Post by Robert Waller on Oct 26, 2023 16:49:29 GMT
For those of us whose interest in psephology and the characteristics of individual constituencies goes back to the last century, Montgomery(shire) came to our attention as the most loyal seat to Liberalism anywhere in Britain. It was said that it had elected Liberals or their equivalent ever since 1880 without a break, and when Emlyn Hooson was ousted in 1979 this appeared a seismic fracture in one of the most enduring traditions in UK politics. The Liberals, then Liberal Democrats, did regain it after a mere one term, though and hold it thereafter. It has therefore been a little shocking to see the Conservative majority subsequently built up after Lembit Opik’s defeat in 2010 to over 12,000 in 2019, and the Liberal Democrat share slide down and down to a mere 23% that year.
However, on closer inspection that unbroken run is revealed to be a little less impressive, for a number of reasons. Firstly, between 1885 and 1918 there was another constituency in the county, called the Montgomery District, which consisted of six small or even tiny boroughs (Montgomery, Llanfyllin, Llanidloes, Machynlleth, Newtown and Welshpool), and it elected a Conservative/Unionist on four occasions – 1885, 1892, 1896 and December 1910. Secondly, the Liberal lead in the shire seat was on not some, but many, occasions quite narrow. In the seven elections between the gain in 1880 and 1900 (including an 1894 byelection), they never beat the Conservatives by even as much as one thousand votes, and the margin was just 27 votes in 1895. The third point is to do with the pattern if candidature. Yes, from 1906 onwards the victories were often more comfortable, but this was often due to Conservatives (or ‘Unionists’) declining to contest the seat – and when they did fight, as in 1929, the outcome was fairly close still. In 1945 Labour did not stand in Montgomery. Throughout the early and mid 1950s Clement Davies (party leader from 1945 to 1956) benefited from the Tories withdrawing on anti-socialist grounds; as indeed they did in most of the usually 6 constituencies the Liberals held through their weakest ever decade – and when they did stand in 1959 his lead was severely reduced. Fourthly we come to another reason why Montgomery’s representation cannot be thought of as consistently radical over that century plus. In 1918 David Davies was endorsed by the Coalition government, so the fact that he technically refused the ‘coupon’ did not prevent a total lack of opposition. In 1931 and 1935 Clement Davies did stand as a Coalition or National Liberal (a label that elsewhere led seamlessly into absorption by the Conservatives). So it wasn’t exactly a case of Liberals defeating all-comers for 99 years.
Nevertheless, this part of Mid Wales (at times ‘Powys’) certainly still has a much stronger tradition of Liberalism than most. This needs to be explained, as does its dramatic weakening in the last decade or so. This is, in the main, deep rural Wales. Rural indeed. Montgomeryshire has another claim to fame. It had for many years held the record as the seat with the highest proportion of the employed population engaged in agriculture, until it had been surpassed (only) by Galloway and Upper Nithsdale in Scotland at the time of the 2001 census. It is still a seat of farmers, though. Some rear sheep, up in the hills; but Montgomeryshire is not in general wild countryside, but fertile, rolling land near the English boundary.
There is one notable exception to the rural rule. Here is the smallest of the designated New Towns in Britain, the appropriately named Newtown (it has actually existed for centuries). Newtown has more than doubled in population since the war, but it is still only 11,000 altogether. The only other community of over 3,000 is Welshpool, and that has fewer than 6,000 residents. The other towns of Montgomeryshire are tiny: Llanidloes in the south west with around 2,900, and Machynlleth, in the far west of the county, the most Welsh of all, and claiming to be Owain Gyndwr’s capital in the early 15th century, scarcely more than 2,100. Montgomery itself though of historic importance (1267 Treaty of Anglo-Welsh relations) and a county town with a bijou town hall and square, has elements of the bonsai about it. In 2021 it had a population of 1,286, and it does not even have a local authority electoral division to itself any longer. In England, perhaps, rurality might suggest a tendency to Conservatism. Wales has been a different matter. Back in the mid 1950s, for example, as well as Montgomery the Liberals, even in their darkest hour, also held Carmarthen and Cardigan – which made up half of their total in the Commons.
