Post by Robert Waller on Nov 1, 2023 15:57:38 GMT
This is also an updated yellowperil profile, with invaluable contributions on boundary changes from Pete Whitehead, plus some additions by myself.
Canterbury is a very special place. A walled city containing the mother church of the Anglican faith, it is, like Dover, one of the symbols of what it is to be England. Politically, it's pretty special too - there have been MPs for Canterbury since 1295, and official Conservatives held it continuously from 1918 until 2017, an Independent Unionist having made a gain in December 1910, the only break in having at least one Conservative/Independent C/Peelite MP since two Whigs won in 1830. At the general election of 2017 Rosie Duffield, quite astonishingly, brought that linage crashing down as Canterbury went Labour. There was a hint of this during the campaign when polling revealed this as a possibility, but sniggers that went up about just how silly polling predictions could get - Canterbury going Labour? Whatever next will these know-nothings come up with? But not only did it happen as a one-off but in 2019, still against some expectations, Ms Duffield not only held on to what she had gained but consolidated on her previously quite slender lead. Now it would be a surprise if Labour did not hold Canterbury with an increased majority at the forthcoming general election.
Of course the modern Canterbury constituency bears very little resemblance to that walled city, now normally packed with tourists but not many residents (though there may well be a substantial Labour majority among those that there are!). Canterbury long burst out beyond its walls and much of its population lived in the long established suburbs now forming wards like Westgate, Northgate (the names a bit of a giveaway there), Wincheap and Barton. The old walled city now forms part of Westgate. These were hardly the areas where the Tory strength had been for a long time. In 2007 local elections, for instance, the three wards of Westgate, Wincheap and Barton returned all 9 places to the Lib Dems, although admittedly the Tories that year managed to take the two Northgate seats off Labour.
But going further afield the constituency included many rural areas like Chartham and Blean Forest that were quite strongly Conservative, and areas closer to the sea, like Chestfield, Swalecliffe and Tankerton, which were very much more strongly so. Whitstable itself had quite a strongish Labour vote (though again while Labour hung on in Whitstable Harbour they lost Gorrell to the Tories that year). On the whole, if you look at what Canterbury appeared like in local government in those pre-coalition days, the Tories looked pretty strong, the Lib Dems dominated in Canterbury proper and Labour looked a fading force. The figures for councillors within the constituency in 2007 was 20 Conservatives, LibDems 14, and Labour 2. And when the general election came 3 years later that was pretty well confirmed- just over 22,000 for Julian Brazier compared with 16,000 for the Lib Dem Guy Voizey, under 8,000 for Labour. No suggestion there of what was to come from Labour, and no suggestion of general election votes being significantly different from local elections.
It is often suggested that one major reason for the changes in the fortunes of Labour post-2010 lay in the fact that Canterbury has become above all else a student city. As always, one might want to argue that it is more complicated than that, but the big student vote was undoubtedly a factor to be taken seriously. We may have to remind ourselves that pre-2010 a big student vote was seen as a big plus for the Lib Dems. After coalition and the student fees debacle, no longer so, and Labour were well placed to take advantage.
Canterbury has two biggish universities, the University of Kent and Christ Church University, an Art College which is a component part of the UCA - the University for the Creative Arts, a further education college and various other private institutions, crammed into quite a small urban area with a residential population of about 50,000 - the "City of Canterbury "district has about 165,000 people but less than a third of that is in "Canterbury proper," the continuously built up area. The residential student population is currently about 30,000 - it peaked at 30,795 in 2010-11- and they are overwhelmingly in "Canterbury proper." The ward with the highest share of students is St Stephens which is adjacent to the University of Kent, and a ward which mostly votes Conservative in local government elections (it actually had voted 2 LD 1 Con in 2007!), but it will be pretty high in all the urban wards. The university campus, with its residential colleges, is actually in Blean Forest ward. The Christ Church campus, together with UCA and the FE college are all in Barton ward. Of course not all students who are resident are registered, and not all of those who are registered vote in local elections, or even in general elections. It has also been suggested that traditionally there was a tendency for southeastern students to go home at weekends, so maybe not to show so much interest in local affairs, or to vote locally. It might be that is changing.
