Post by John Chanin on Oct 2, 2023 10:53:23 GMT
There are a group of seats in the West Midlands surrounding Birmingham, which have a distinctive political history. They include new towns, ex mining districts, and depressed industrial towns, but they do have certain things in common. Since 1997 they have swung twice as far to the Conservatives as the country as a whole - over 25%. This is not as often claimed to do with Brexit, as the trend has been continuous from before this became a defining issue. However they are all definitively working class, with more routine and semi-routine workers than managerial and professional workers, and most noticeably they all have much larger numbers of people with minimal qualifications than with degrees, and low numbers of students. Also they have been edging up the rankings in terms of the proportion of people over 65, suggesting that young people are leaving to find work elsewhere. This is a good illustration how age and education are increasingly replacing class as determinants of voting habits. However they are all at a local level particularly politically volatile, with large swings from year to year, and Labour still competitive, suggesting that the parliamentary future is not necessarily Conservative. The epitome of these seats is Cannock Chase.
Cannock Chase itself is an area of open country, with a variety of terrains and a status as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The reason for naming the constituency after this open space where no-one lives, is because it is also the name of the local district council, with which the constituency is coterminous. The main settlement is Cannock itself. To the north and part of a continuous urban area is Hednesford, and across the railway line to the east lie Hawks Green and Heath Hayes, also part of the same urban area. In total there are 47,000 electors here, and it accounts for two-thirds of the constituency. The town was built on coal like many other towns in the West Midlands, but this has long gone, and it is another depressed industrial town, although with some pleasant parts adjacent to countryside, and within easy commuting distance of the Greater Birmingham conurbation. The east and west sides of the town are fairly middle-class, with more managerial workers than routine workers, high levels of owner-occupation, but relatively low numbers with degrees. This adds up to 2 safe Conservative wards. The rest of the town is decidedly working class, although with next to no ethnic minorities. North Cannock has less than 20% with degrees, unusually low by modern standards. Over a quarter of households rent from the council, and Cannock town remains Labour at a local level. Hednesfield is less deprived. The south ward blends into the more middle-class Heath Hayes area, and is mostly owner-occupied, as is the west ward. At a local level both are traditionally marginal. The north ward which includes the shopping centre has a high proportion of council housing and is traditionally Labour. However the Greens won two of the wards at the last local elections, giving them a base on the local authority, and emphasising the volatility.
To the north of the Chase is the separate town of Rugeley with a population of around 25,000. Hiistorically the town was dominated by the cooling towers of its well-known power station. This was coal fired, sitting on top of the mines that originally provided the economy here, and was demolished in 2021 leaving a large development site proposed for industry, housing and a park. There is an industrial estate on the site of the old colliery including a large Amazon facility. Demographically it is fairly similar to Cannock, although with less council housing, and some more up market areas to the west on the edge of the Chase. Historically Rugeley was also Labour, but the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have shared the seats here at recent local elections, at least until the Labour revival in 2023. South of Cannock, and next to the Chasewater reservoir is the third town in the seat, Norton Canes, another old mining town with a population of less than 10,000, and still returning Labour councillors. Although there is quite a lot of open space in the seat, it is virtually uninhabited, with Rawnsley being the only village of any size, which also returns Green councillors these days.
Historically the parliamentary constituency here was a safe Labour seat, returning Jennie Lee to parliament from 1945 to 1970 despite including the commuter villages now in South Staffordshire. The growth of these enabled Patrick Cormack to win the seat in 1970, but the seat was oversized and reduced roughly to its present boundaries in 1974 when it reverted to a safe Labour seat. Between 1983 and 1997 it was split , Cannock being joined with Burntwood, and Rugeley with Lichfield. The former seat was thought to be still safe Labour but as a sign of things to come it fell to the Conservatives in the 1983 landslide, before reverting to Labour in 1992. In 1997 it was returned largely to its 1974-1983 boundaries, when Tony Wright who had won the old seat in 1992 polled twice as many votes as the Conservatives. On his retirement in 2010 Cannock Chase saw one of the largest swings in the country (third highest Labour to Conservative), as the Conservatives overturned a 9000 majority with a 14% swing to win comfortably. Like Nuneaton and North Warwickshire, which it closely resembles, it has continued to swing hard right ever since, despite troubles with the local MP, resulting in the current enormous 20,000 majority, with the Conservatives polling nearly three times as many votes as Labour in 2019. At a local level though Labour are still very competitive, apart from 2021 when they were wiped out. This suggests that the seat is not as safe as it looks, although it is still hard to see Labour winning here again in the near future. The MP since 2015 is Amanda Milling, a former market researcher from Rossendale in Lancashire.
Since the parliamentary seat is coterminous with the District Council, the Boundary Commission has left it unchanged in the recent review, despite some awkwardness this creates for neighbouring seats.
Census data: Owner-occupied 68% (237/575 in England & Wales), private rented 16% (387th), social rented 16% (246th).
