tonbridge, the Conservatives’ safest ward now appears, perhaps counter-intuitively, to be Trench on its northern outskirts – which is in effect the council estate ward (32% social rented in 2021) and clearly the most working class in the whole borough (28% routine and semi-routine jobs), with the earliest terminal education age (31% no qualifications 2011, high twenties 2021). The Tories won Trench in a December 2016 byelection and dug in further in the all out May 2019 contests, when the Greens did not even put up a candidate. It may be that they increase their share further to split the opposition to the sitting Conservative even more evenly, now three ways with Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In May 2023 their top candidate even came within 6 votes of ousting a Tory in trench (entrenched?). It will be interesting to see if the Greens can maintain their advance across the constituency as a whole when it comes to the electorate’s choice in the formation of a new national government, probably in 2024.
There are to be major boundary changes before then. The Commission has proposed moving around 22% of the seat at its eastern end to join Kent’s county town in a new Maidstone and Malling division. The rest will be named just Tonbridge (a very rare shortening), though it also takes some terrain from both Dartford and Sevenoaks constituencies. Being in the rural hinterland, these are among the more Conservative parts of those seats. From Dartford comes Hartley & Hodsoll Street, where the Tories beat the Greens by three to one on Sevenoaks council in May 2023. From Sevenoaks constituency Ash & New Ash Green is transferred. What happened there in 2023? The Greens gained the ward in a straight fight, returning all three councillors, with the top candidates’ shares breaking almost 2:1 Green to Tory.
There is little local evidence that the Liberal Democrats are likely to surge forward from their recapture of second place in the last general election for the first time since before the coalition, in 2010. The advance in December 2019, more than doubling their share, is likely to be the result if gaining votes among the ‘Remainers’ in Tonbridge & Malling, which were more numerous here (48%) than the Kent average. This is a relatively highly educated part of England, especially Tonbridge town, where the most recently released figures show that over 40% of the adult population have university degrees; but that may in fact be a stimulus to the very strong local election Green vote. As the European issue fades somewhat, whole environmental concerns are only likely to grow over the long term. In the boundary changes the wards removed are those where the Liberal Democrats have been relatively strong in local contests, while in those which are to arrive the Greens have clearly been the challengers in recent years. To an extent the Greens and LDs must be competing for the same voters in the next general election, which will make the result interesting, but would seem to make even a much less popular Conservative party safer from defeat at that level.
Tonbridge is well known for its educational establishments - not universities as in Canterbury, which undoubtedly play a role in that being the only one of Kent’s eighteen seats whose parliamentary representation is currently in the kinds of the Labour party – but secondary schools. An even better known establishment than the voluntary aided grammar, Judd School, is the independent Tonbridge School (boys only, rare now, no plans for turning co-ed, even rarer). There are indeed many famous Old Tonbridgians, from Aleister Crowley to Anthony Seldon:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Tonbridgians
However, one field in which the school has been quite exceptional has been in producing cricketers, from the Cowdrey clan to Zak Crawley in the recent dynamic England team (and even the Test Match Special scorer and News Quiz host Andy Zaltzmann). The progress of the Green Party in the Tonbridge constituency will be well worth watching, and notching, but the likelihood is that the Conservatives will continue to win the parliamentary contest here by the equivalent of an innings and several hundred runs.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 21.5% 187/575
Owner occupied 71.9% 128/575
Private rented 13.5% 504/575
Social rented 14.5% 309/575
White 93.3% 232/575
Black 0.7% 368/575
Asian 3.1% 334/575
Managerial & professional 40.3% 104/575
Routine & Semi-routine 18.2% 460/575
Degree level 35.3% 198/575
No qualifications 15.1% 420/575
Students 5.3% 331/575
General Election 2019: Tonbridge and Malling
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Tom Tugendhat 35,784 62.8 −0.8
Liberal Democrats Richard Morris 8,843 15.5 +8.8
Labour Dylan Jones 8,286 14.5 −7.8
Green April Clark 4,090 7.2 +3.1
C Majority 26,941 47.3 +6.0
2019 electorate 77,380
Turnout 57,003 73.7 0.0
Conservative hold
Swing 4.8 C to LD
Boundary changes
The new Tonbridge will consist of
79.9% of Tonbridge & Malling
5.9% of Dartford
6.4% of Sevenoaks
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_365_Tonbridge_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 35262 | 64.8% |
| Lab | 8210 | 15.1% |
| LD | 6690 | 12.3% |
| Green | 4288 | 7.9% |
| | ||
| Majority | 27052 | 49.7% |