With all that in mind, it may be instructive to look at the local elections from May 2019, for some clues as to the rise in the Labour vote once Canterbury became a Labour constituency, and to see what happened to the Conservatives in those circumstances. Compared with 2015, in the 29 seats within the constituency, the Tories fell back 11 seats, from 24 to 13, while Labour went up from 2 to 10, and the Lib Dems from 3 to 6. Some of that must be down the unpopularity of the Conservative local administration and have nothing to do with national politics, but we can see just where the vote changed. Labour got back their old strongpoints like Whitstable ( Gorrell ward) and Northgate, they took Barton (lots of students there), which the Conservatives had in turn taken from the Lib Dems on the previous election, and they even took one of the Tory seats in St Stephens- that might well have been student-related. The Lib Dems hung on to Wincheap, always their heartland, but also started to take Conservative votes in places where Labour were less likely to advance - two seats in Blean Forest and one in Nailbourne, and even came within 4 votes of taking Tankerton (with Labour there not far behind). Of course some of this change may be less about the student vote and more related to the staff vote. The main centres of population in the rural parts of Blean Forest ward, Tyler Hill and Rough Common for example, have long been popular with university staff, as has the St Dunstan’s area of the city which also falls into Blean Forest. yellowperil remember years ago going to a planning dispute issue in Canterbury where the Blean locals were up in arms, and a chap getting up and announcing in an exaggeratedly cultured voice that he was there to represent all the Rough Common people - he was indeed a retired university lecturer. There will be resident staff in the colleges on campus of course.
Of course Canterbury has been changing fast in the last couple of decades and not all of that is down to higher education issues. Another factor is undoubtedly the arrival of HS 1. Strictly, HS 1 links St Pancras with Ashford International but Southeastern high speed trains continue on conventional rails to destinations beyond Ashford all over East Kent and Canterbury is a principal beneficiary, with about 40 minutes knocked off what would have been roughly a 2 hour journey to London (depending exactly where you were headed).An attractive place to live, it becomes a much more realistic commuter option, if you can afford the £5k season ticket of course, which you may be able to offset against lower house prices, compared with London at least. It certainly opens Canterbury up to a different sort of resident compared with the old cathedral city image. This change may apply to other places as well as Canterbury proper- some of the villages become more attractive to commuters, and places like Whitstable become decidedly more hip than they used to be, in part because they feel nearer in time to London.
One might mention one other aspect of the change from historic Canterbury and the twenty-first century city. The old Canterbury had a major role as a military centre, long before it was an educational centre, with the substantial Howe barracks out on the Sturry road (so Northgate ward). There had been barracks in this part of Canterbury since the 1790s, and they took various forms and were occupied by different regiments but were primarily associated with the " Buffs", the Royal East Kent regiment. In later years it was the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders that were stationed here before returning to their Scottish roots. This long military association ended finally in 2016 and the site rescheduled for housing. The existing military houses, about 150 units, have been acquired by the London Borough of Redbridge, who outbid the local city council, so this will in effect be London overspill development. The barracks site is largely cleared, apart from a few community use structures, and some 500 new housing units are going in.
What has happened in local elections within the constituency since 2019? In May 2023 on Canterbury council in the wards within this constituency Labour held Barton and Northgate, and added the second seat in St Stephen’s to the one they gained our years earlier. They also made fresh gain in wards they had not won since 1995 (Seasalter), 1987 (Wincheap, one gain from the Liberal Democrats) or ever (Chartham & Stone Street, Tankerton). On the other hand Labour did lose two of their three in Gorrell to the Greens. Meanwhile the Lib Dems gained both Chestfield and Little Stour & Adisham (and their one remaining Tory seat in Blean Forest). This meant that the Conservatives won precisely none of the 14 wards in the Canterbury constituency. Adding up all the votes in May 2023 within the seat, Adam Gray found the Conservative share was only 18.5%. Labour (35.5%) and the Liberal Democrats (27.9%) were both well ahead and the Greens in fourth place (15.1%) were not far behind.
