Post by gerrardwinstanley on Oct 29, 2023 22:27:36 GMT
Following boundary changes for the 1983 general election, the constituency of Wantage was created. In many ways, this constituency was the successor to the Abingdon seat, which had existed from 1558. In 1974, however, the bulk of the area represented by the constituency of Abingdon was moved from the ceremonial county of Berkshire to Oxfordshire. As Abingdon was paired-off with north and west Oxford at 1983 election, to create the new Oxford West and Abingdon seat, most of the area in the former Abingdon seat became part of the Wantage constituency. Since its formation, it has established itself as a Conservative safe seat, having only returned Tory MPs – three of them. However, Robert Jackson, the first person to represent this seat, defected to Labour in 2005, although he did not stand in the election that year, and Ed Vaizey won the seat for the Tories. However, Vaizey briefly lost the whip in 2019 for supporting an emergency motion to allow the Commons to undertake proceedings on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Currently, Wantage is represented by the Conservative David Johnston. However, following the 2023 boundary review, if Johnston were to stand and win at the next election, he would be representing the renamed Didcot and Wantage seat.
When the Wantage seat was created in 1983, it covered all the areas of “old Berkshire” that had been moved into Oxfordshire in 1974, bar Abingdon and its northern hinterland. Hence, for the most part, its northern and eastern boundary was the river Thames, and to the south were the Berkshire Downs. The seat stretched from almost the edges of Swindon in the west to Wallingford in the east. Until the 2023 review, Wantage’s boundaries had changed relatively little, consisting of mostly marginal changes due to the realignment of the boundaries following changes to local authority wards. By the time of the 2019 General Election, however, Wantage’s total electorate had expanded to 90,845, making it the 13th largest in the United Kingdom, driven by the large-scale house building and resulting population increase in the area. To reduce its size and meet the elector quota, its northern and western areas, including Faringdon and Shrivenham, have been moved into the Witney seat, and the “Marcham” ward has been moved into Oxford West and Abingdon. That said, the newly named Didcot and Wantage seat has gained half a ward, in the sense that the realignment of ward boundaries in South Oxfordshire resulted in a ward that was split between Henley and Wantage. Now, the ward of “Sandford & The Wittenhams” fully sits in Didcot and Wantage. The renaming of the seat, which was not uncontroversial, gives precedence to Didcot – the largest town in the constituency; the historically more important Wantage has been retained in the name, however.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this seat is relatively safe one for the Conservative party, or has been until recently. The Conservative share of the vote has ranged from a high of 54.2%, in 2017, to a low of 39.6%, in 2001 – winning every election. Opposition to the Tories has been evenly split between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the past; their combined votes, for instance, would have beaten the Conservatives in 1997, 2001, and 2005. As of the 2019 election, however, it is the Liberal Democrats who are positioning themselves as the main competition to the Conservatives in Didcot and Wantage, achieving a respectable 31.9% of the vote to Labour’s 15.2%. This sift to the LibDems was likely as a result of the pro-Remain tendencies of this seat, as well as wider voting changes in this seat and across the Home Counties. Indeed, this is arguably the main target for the Liberal Democrats in Oxfordshire at the next election, and the idea of them winning here is not, as it would have been in the past, a farfetched one.
That a potential Liberal Democrat win is not farfetched is pointed to by local election results. Although the Liberal Democrats have historically been successful in the Vale of White Horse, as of late, they have dramatically tightened their grip on the council. At the 2023 local election, of the wards in the Didcot and Wantage constituency, the LibDems won every single seat on the council, bar one for the Greens. Didcot and Wallingford, however, fall under the neighbouring South Oxfordshire district, but there has been a “yellow” surgency there as well. Of the wards that fall in this constituency, 6 LibDems were elected, 3 Labour, 2 Greens, 1 independent, and 1 Conservative. The three Labour councillors were elected in Didcot, which, as a semi-industrial railway town, has historically had a strong Labour base. Once a stronghold for the Conservatives at national and local level, this area of southern Oxfordshire has been shifting towards opposition parties, particularly the LibDems. Chronologically-speaking, this shift in support follows the shift to the right within the Conservative party, from Boris Johnson onwards. David Cameron’s mix of fiscal conservativism with somewhat socially liberal views was a better fit for the mindset and political outlook of most voters in this seat.
