Nuneaton

[John Chanin]

Nuneaton is famous for George Eliot, and they won’t let you forget it. Not only is there a George Eliot hospital, a George Eliot school, and a George Eliot business park, but the signs at the border welcome you to George Eliot country. Now while George Eliot is without question one of our best classic writers, this over emphasis seems to show a lack of self-confidence in this rather workaday industrial town. The great majority of the constituency consists of the town itself which has a population of some 90,000. There is a small rural addendum - the Arbury area of Nuneaton borough to the south of the town, and the anomalous North Warwickshire ward of Arley & Whitacre. The other North Warwickshire ward included in the seat (Hartshill) is mostly part of the town’s built-up area. The Boundary Commission could have realigned seats in Warwickshire to more closely match local government boundaries, but chose not to, and this seat is entirely unchanged.

As the statistics below show, this is a working-class town, with more people in routine than managerial jobs, and a high level of people with minimal qualifications. The town developed on the back of the Warwickshire coalfield, but this part of the coalfield was the first to close. There is a constant reminder of its mining past however in the form of Mount Judd to the north of the town, which looks like a volcano with a near perfect cone, but is in fact a giant spoil heap. Like most industrial towns it has not done well in the last 50 years, and this is reflected in its politics. This is not to say there isn’t variety. On the west side of town are the sprawling council estates of Camp Hill, Bar Pool, and Stockingford. This is the poorest part of town with 45% of the population in routine jobs, and was the core Labour vote in the town. The town centre, and Wem Brook to the south where there are more council estates, are not much better off, and they traditionally vote Labour too. East of the main railway line (a branch of the West Coast mainline), which cuts through the town, is however rather different. The area is 85% owner-occupied, with twice as many managerial as routine workers, and this part of the town normally votes Conservative at local elections (although the Greens have created a foothold in Weddington), as do the semi-rural wards of Arbury and Galley Common on the western outskirts of the town. The Coventry canal also winds its way through the town, once an important artery for its coal and industrial products, alongside the river Anker which is a tributary of the Tame. The town is not as white as similar places in the Midlands and North with a significant Asian population in the town centre, where the central Abbey ward is only 70% white.

Prior to 1983 when a major redistribution removed even more working-class Bedworth and replaced it with rural surroundings, Nuneaton was considered a safe Labour seat, but it fell to the Conservatives in the 1983 landslide, with a 10% majority, though it was one of the seats regained in 1992. Labour held it until 2010, when despite a favourable boundary change (as the rural component was reduced) it fell narrowly to the Conservatives. Like other medium sized industrial towns in the Midlands there has been a long-term trend to the Conservatives. Majorities in 2015 and 2017 were similar to those in 1983 and 1987, despite the national picture being much closer, and 2019 showed the huge swing to the Conservatives characteristic of such seats across the country. Much of the historically Labour vote on the council estates must have switched allegiance (66% voted Leave at the referendum in Nuneaton & Bedworth). Unlike Telford, Redditch, and Cannock, where Labour have remained competitive at a local level , this change appears more permanent here, and the Conservatives continued to win the majority of wards at local elections in 2022 in a year that was generally unfavourable for them. This does not bode well for a Labour recovery at parliamentary level. The MP here is Marcus Jones, a local boy and former councillor and solicitor, who won the seat in 2010.

Census data: Owner-occupied 68% (233/575 in England & Wales), private rented 17% (322nd), social rented 15% (300th).
                     : White 88%(324th), Black 2%(251st), South Asian 6%(181st), Mixed 2%(352nd), Other 3%(245th)
                     : Managerial & professional 33% (441st), Routine & Semi-routine 36% (97th)
                     : Degree level 25%(479th), Minimal qualifications 34%(90th)
                     : Students 5% (372nd), Over 65: 18% (332nd)

Boundaries : The seat is unchanged

	2017	%	2019	%
Conservative	23,755	51.6	27,390	60.6
Labour	19,016	41.3	14,246	31.5
Liberal Democrat	914	2.0	1,862	4.1
UKIP	1,619	3.5
Green	763	1.7	1,692	3.7
Majority	4,739	10.3	13,144	29.1

[johnloony]

It’s where Bobby Sands was buried

[batman]

We don't really know whether Labour are competitive again at local level, as there were no local elections in Nuneaton this year. Given the major recovery in neighbouring & rather similar North Warwickshire, it may well be that the Tories are not completely safe here, although they have generally done extremely well in the last decade.

[nyx]

This is the sort of seat to keep an eye on as being potentially competitive if Labour do pretty well next election.

[The Bishop]

It is true that the Tories did well here in 2022 at local level, but their performance was still short of the near clean sweeps of the previous few elections. Assuming a GE doesn't intervene by then, next year's results are going to be very interesting to observe.

[Deleted]

I think this is a seat Labour might still snatch in a landslide, but comparing 1992 to 2015 tells you all you need to know IMO, cf North Warks, Cannock, and Sherwood.

[stb12]

I remember in the build up to 2015 this seat was singled out as a likely indicator of the national result