In minor boundary changes, most of the Sturry ward (about 4,500 voters) is removed from this seat. Despite that being an area of historic Labour strength, and them gaining it in 2023 for the first time since 1999, the consequence of the Commission’s work will be a slight increase in the 2019 notional Labour majority, to just over 2,000.
It is now looking like Labour’s majority in a putative 2024 general election may be well over 2,000, perhaps even in five figures. That long Conservative tradition in the constituency named after this historic city is well and truly over. New issues, new cleavages, and a new type of populace between them seem to have brought about a transformation. In 2017 and 2019 Canterbury was the only one of the 18 Westminster seats in the county of Kent to elect a Labour MP. This may well change next time. However it is also a fair bet that some of seven constituencies that Labour did win in the Blair walkovers in 1997 and 2001 will not be recovered. That means Canterbury will confirm its place as a politically highly untypical part of the Garden of England.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 264/575
Owner occupied 61.6% 375/575
Private rented 24.4% 125/575
Social rented 14.1% 335/575
White 86.4% 341/575
Black 3.4% 174/575
Asian 5.0% 265/575
Managerial & professional 32.2% 298/575
Routine & Semi-routine 17.1% 480/575
Degree level 36.3% 177/575
No qualifications 14.0% 468/575
Students 20.7% 20/575
European referendum 2016
Remain 54.7%
Leave 45.3%
General Election 2019: Canterbury
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Rosie Duffield 29,018 48.3 +3.3
Conservative Anna Firth 27,182 45.2 +0.5
Liberal Democrats Claire Malcomson 3,408 5.7 −2.3
Independent Michael Gould 505 0.8 New
Lab Majority 1,836 3.1 +2.8
2019 electorate 80,203
Turnout 60,113 75.0 +2.3
Labour hold
Swing 1.4 C to Lab
Boundary Changes
Canterbury consist of
94.3% of Canterbury
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_298_Canterbury_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional result (Rallings and Thrasher)
Canterbury is a very special place. A walled city containing the mother church of the Anglican faith, it is, like Dover, one of the symbols of what it is to be England. Politically, it's pretty special too - there have been MPs for Canterbury since 1295, and official Conservatives held it continuously from 1918 until 2017, an Independent Unionist having made a gain in December 1910, the only break in having at least one Conservative/Independent C/Peelite MP since two Whigs won in 1830. At the general election of 2017 Rosie Duffield, quite astonishingly, brought that linage crashing down as Canterbury went Labour. There was a hint of this during the campaign when polling revealed this as a possibility, but sniggers that went up about just how silly polling predictions could get - Canterbury going Labour? Whatever next will these know-nothings come up with? But not only did it happen as a one-off but in 2019, still against some expectations, Ms Duffield not only held on to what she had gained but consolidated on her previously quite slender lead. Now it would be a surprise if Labour did not hold Canterbury with an increased majority at the forthcoming general election.
Of course the modern Canterbury constituency bears very little resemblance to that walled city, now normally packed with tourists but not many residents (though there may well be a substantial Labour majority among those that there are!). Canterbury long burst out beyond its walls and much of its population lived in the long established suburbs now forming wards like Westgate, Northgate (the names a bit of a giveaway there), Wincheap and Barton. The old walled city now forms part of Westgate. These were hardly the areas where the Tory strength had been for a long time. In 2007 local elections, for instance, the three wards of Westgate, Wincheap and Barton returned all 9 places to the Lib Dems, although admittedly the Tories that year managed to take the two Northgate seats off Labour.