Turning now to a profile of the seat, Didcot sits at the centre of this constituency. A town that lacks curb appeal, Didcot is famous for two things: its railway station and power plant. In 2013, however, the coal burning capabilities of the plant were decommissioned, and the related famous, three cooling towers were eventually demolished. As a railway town, Labour has a historic base in this once working-class town, and a Labour Club once existed here as well. However, more recently, the town has become very popular with middle management commuters, utilising the quick connection to Paddington; as a result, there have been huge housing developments around Didcot. Wantage, on the other hand, is pleasant market town, which sits at the bottom of the Berkshire Downs. Birthplace of King Alfred the Great, it was also home to the poet Sir John Betjeman for some time, and even featured in Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure”. To the west and east of Wantage are attractive villages that sit within the rolling hills of the Berkshire Downs – an area famous for its beautiful countryside and connections to race horsing. On the village green in East Lockinge, for instance, stands a statue of Best Mate, the famous English racehorse and three times winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The area is also known for another horse: the Uffington White Horse. This prehistoric hill figure, created some time between 1380 and 550 BC, can be seen from across the Vale that bears its name. In the east of the constituently lies the river Thames, with the affluent market town of Wallingford sitting alongside it; whereas the west of the seat feels more rural and agricultural, as you move eastwards, the seat becomes more London-facing. Wallingford, for instance, feels a lot like Henley, in that it is populated by many managerial professionals who commute into London. The seat also stretches to the southern edges of Oxford, with the village of Sandford-on-Thames almost a suburb of the city itself. And like Oxford, for a county constituency, this seat has one of the highest higher education qualification attainments in the country, which is not only due to its proximity to Oxford but also the abundance of scientific centres in the seat as well: JET at Culham, Rutherford Appleton at Chilton, and Harwell.
Higher education attainment, connections to London, and its pro-Remain stance are all factors that make this one of the Liberal Democrats main target seats in what they have termed the “Blue wall”; they have also been helped by the boundary changes here. That said, it would take a bad night for the Conservatives to lose Didcot and Wantage, but one that looks possible at the next election. If the anti-Tory opposition can congregate around one party in this seat, which it seems to be doing, it is not unfeasible that the Conservatives might lose this seat, which they haveheld since its creation, and its predecessor, Abingdon, since 1924. Of all the rural seats in Oxfordshire, perhaps this one best sums up the changes in voting patterns that appears to be occurring across the county and the wider Home Counties; that is, across the former Tory heartlands.
When the Wantage seat was created in 1983, it covered all the areas of “old Berkshire” that had been moved into Oxfordshire in 1974, bar Abingdon and its northern hinterland. Hence, for the most part, its northern and eastern boundary was the river Thames, and to the south were the Berkshire Downs. The seat stretched from almost the edges of Swindon in the west to Wallingford in the east. Until the 2023 review, Wantage’s boundaries had changed relatively little, consisting of mostly marginal changes due to the realignment of the boundaries following changes to local authority wards. By the time of the 2019 General Election, however, Wantage’s total electorate had expanded to 90,845, making it the 13th largest in the United Kingdom, driven by the large-scale house building and resulting population increase in the area. To reduce its size and meet the elector quota, its northern and western areas, including Faringdon and Shrivenham, have been moved into the Witney seat, and the “Marcham” ward has been moved into Oxford West and Abingdon. That said, the newly named Didcot and Wantage seat has gained half a ward, in the sense that the realignment of ward boundaries in South Oxfordshire resulted in a ward that was split between Henley and Wantage. Now, the ward of “Sandford & The Wittenhams” fully sits in Didcot and Wantage. The renaming of the seat, which was not uncontroversial, gives precedence to Didcot – the largest town in the constituency; the historically more important Wantage has been retained in the name, however.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this seat is relatively safe one for the Conservative party, or has been until recently. The Conservative share of the vote has ranged from a high of 54.2%, in 2017, to a low of 39.6%, in 2001 – winning every election. Opposition to the Tories has been evenly split between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the past; their combined votes, for instance, would have beaten the Conservatives in 1997, 2001, and 2005. As of the 2019 election, however, it is the Liberal Democrats who are positioning themselves as the main competition to the Conservatives in Didcot and Wantage, achieving a respectable 31.9% of the vote to Labour’s 15.2%. This sift to the LibDems was likely as a result of the pro-Remain tendencies of this seat, as well as wider voting changes in this seat and across the Home Counties. Indeed, this is arguably the main target for the Liberal Democrats in Oxfordshire at the next election, and the idea of them winning here is not, as it would have been in the past, a farfetched one.