Linked to all this was religion, and Montgomeryshire’s Liberal tradition started at a time when that was the greatest political cleavage. The 1880s have been described as the golden age of Welsh Nonconformity, and the villages of Montgomeryshire had more than their fair share of chapels:
www.montgensoc.org/view/Independent-Chapels
However, these characteristics that made Montgomeryshire tend to the Liberal have declined. Even though still the seat with the second highest proportion employed in agriculture in the UK in 2011, that figure was only 8.7% by then. As for religion, in the 2021 census less than half the respondents declared that they were Christians of any denomination, falling to 45% in Machynlleth & Banwy MSOA. New cleavages have come to divide the political scene in the UK. For example, in the 2016 referendum Powys voted to Leave the EU by nearly 54% to 46%. This will not have helped the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 general election in Montgomeryshire, when they were widely seen as attempting to block Brexit. There is another demographic statistic that may be of relevance too. A place less like the much larger Montgomery, state capital of Alabama and an archetype of the American Deep South, where perhaps the greatest single turning point in the Black civil rights movement took place in 1955 to 1956 – the Bus Boycott that was their first major campaign success. This is because this constituency is 98% white, one of the highest 13 figures anywhere in England and Wales, and a variable that has increasingly correlated with Conservative preferences in recent elections, especially 2019.
It is not easy to use local Powys council election results to analyse the internal political geography of Montgomeryshire. In the most recent elections in May 2022 the Liberal Democrats did do well locally in the more urban parts of the seat. They won three of the five available seats in Newtown, missing out on an unopposed Independent in Newtown East and to a Conservative in Newtown West, which includes the parts of the town with the highest proportions of professional and managerial workers, Penygloddfa and Milford, as well as some rural territory. The Lib Dems also took two of the three Welshpool divisions (which do extend beyond the town’s urban area), Castle and Gungrog, but again there was no contest when the Independent won in Welshpool Llanerchyddol. The LDs also took both seats in Montgomeryshire’s third town, Llanidloes, though Machynlleth stayed Independent, and Montgomery’s division, shared with Forden, supplied the only Green win in the whole of Powys. Meanwhile the Tories did win several of the more rural wards, as did more independents.
As in every part of the principality, Mid Wales undergoes major boundary changes. At the time of the 2019 general election, Montgomeryshire’s electorate was only 49,000, which was well over 20,000 less than the UK average. Eight of the 40 seats in Wales have been abolished, and one of them is Clwyd South, immediately to its north. Indeed, the resulting partial, merger, between the former counties of Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire, and more recently the former Powys and Dyfed (and some would say parts of Mid and North Wales) is this: Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr. Glyndwr was a district council between 1974 and 1996, and is named after the Welsh insurgent leader who flourished circa 1400.
In the original proposals of the Welsh Commission in 2021, Llangollen was prominent among the places to be paired with Montgomeryshire. In the revised proposals issued in October 2022, while the basic pattern of change was confirmed, for some reason the Llangollen wards were placed in Clwyd East and removed from Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr, leaving it with an odd bite mark in its northern boundary. In slightly more than exchange, some more wards from the Wrexham area such as Esclusham, Johnstown and Ponciau were added to the Glyndwr section, which already included the urban Ruabon and its neighbourhood such as Chirk and Pant and Penycae, as well as more rural divisions like Dyffryn Ceiriog (Ceiriog Valley).
This will give Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr somewhat less of a rural predominance overall, even though there are no large towns in the ex-Clwyd South section (Ruabon less than 4,000, Chirk just over 4,000, Pant and Johnstown 5,000 between them) and definitely it shifts the demographics in a more working class direction. For example, routine and semi-routine workers now outnumber those in the professional and managerial occupations. Most of the added divisions are in the Wrexham authority, and in the last elections there in May 2022, Labour did win Cefn East and West, Chirk North and Ruabon (by 4 votes over an Independent). Again the picture here is clouded by Independent strength. The Liberal Democrats put up very few candidates in the Clywd South section and did not come near winning a seat.