But going further afield the constituency included many rural areas like Chartham and Blean Forest that were quite strongly Conservative, and areas closer to the sea, like Chestfield, Swalecliffe and Tankerton, which were very much more strongly so. Whitstable itself had quite a strongish Labour vote (though again while Labour hung on in Whitstable Harbour they lost Gorrell to the Tories that year). On the whole, if you look at what Canterbury appeared like in local government in those pre-coalition days, the Tories looked pretty strong, the Lib Dems dominated in Canterbury proper and Labour looked a fading force. The figures for councillors within the constituency in 2007 was 20 Conservatives, LibDems 14, and Labour 2. And when the general election came 3 years later that was pretty well confirmed- just over 22,000 for Julian Brazier compared with 16,000 for the Lib Dem Guy Voizey, under 8,000 for Labour. No suggestion there of what was to come from Labour, and no suggestion of general election votes being significantly different from local elections.
It is often suggested that one major reason for the changes in the fortunes of Labour post-2010 lay in the fact that Canterbury has become above all else a student city. As always, one might want to argue that it is more complicated than that, but the big student vote was undoubtedly a factor to be taken seriously. We may have to remind ourselves that pre-2010 a big student vote was seen as a big plus for the Lib Dems. After coalition and the student fees debacle, no longer so, and Labour were well placed to take advantage.
Canterbury has two biggish universities, the University of Kent and Christ Church University, an Art College which is a component part of the UCA - the University for the Creative Arts, a further education college and various other private institutions, crammed into quite a small urban area with a residential population of about 50,000 - the "City of Canterbury "district has about 165,000 people but less than a third of that is in "Canterbury proper," the continuously built up area. The residential student population is currently about 30,000 - it peaked at 30,795 in 2010-11- and they are overwhelmingly in "Canterbury proper." The ward with the highest share of students is St Stephens which is adjacent to the University of Kent, and a ward which mostly votes Conservative in local government elections (it actually had voted 2 LD 1 Con in 2007!), but it will be pretty high in all the urban wards. The university campus, with its residential colleges, is actually in Blean Forest ward. The Christ Church campus, together with UCA and the FE college are all in Barton ward. Of course not all students who are resident are registered, and not all of those who are registered vote in local elections, or even in general elections. It has also been suggested that traditionally there was a tendency for southeastern students to go home at weekends, so maybe not to show so much interest in local affairs, or to vote locally. It might be that is changing.
With all that in mind, it may be instructive to look at the local elections from May 2019, for some clues as to the rise in the Labour vote once Canterbury became a Labour constituency, and to see what happened to the Conservatives in those circumstances. Compared with 2015, in the 29 seats within the constituency, the Tories fell back 11 seats, from 24 to 13, while Labour went up from 2 to 10, and the Lib Dems from 3 to 6. Some of that must be down the unpopularity of the Conservative local administration and have nothing to do with national politics, but we can see just where the vote changed. Labour got back their old strongpoints like Whitstable ( Gorrell ward) and Northgate, they took Barton (lots of students there), which the Conservatives had in turn taken from the Lib Dems on the previous election, and they even took one of the Tory seats in St Stephens- that might well have been student-related. The Lib Dems hung on to Wincheap, always their heartland, but also started to take Conservative votes in places where Labour were less likely to advance - two seats in Blean Forest and one in Nailbourne, and even came within 4 votes of taking Tankerton (with Labour there not far behind). Of course some of this change may be less about the student vote and more related to the staff vote. The main centres of population in the rural parts of Blean Forest ward, Tyler Hill and Rough Common for example, have long been popular with university staff, as has the St Dunstan’s area of the city which also falls into Blean Forest. yellowperil remember years ago going to a planning dispute issue in Canterbury where the Blean locals were up in arms, and a chap getting up and announcing in an exaggeratedly cultured voice that he was there to represent all the Rough Common people - he was indeed a retired university lecturer. There will be resident staff in the colleges on campus of course.
Of course Canterbury has been changing fast in the last couple of decades and not all of that is down to higher education issues. Another factor is undoubtedly the arrival of HS 1. Strictly, HS 1 links St Pancras with Ashford International but Southeastern high speed trains continue on conventional rails to destinations beyond Ashford all over East Kent and Canterbury is a principal beneficiary, with about 40 minutes knocked off what would have been roughly a 2 hour journey to London (depending exactly where you were headed).An attractive place to live, it becomes a much more realistic commuter option, if you can afford the £5k season ticket of course, which you may be able to offset against lower house prices, compared with London at least. It certainly opens Canterbury up to a different sort of resident compared with the old cathedral city image. This change may apply to other places as well as Canterbury proper- some of the villages become more attractive to commuters, and places like Whitstable become decidedly more hip than they used to be, in part because they feel nearer in time to London.