That a potential Liberal Democrat win is not farfetched is pointed to by local election results. Although the Liberal Democrats have historically been successful in the Vale of White Horse, as of late, they have dramatically tightened their grip on the council. At the 2023 local election, of the wards in the Didcot and Wantage constituency, the LibDems won every single seat on the council, bar one for the Greens. Didcot and Wallingford, however, fall under the neighbouring South Oxfordshire district, but there has been a “yellow” surgency there as well. Of the wards that fall in this constituency, 6 LibDems were elected, 3 Labour, 2 Greens, 1 independent, and 1 Conservative. The three Labour councillors were elected in Didcot, which, as a semi-industrial railway town, has historically had a strong Labour base. Once a stronghold for the Conservatives at national and local level, this area of southern Oxfordshire has been shifting towards opposition parties, particularly the LibDems. Chronologically-speaking, this shift in support follows the shift to the right within the Conservative party, from Boris Johnson onwards. David Cameron’s mix of fiscal conservativism with somewhat socially liberal views was a better fit for the mindset and political outlook of most voters in this seat.
Turning now to a profile of the seat, Didcot sits at the centre of this constituency. A town that lacks curb appeal, Didcot is famous for two things: its railway station and power plant. In 2013, however, the coal burning capabilities of the plant were decommissioned, and the related famous, three cooling towers were eventually demolished. As a railway town, Labour has a historic base in this once working-class town, and a Labour Club once existed here as well. However, more recently, the town has become very popular with middle management commuters, utilising the quick connection to Paddington; as a result, there have been huge housing developments around Didcot. Wantage, on the other hand, is pleasant market town, which sits at the bottom of the Berkshire Downs. Birthplace of King Alfred the Great, it was also home to the poet Sir John Betjeman for some time, and even featured in Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure”. To the west and east of Wantage are attractive villages that sit within the rolling hills of the Berkshire Downs – an area famous for its beautiful countryside and connections to race horsing. On the village green in East Lockinge, for instance, stands a statue of Best Mate, the famous English racehorse and three times winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The area is also known for another horse: the Uffington White Horse. This prehistoric hill figure, created some time between 1380 and 550 BC, can be seen from across the Vale that bears its name. In the east of the constituently lies the river Thames, with the affluent market town of Wallingford sitting alongside it; whereas the west of the seat feels more rural and agricultural, as you move eastwards, the seat becomes more London-facing. Wallingford, for instance, feels a lot like Henley, in that it is populated by many managerial professionals who commute into London. The seat also stretches to the southern edges of Oxford, with the village of Sandford-on-Thames almost a suburb of the city itself. And like Oxford, for a county constituency, this seat has one of the highest higher education qualification attainments in the country, which is not only due to its proximity to Oxford but also the abundance of scientific centres in the seat as well: JET at Culham, Rutherford Appleton at Chilton, and Harwell.
Higher education attainment, connections to London, and its pro-Remain stance are all factors that make this one of the Liberal Democrats main target seats in what they have termed the “Blue wall”; they have also been helped by the boundary changes here. That said, it would take a bad night for the Conservatives to lose Didcot and Wantage, but one that looks possible at the next election. If the anti-Tory opposition can congregate around one party in this seat, which it seems to be doing, it is not unfeasible that the Conservatives might lose this seat, which they haveheld since its creation, and its predecessor, Abingdon, since 1924. Of all the rural seats in Oxfordshire, perhaps this one best sums up the changes in voting patterns that appears to be occurring across the county and the wider Home Counties; that is, across the former Tory heartlands.
