Post by Robert Waller on Aug 30, 2023 22:11:36 GMT
The first thing that this constituency is noted for is that it is the seat that in the last thirty years has most often delivered the quickest result in general elections. From 1997 to 2015 inclusive, those psephological addicts eagerly awaiting their fix of actual figures, rather than mere polls and exit polls, have watched teams of local sixth formers running with ballot boxes to accelerate the count and rush the process to a speedy conclusion. Sunderland council was clearly putting in a special effort to gain the focus of national attention at a time of democratic performance. That they could so consistently achieve their aim in the Houghton & South division also depended on its result being a foregone conclusion. This was not in any way considered a marginal that might need such a delaying procedure as a recount. In 2017 and 2019, however, Houghton & Sunderland South was beaten to the declaration by its rival Newcastle Central – not only a seat with a smaller electorate, but in the latter case with a much less close result. For the first time, this speedster of a seat almost looked politically competitive.
Houghton and Sunderland South is something of a hybrid. One if its predecessor seats, Houghton-le-Spring, very much belonged to the County Durham coalfield. Under varying boundaries it had existed from 1885 to 1983; it had elected Conservatives in their landslide years of 1886 and 1931, but otherwise followed the pattern of coal mining divisions by supporting the Liberal Party before 1918, and Labour thereafter. In 1974, though, unlike most of the Durham coalfield, the communities of Houghton-le-Spring itself, Hetton-le-Hole, Shiney Row and a number of industrial villages were constituted as four wards of Sunderland Metropolitan Borough council and also the new metro county of Tyne and Wear; this despite there being a distinctly old-fashioned and non ‘metropolitan’ feeling and culture.
Between 1983 and 2010 the four wards were paired with another non-Sunderland area that had been gobbled up, Washington New Town. However in the four general elections since 2010 the old coalfield wards’ partners have been three wards of Sunderland proper - St Chad’s, Sandhill and Silksworth, all in the city’s outer south-western quadrant and largely working class with a high proportion of social rented housing – and one rather anomalous ward, Doxford, which consists of large developments of peripheral and mainly private estates such as Beckwith Green, which is still growing. This is, therefore, a rather artificial constituency. It did until recently have one unifying characteristic, which was loyalty to the Labour party.
From 1973 until 2016, for example, the following wards elected no other party to the Sunderland city council: Shiney Row and Hetton from the coalfield, and Silksworth and Sandhill from Sunderland itself. Doxford elected a Conservative, just once, in 2008, and Houghton only in 1975. Copt Hill only strayed on occasion to Independent candidates. St Chad’s did pick the Conservatives five times within this span of years, but Labour on 28 occasions. However, since 2016 the picture has been much more complex. In May 2021, for example, the Liberal Democrats gained Doxford and Sandhill (which includes the Thorney Close estate) and the Tories took St Chad’s again. Labour held Silksworth, a ward they have never lost, by only 47 votes from the Conservative.
Labour held on more convincingly in the ‘Houghton’ element of the seat, but their overall weakening reflects the fact that in the December 2019 general election Bridget Phillipson had only had a majority of 3,115 after an 18.8% drop in her share of the vote since the contest two and a half years previously. This was of course strongly connected with another of Sunderland’s notable early declarations, on ‘Brexit night’. The size of the borough’s rejection of the EU, by 61% to 39%, had really been the first indication that the nation was not going to behave as the elites and all the main party leaderships wanted and expected. According to the Sunderland Chronicle Live, the world took fright
www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/how-world-reacted-sunderland-voted-17654528
In 2019 the Brexit party’s share of 15.5% showed where most of those Labour defections went.
That Labour’s discomfiture in these parts was not just a matter of ‘getting Brexit done’ was shown by those May 2021 council results. However in 2022 and 2023 there was some recovery, although the Liberal Democrats won Doxford and Sandhill again, twice, as did the Tories St Chad’s. These are still both alarming signs of the erosion of the party’s traditional support, as both the last named wards are strongly influenced by peripheral council estates; the Thorney Close MSOA in Sandhill still had 52% social rented housing in the 2021 census, and Farrington MSOA in St Chad’s 45%. Labour are faring better in the ex-mining communities, though, such as Hougton-le-Spring, where they beat the Conservatives by over four to one in 2023. The ‘le’, as in prominent place names in County Durham, means ‘in the’. Perhaps Labour are therefore not totally in the ‘hole’, as it were, at present.