Potentially in a very good year for Labour this section might boost their hopes of pulling off what would be a (very) surprise gain, give Montgomeryshire’s long history of Liberalism and more recent strong Conservatism. It could be said that this new seat would be at least as artificial and heterogeneous as Clwyd South was; but at least it can be justified on the grounds of the necessary equalisation of electorates across the United Kingdom. However, that long history of Montgomeryshire as a separate parliamentary entity (if not quite so long as some think) has definitely come to an end. Whether Liberalism can revive here is a more moot point, though.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 24.2% 99/575
Owner occupied 64.5% 323/575
Private rented 16.9% 335/575
Social rented 18.6% 188/575
White 98.0% 13/575
Black 0.2% 536/575
Asian 0.6% 564/575
Managerial & professional 27.3% 443/575
Routine & Semi-routine 28.1% 131/575
Degree level 28.6% 378/575
No qualifications 20.6% 163/575
Students 5.0% 396/575
General Election 2019: Montgomeryshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Craig Williams 20,020 58.5 +6.7
Liberal Democrats Kishan Devani 7,882 23.0 −2.2
Labour Kait Duerden 5,585 16.3 +0.4
Gwlad Gwlad Gwyn Evans 727 2.1
C Majority 12,138 35.5 +8.9
Turnout 34,214 69.8 −0.3
Registered electors 48,997
Conservative hold
Swing 4.4 LD to C
Boundary Changes
Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr consists of
100% of Montgomeryshire
46.6% of Clywd South
Map
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
However, on closer inspection that unbroken run is revealed to be a little less impressive, for a number of reasons. Firstly, between 1885 and 1918 there was another constituency in the county, called the Montgomery District, which consisted of six small or even tiny boroughs (Montgomery, Llanfyllin, Llanidloes, Machynlleth, Newtown and Welshpool), and it elected a Conservative/Unionist on four occasions – 1885, 1892, 1896 and December 1910. Secondly, the Liberal lead in the shire seat was on not some, but many, occasions quite narrow. In the seven elections between the gain in 1880 and 1900 (including an 1894 byelection), they never beat the Conservatives by even as much as one thousand votes, and the margin was just 27 votes in 1895. The third point is to do with the pattern if candidature. Yes, from 1906 onwards the victories were often more comfortable, but this was often due to Conservatives (or ‘Unionists’) declining to contest the seat – and when they did fight, as in 1929, the outcome was fairly close still. In 1945 Labour did not stand in Montgomery. Throughout the early and mid 1950s Clement Davies (party leader from 1945 to 1956) benefited from the Tories withdrawing on anti-socialist grounds; as indeed they did in most of the usually 6 constituencies the Liberals held through their weakest ever decade – and when they did stand in 1959 his lead was severely reduced. Fourthly we come to another reason why Montgomery’s representation cannot be thought of as consistently radical over that century plus. In 1918 David Davies was endorsed by the Coalition government, so the fact that he technically refused the ‘coupon’ did not prevent a total lack of opposition. In 1931 and 1935 Clement Davies did stand as a Coalition or National Liberal (a label that elsewhere led seamlessly into absorption by the Conservatives). So it wasn’t exactly a case of Liberals defeating all-comers for 99 years.
Nevertheless, this part of Mid Wales (at times ‘Powys’) certainly still has a much stronger tradition of Liberalism than most. This needs to be explained, as does its dramatic weakening in the last decade or so. This is, in the main, deep rural Wales. Rural indeed. Montgomeryshire has another claim to fame. It had for many years held the record as the seat with the highest proportion of the employed population engaged in agriculture, until it had been surpassed (only) by Galloway and Upper Nithsdale in Scotland at the time of the 2001 census. It is still a seat of farmers, though. Some rear sheep, up in the hills; but Montgomeryshire is not in general wild countryside, but fertile, rolling land near the English boundary.
There is one notable exception to the rural rule. Here is the smallest of the designated New Towns in Britain, the appropriately named Newtown (it has actually existed for centuries). Newtown has more than doubled in population since the war, but it is still only 11,000 altogether. The only other community of over 3,000 is Welshpool, and that has fewer than 6,000 residents. The other towns of Montgomeryshire are tiny: Llanidloes in the south west with around 2,900, and Machynlleth, in the far west of the county, the most Welsh of all, and claiming to be Owain Gyndwr’s capital in the early 15th century, scarcely more than 2,100. Montgomery itself though of historic importance (1267 Treaty of Anglo-Welsh relations) and a county town with a bijou town hall and square, has elements of the bonsai about it. In 2021 it had a population of 1,286, and it does not even have a local authority electoral division to itself any longer. In England, perhaps, rurality might suggest a tendency to Conservatism. Wales has been a different matter. Back in the mid 1950s, for example, as well as Montgomery the Liberals, even in their darkest hour, also held Carmarthen and Cardigan – which made up half of their total in the Commons.
Linked to all this was religion, and Montgomeryshire’s Liberal tradition started at a time when that was the greatest political cleavage. The 1880s have been described as the golden age of Welsh Nonconformity, and the villages of Montgomeryshire had more than their fair share of chapels:
www.montgensoc.org/view/Independent-Chapels
However, these characteristics that made Montgomeryshire tend to the Liberal have declined. Even though still the seat with the second highest proportion employed in agriculture in the UK in 2011, that figure was only 8.7% by then. As for religion, in the 2021 census less than half the respondents declared that they were Christians of any denomination, falling to 45% in Machynlleth & Banwy MSOA. New cleavages have come to divide the political scene in the UK. For example, in the 2016 referendum Powys voted to Leave the EU by nearly 54% to 46%. This will not have helped the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 general election in Montgomeryshire, when they were widely seen as attempting to block Brexit. There is another demographic statistic that may be of relevance too. A place less like the much larger Montgomery, state capital of Alabama and an archetype of the American Deep South, where perhaps the greatest single turning point in the Black civil rights movement took place in 1955 to 1956 – the Bus Boycott that was their first major campaign success. This is because this constituency is 98% white, one of the highest 13 figures anywhere in England and Wales, and a variable that has increasingly correlated with Conservative preferences in recent elections, especially 2019.