: White 97%(100th), Black 0%(454th), South Asian 1%(459th), Mixed 1%(431st), Other 1%(544th)
: Managerial & professional 31% (480th), Routine & Semi-routine 35% (111th)
: Degree level 23%(535th), Minimal qualifications 34%(85th)
: Students 4% (503rd), Over 65: 19% (281st)
Boundaries : The seat is unchanged
Cannock Chase itself is an area of open country, with a variety of terrains and a status as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The reason for naming the constituency after this open space where no-one lives, is because it is also the name of the local district council, with which the constituency is coterminous. The main settlement is Cannock itself. To the north and part of a continuous urban area is Hednesford, and across the railway line to the east lie Hawks Green and Heath Hayes, also part of the same urban area. In total there are 47,000 electors here, and it accounts for two-thirds of the constituency. The town was built on coal like many other towns in the West Midlands, but this has long gone, and it is another depressed industrial town, although with some pleasant parts adjacent to countryside, and within easy commuting distance of the Greater Birmingham conurbation. The east and west sides of the town are fairly middle-class, with more managerial workers than routine workers, high levels of owner-occupation, but relatively low numbers with degrees. This adds up to 2 safe Conservative wards. The rest of the town is decidedly working class, although with next to no ethnic minorities. North Cannock has less than 20% with degrees, unusually low by modern standards. Over a quarter of households rent from the council, and Cannock town remains Labour at a local level. Hednesfield is less deprived. The south ward blends into the more middle-class Heath Hayes area, and is mostly owner-occupied, as is the west ward. At a local level both are traditionally marginal. The north ward which includes the shopping centre has a high proportion of council housing and is traditionally Labour. However the Greens won two of the wards at the last local elections, giving them a base on the local authority, and emphasising the volatility.
To the north of the Chase is the separate town of Rugeley with a population of around 25,000. Hiistorically the town was dominated by the cooling towers of its well-known power station. This was coal fired, sitting on top of the mines that originally provided the economy here, and was demolished in 2021 leaving a large development site proposed for industry, housing and a park. There is an industrial estate on the site of the old colliery including a large Amazon facility. Demographically it is fairly similar to Cannock, although with less council housing, and some more up market areas to the west on the edge of the Chase. Historically Rugeley was also Labour, but the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have shared the seats here at recent local elections, at least until the Labour revival in 2023. South of Cannock, and next to the Chasewater reservoir is the third town in the seat, Norton Canes, another old mining town with a population of less than 10,000, and still returning Labour councillors. Although there is quite a lot of open space in the seat, it is virtually uninhabited, with Rawnsley being the only village of any size, which also returns Green councillors these days.
Historically the parliamentary constituency here was a safe Labour seat, returning Jennie Lee to parliament from 1945 to 1970 despite including the commuter villages now in South Staffordshire. The growth of these enabled Patrick Cormack to win the seat in 1970, but the seat was oversized and reduced roughly to its present boundaries in 1974 when it reverted to a safe Labour seat. Between 1983 and 1997 it was split , Cannock being joined with Burntwood, and Rugeley with Lichfield. The former seat was thought to be still safe Labour but as a sign of things to come it fell to the Conservatives in the 1983 landslide, before reverting to Labour in 1992. In 1997 it was returned largely to its 1974-1983 boundaries, when Tony Wright who had won the old seat in 1992 polled twice as many votes as the Conservatives. On his retirement in 2010 Cannock Chase saw one of the largest swings in the country (third highest Labour to Conservative), as the Conservatives overturned a 9000 majority with a 14% swing to win comfortably. Like Nuneaton and North Warwickshire, which it closely resembles, it has continued to swing hard right ever since, despite troubles with the local MP, resulting in the current enormous 20,000 majority, with the Conservatives polling nearly three times as many votes as Labour in 2019. At a local level though Labour are still very competitive, apart from 2021 when they were wiped out. This suggests that the seat is not as safe as it looks, although it is still hard to see Labour winning here again in the near future. The MP since 2015 is Amanda Milling, a former market researcher from Rossendale in Lancashire.
Since the parliamentary seat is coterminous with the District Council, the Boundary Commission has left it unchanged in the recent review, despite some awkwardness this creates for neighbouring seats.
Census data: Owner-occupied 68% (237/575 in England & Wales), private rented 16% (387th), social rented 16% (246th).
: White 97%(100th), Black 0%(454th), South Asian 1%(459th), Mixed 1%(431st), Other 1%(544th)
: Managerial & professional 31% (480th), Routine & Semi-routine 35% (111th)
: Degree level 23%(535th), Minimal qualifications 34%(85th)
: Students 4% (503rd), Over 65: 19% (281st)
Boundaries : The seat is unchanged
2017 | % | 2019 | % | |
Conservative | 26,318 | 55.0 | 31,636 | 68.3 |
Labour | 17,927 | 37.4 | 11,757 | 25.4 |
Liberal Democrat | 794 | 1.7 | ||
UKIP | 2,018 | 4.2 | ||
Green | 815 | 1.7 | 2,920 | 6.3 |
| Majority | 8,391 | 17.5 | 19,879 | 42.9 |