Given the national opinion polls and the party leader’s painfully obvious attempts to appeal to traditional voters, an increased majority in Houghton and Sunderland South is likely at the next general election. This should be assisted a little by the modest boundary changes. As this seat had an electorate of only 68,835 at the time of the 2019 election, it needs to be expanded in the present review. The Commission has settled on adding one ward from Washington & Sunderland West. St Anne’s is south of the Wear, and is centred on South Hylton (older redbrick terraces backed with alleys, as seen in many Durham ex-mining villages) and Pennywell, divided between another giant post-war council scheme and owner occupied semis. It was won by Labour in 2022 and 2023, though in 2019 UKIP had been the victors and in 2021 the Conservatives, so it has not exactly been solid territory in recent times. However, overall the boundary review will not significantly alter the relative strengths of the parties in Houghton & Sunderland South.
What it might do is lead to a restoration of this seat’s record as the quickest to declare, if Sunderland council are keen to reclaim that particular honour. Newcastle Central’s boundary changes are much more extensive and the seat’s electorate has needed to be increased by around ten thousand more than that of Houghton and Sunderland South has. Even if it is not actually the first, the result here will be of great interest. This is the seat among the current 650 in which the highest proportion of residents were born in England, nearly 97% (and almost the fewest born in EU countries). Has Labour managed to reverse the slide, associated with the European issue but actually caused by the alienation of their traditional supporters, whether in the towns of the former Durham coalfield or the working class wards towards the edge of Wearside’s city? Only if they can both do this and retain the better- (or at least longer-) educated, the professional and white collar workers, and the range of identity groups they have appealed to in recent decades, will they have a good chance of coming to power again in 2024, nearly twenty years after they last won a general election.
[
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 20.7% 218/575
Owner occupied 60.2% 395/575
Private rented 11.7% 560/575
Social rented 28.1% 39/575
White 97.5% 36/575
Black 0.5% 455/575
Asian 0.9% 531/575
Managerial & professional 24.2% 501/575
Routine & Semi-routine 29.9% 85/575
Degree level 23.4% 528/575
No qualifications 23.1% 71/575
Students 5.1% 378/575
General Election 2019: Houghton and Sunderland South
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Bridget Phillipson 16,210 40.7 -18.8
Conservative Christopher Howarth 13,095 32.9 +3.2
Brexit Party Kevin Yuill 6,165 15.5 New
Liberal Democrats Paul Edgeworth 2,319 5.8 +3.6
Green Richard Bradley 1,125 2.8 +1.0
UKIP Richard Elvin 897 2.3 -3.4
Lab Majority 3,115 7.8 -22.0
2019 electorate 68,835
Turnout 39,811 57.8 -3.1
Labour hold
Swings
11.0 Lab to C
17.1 Lab to Brexit Party
Boundary Changes
The new Houghton & Sunderland South will consist of
100% of Houghton & Sunderland South
11.9% of Washington & Sunderland West
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-east/North%20East_194_Houghton%20and%20Sunderland%20South_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
Houghton and Sunderland South is something of a hybrid. One if its predecessor seats, Houghton-le-Spring, very much belonged to the County Durham coalfield. Under varying boundaries it had existed from 1885 to 1983; it had elected Conservatives in their landslide years of 1886 and 1931, but otherwise followed the pattern of coal mining divisions by supporting the Liberal Party before 1918, and Labour thereafter. In 1974, though, unlike most of the Durham coalfield, the communities of Houghton-le-Spring itself, Hetton-le-Hole, Shiney Row and a number of industrial villages were constituted as four wards of Sunderland Metropolitan Borough council and also the new metro county of Tyne and Wear; this despite there being a distinctly old-fashioned and non ‘metropolitan’ feeling and culture.
Between 1983 and 2010 the four wards were paired with another non-Sunderland area that had been gobbled up, Washington New Town. However in the four general elections since 2010 the old coalfield wards’ partners have been three wards of Sunderland proper - St Chad’s, Sandhill and Silksworth, all in the city’s outer south-western quadrant and largely working class with a high proportion of social rented housing – and one rather anomalous ward, Doxford, which consists of large developments of peripheral and mainly private estates such as Beckwith Green, which is still growing. This is, therefore, a rather artificial constituency. It did until recently have one unifying characteristic, which was loyalty to the Labour party.
From 1973 until 2016, for example, the following wards elected no other party to the Sunderland city council: Shiney Row and Hetton from the coalfield, and Silksworth and Sandhill from Sunderland itself. Doxford elected a Conservative, just once, in 2008, and Houghton only in 1975. Copt Hill only strayed on occasion to Independent candidates. St Chad’s did pick the Conservatives five times within this span of years, but Labour on 28 occasions. However, since 2016 the picture has been much more complex. In May 2021, for example, the Liberal Democrats gained Doxford and Sandhill (which includes the Thorney Close estate) and the Tories took St Chad’s again. Labour held Silksworth, a ward they have never lost, by only 47 votes from the Conservative.