It is not easy to use local Powys council election results to analyse the internal political geography of Montgomeryshire. In the most recent elections in May 2022 the Liberal Democrats did do well locally in the more urban parts of the seat. They won three of the five available seats in Newtown, missing out on an unopposed Independent in Newtown East and to a Conservative in Newtown West, which includes the parts of the town with the highest proportions of professional and managerial workers, Penygloddfa and Milford, as well as some rural territory. The Lib Dems also took two of the three Welshpool divisions (which do extend beyond the town’s urban area), Castle and Gungrog, but again there was no contest when the Independent won in Welshpool Llanerchyddol. The LDs also took both seats in Montgomeryshire’s third town, Llanidloes, though Machynlleth stayed Independent, and Montgomery’s division, shared with Forden, supplied the only Green win in the whole of Powys. Meanwhile the Tories did win several of the more rural wards, as did more independents.
As in every part of the principality, Mid Wales undergoes major boundary changes. At the time of the 2019 general election, Montgomeryshire’s electorate was only 49,000, which was well over 20,000 less than the UK average. Eight of the 40 seats in Wales have been abolished, and one of them is Clwyd South, immediately to its north. Indeed, the resulting partial, merger, between the former counties of Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire, and more recently the former Powys and Dyfed (and some would say parts of Mid and North Wales) is this: Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr. Glyndwr was a district council between 1974 and 1996, and is named after the Welsh insurgent leader who flourished circa 1400.
In the original proposals of the Welsh Commission in 2021, Llangollen was prominent among the places to be paired with Montgomeryshire. In the revised proposals issued in October 2022, while the basic pattern of change was confirmed, for some reason the Llangollen wards were placed in Clwyd East and removed from Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr, leaving it with an odd bite mark in its northern boundary. In slightly more than exchange, some more wards from the Wrexham area such as Esclusham, Johnstown and Ponciau were added to the Glyndwr section, which already included the urban Ruabon and its neighbourhood such as Chirk and Pant and Penycae, as well as more rural divisions like Dyffryn Ceiriog (Ceiriog Valley).
This will give Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr somewhat less of a rural predominance overall, even though there are no large towns in the ex-Clwyd South section (Ruabon less than 4,000, Chirk just over 4,000, Pant and Johnstown 5,000 between them) and definitely it shifts the demographics in a more working class direction. For example, routine and semi-routine workers now outnumber those in the professional and managerial occupations. Most of the added divisions are in the Wrexham authority, and in the last elections there in May 2022, Labour did win Cefn East and West, Chirk North and Ruabon (by 4 votes over an Independent). Again the picture here is clouded by Independent strength. The Liberal Democrats put up very few candidates in the Clywd South section and did not come near winning a seat.
Potentially in a very good year for Labour this section might boost their hopes of pulling off what would be a (very) surprise gain, give Montgomeryshire’s long history of Liberalism and more recent strong Conservatism. It could be said that this new seat would be at least as artificial and heterogeneous as Clwyd South was; but at least it can be justified on the grounds of the necessary equalisation of electorates across the United Kingdom. However, that long history of Montgomeryshire as a separate parliamentary entity (if not quite so long as some think) has definitely come to an end. Whether Liberalism can revive here is a more moot point, though.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 24.2% 99/575
Owner occupied 64.5% 323/575
Private rented 16.9% 335/575
Social rented 18.6% 188/575
White 98.0% 13/575
Black 0.2% 536/575
Asian 0.6% 564/575
Managerial & professional 27.3% 443/575
Routine & Semi-routine 28.1% 131/575
Degree level 28.6% 378/575
No qualifications 20.6% 163/575
Students 5.0% 396/575
General Election 2019: Montgomeryshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Craig Williams 20,020 58.5 +6.7
Liberal Democrats Kishan Devani 7,882 23.0 −2.2
Labour Kait Duerden 5,585 16.3 +0.4
Gwlad Gwlad Gwyn Evans 727 2.1
C Majority 12,138 35.5 +8.9
Turnout 34,214 69.8 −0.3
Registered electors 48,997
Conservative hold
Swing 4.4 LD to C
Boundary Changes
Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr consists of
100% of Montgomeryshire
46.6% of Clywd South
Map
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 27466 | 53.6% |
| Lab | 12701 | 24.8% |
| LD | 8595 | 16.8% |
| Plaid Cymru | 1019 | 2.0% |
| Gwlad | 727 | 1.4% |
| Brexit | 700 | 1.4% |
| Majority | 14765 | 28.8% |