One might mention one other aspect of the change from historic Canterbury and the twenty-first century city. The old Canterbury had a major role as a military centre, long before it was an educational centre, with the substantial Howe barracks out on the Sturry road (so Northgate ward). There had been barracks in this part of Canterbury since the 1790s, and they took various forms and were occupied by different regiments but were primarily associated with the " Buffs", the Royal East Kent regiment. In later years it was the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders that were stationed here before returning to their Scottish roots. This long military association ended finally in 2016 and the site rescheduled for housing. The existing military houses, about 150 units, have been acquired by the London Borough of Redbridge, who outbid the local city council, so this will in effect be London overspill development. The barracks site is largely cleared, apart from a few community use structures, and some 500 new housing units are going in.
What has happened in local elections within the constituency since 2019? In May 2023 on Canterbury council in the wards within this constituency Labour held Barton and Northgate, and added the second seat in St Stephen’s to the one they gained our years earlier. They also made fresh gain in wards they had not won since 1995 (Seasalter), 1987 (Wincheap, one gain from the Liberal Democrats) or ever (Chartham & Stone Street, Tankerton). On the other hand Labour did lose two of their three in Gorrell to the Greens. Meanwhile the Lib Dems gained both Chestfield and Little Stour & Adisham (and their one remaining Tory seat in Blean Forest). This meant that the Conservatives won precisely none of the 14 wards in the Canterbury constituency. Adding up all the votes in May 2023 within the seat, Adam Gray found the Conservative share was only 18.5%. Labour (35.5%) and the Liberal Democrats (27.9%) were both well ahead and the Greens in fourth place (15.1%) were not far behind.
In minor boundary changes, most of the Sturry ward (about 4,500 voters) is removed from this seat. Despite that being an area of historic Labour strength, and them gaining it in 2023 for the first time since 1999, the consequence of the Commission’s work will be a slight increase in the 2019 notional Labour majority, to just over 2,000.
It is now looking like Labour’s majority in a putative 2024 general election may be well over 2,000, perhaps even in five figures. That long Conservative tradition in the constituency named after this historic city is well and truly over. New issues, new cleavages, and a new type of populace between them seem to have brought about a transformation. In 2017 and 2019 Canterbury was the only one of the 18 Westminster seats in the county of Kent to elect a Labour MP. This may well change next time. However it is also a fair bet that some of seven constituencies that Labour did win in the Blair walkovers in 1997 and 2001 will not be recovered. That means Canterbury will confirm its place as a politically highly untypical part of the Garden of England.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 264/575
Owner occupied 61.6% 375/575
Private rented 24.4% 125/575
Social rented 14.1% 335/575
White 86.4% 341/575
Black 3.4% 174/575
Asian 5.0% 265/575
Managerial & professional 32.2% 298/575
Routine & Semi-routine 17.1% 480/575
Degree level 36.3% 177/575
No qualifications 14.0% 468/575
Students 20.7% 20/575
European referendum 2016
Remain 54.7%
Leave 45.3%
General Election 2019: Canterbury
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Rosie Duffield 29,018 48.3 +3.3
Conservative Anna Firth 27,182 45.2 +0.5
Liberal Democrats Claire Malcomson 3,408 5.7 −2.3
Independent Michael Gould 505 0.8 New
Lab Majority 1,836 3.1 +2.8
2019 electorate 80,203
Turnout 60,113 75.0 +2.3
Labour hold
Swing 1.4 C to Lab
Boundary Changes
Canterbury consist of
94.3% of Canterbury
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_298_Canterbury_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional result (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Lab | 27782 | 48.6% |
| Con | 25662 | 44.8% |
| LD | 3257 | 5.7% |
| Oth | 505 | 0.9% |
| Majority | 2160 | 3.8% |