Labour held on more convincingly in the ‘Houghton’ element of the seat, but their overall weakening reflects the fact that in the December 2019 general election Bridget Phillipson had only had a majority of 3,115 after an 18.8% drop in her share of the vote since the contest two and a half years previously. This was of course strongly connected with another of Sunderland’s notable early declarations, on ‘Brexit night’. The size of the borough’s rejection of the EU, by 61% to 39%, had really been the first indication that the nation was not going to behave as the elites and all the main party leaderships wanted and expected. According to the Sunderland Chronicle Live, the world took fright
www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/how-world-reacted-sunderland-voted-17654528
In 2019 the Brexit party’s share of 15.5% showed where most of those Labour defections went.
That Labour’s discomfiture in these parts was not just a matter of ‘getting Brexit done’ was shown by those May 2021 council results. However in 2022 and 2023 there was some recovery, although the Liberal Democrats won Doxford and Sandhill again, twice, as did the Tories St Chad’s. These are still both alarming signs of the erosion of the party’s traditional support, as both the last named wards are strongly influenced by peripheral council estates; the Thorney Close MSOA in Sandhill still had 52% social rented housing in the 2021 census, and Farrington MSOA in St Chad’s 45%. Labour are faring better in the ex-mining communities, though, such as Hougton-le-Spring, where they beat the Conservatives by over four to one in 2023. The ‘le’, as in prominent place names in County Durham, means ‘in the’. Perhaps Labour are therefore not totally in the ‘hole’, as it were, at present.
Given the national opinion polls and the party leader’s painfully obvious attempts to appeal to traditional voters, an increased majority in Houghton and Sunderland South is likely at the next general election. This should be assisted a little by the modest boundary changes. As this seat had an electorate of only 68,835 at the time of the 2019 election, it needs to be expanded in the present review. The Commission has settled on adding one ward from Washington & Sunderland West. St Anne’s is south of the Wear, and is centred on South Hylton (older redbrick terraces backed with alleys, as seen in many Durham ex-mining villages) and Pennywell, divided between another giant post-war council scheme and owner occupied semis. It was won by Labour in 2022 and 2023, though in 2019 UKIP had been the victors and in 2021 the Conservatives, so it has not exactly been solid territory in recent times. However, overall the boundary review will not significantly alter the relative strengths of the parties in Houghton & Sunderland South.
What it might do is lead to a restoration of this seat’s record as the quickest to declare, if Sunderland council are keen to reclaim that particular honour. Newcastle Central’s boundary changes are much more extensive and the seat’s electorate has needed to be increased by around ten thousand more than that of Houghton and Sunderland South has. Even if it is not actually the first, the result here will be of great interest. This is the seat among the current 650 in which the highest proportion of residents were born in England, nearly 97% (and almost the fewest born in EU countries). Has Labour managed to reverse the slide, associated with the European issue but actually caused by the alienation of their traditional supporters, whether in the towns of the former Durham coalfield or the working class wards towards the edge of Wearside’s city? Only if they can both do this and retain the better- (or at least longer-) educated, the professional and white collar workers, and the range of identity groups they have appealed to in recent decades, will they have a good chance of coming to power again in 2024, nearly twenty years after they last won a general election.
[
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 20.7% 218/575
Owner occupied 60.2% 395/575
Private rented 11.7% 560/575
Social rented 28.1% 39/575
White 97.5% 36/575
Black 0.5% 455/575
Asian 0.9% 531/575
Managerial & professional 24.2% 501/575
Routine & Semi-routine 29.9% 85/575
Degree level 23.4% 528/575
No qualifications 23.1% 71/575
Students 5.1% 378/575
General Election 2019: Houghton and Sunderland South
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Bridget Phillipson 16,210 40.7 -18.8
Conservative Christopher Howarth 13,095 32.9 +3.2
Brexit Party Kevin Yuill 6,165 15.5 New
Liberal Democrats Paul Edgeworth 2,319 5.8 +3.6
Green Richard Bradley 1,125 2.8 +1.0
UKIP Richard Elvin 897 2.3 -3.4
Lab Majority 3,115 7.8 -22.0
2019 electorate 68,835
Turnout 39,811 57.8 -3.1
Labour hold
Swings
11.0 Lab to C
17.1 Lab to Brexit Party
Boundary Changes
The new Houghton & Sunderland South will consist of
100% of Houghton & Sunderland South
11.9% of Washington & Sunderland West
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-east/North%20East_194_Houghton%20and%20Sunderland%20South_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Lab | 17696 | 40.4% |
| Con | 14425 | 32.9% |
| Brexit | 6895 | 15.7% |
| LD | 2602 | 5.9% |
| Green | 1183 | 2.7% |
| Oth | 997 | 2.3% |
| Majority | 3271 | 7.5% |