Post by andrewp on Nov 18, 2023 11:01:04 GMT
This is a mash up of the original profiles for Newport West and for Islwyn ( written by Robert Waller). Hopefully it sits together better than the actual constituency does!
One of the outcomes of the reduction from 40 to 32 parliamentary constituencies in Wales is that several of the names of the new constituencies, including this one, appear to be the complete merger of 2 existing parliamentary constituencies. The consituency names of Newport West and Islwyn both date back to the 1983 boundary review. Newport West essentially covered the Western half of the then town of Newport, together with some outlying villages, and Islwyn took the name of a then local government district ( abolished in 1996). Islwyn would perhaps have been one of the more obscure constituency names, but for the prominence of its first MP, who went on to lead his party and harboured, ultimately frustrated, hopes of becoming Prime minister whilst serving as MP for Islwyn.
This new constituency is to say the least a bit awkward, mixing city suburbs with valley communities. The 2 predecessor seats were both well under the minimum electorate for a constituency in the 2023 review. 70.6% of the current Islwyn, essentially the southern two thirds of that constituency moves here and makes up just over half (53%) of the new seat. This covers the communities of Risca, Crosskeys, Newbridge, Crumlin and Blackwood. The other 47% of this new seat comes from the Western half ( almost exactly 50%) of Newport West. This covers the western suburbs of the city of Allt-yr-yn, Gaer and Tredegar Park and then some of the separate communities outside of the city including Marshfield, Bassaleg and Rogerstone. If any seat is abolished here it is Newport West.
Starting with the slightly larger ‘half’ - the valleys from Islwyn. One of the most striking social developments in Britain has been the decline of expressed commitment to Christianity. This made newspaper headlines in autumn 2022 when the findings of the 2021 census relating to religion were released, which confirmed a continuing steep diminution in the number claiming to be Christians compared with 2011. Many of the highest percentages of respondents answering that they had ‘no religion’ were to be found in the former South Wales coalfield. In the constituency of Islwyn, for example, well over half came into that category, 57.9%. This placed the seat 3rd in the list of constituencies in England and Wales. Six of the other seats in the top ten are also in the valleys, with Rhondda ranked at no.1. Why is there such a concentration of unbelief in this sub-region? The answer probably has to do with its denominational history. The coal valleys were strongholds of Nonconformist Protestantism – Methodism, Baptism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism and so on; essentially it was the land of the chapel, as a study of any historic Ordnance Survey map will show, with all the symbolic plus-sign crosses. This tradition has suffered from a decline in active worship even steeper than that of the ‘Anglican’ branch of the Protestant persuasion.
There is a strong history of relationship between Nonconformity and political preference and voting patterns. Take for example the analysis in Kenneth Wald’s work Crosses on the Ballot (Princeton 1983). As the double meaning of its title implies, in the epoch before the era of class related voting, essentially up to the First World War, the predominant cleavage in British elections was between Nonconformist Liberal voters and Church of England (or at least what the Americans would call episcopalian) Conservatives. With the decline of the Liberal party, there was some element of transfer of Nonconformist support to the Labour party, although its disproportionate survival in parts of the ‘Celtic fringes’ was also associated with continuing Liberal relative success. Certainly Nonconformity was an inhibitor to support for the Conservative party.
Labour strength has indeed weakened in the ex-mining parts of South Wales recently. Although it is hard to see a direct connection with the decline of religious practice, the end of mining and its associated trade unionism must have played a part in a weakening of the community ‘neighbourhood effect’. It is not just the Brexit issue, as a Labour share of over 70% in Islwyn in 1987 (not a nationally good year for the party) fell to the low 60s even when they formed a government in 2005, and to below half (49%) as early as 2010. In December 2019 it reached a new nadir, 44.7% - and the Tories reached 28%, which would have been unthinkable back in the active coalfield days.
When Neil Kinnock started his parliamentary career in 1970, the constituency was called Bedwellty, also not the easiest place to locate geographically. Neither Bedwellty nor Islwyn are names of prominent towns. Bedwellty had been an ancient parish, then a confected Urban District consisting of the communities of Aberbargoed, Argoed, Blackwood, New Tredegar, and Pengam. Aberbargoed and Pengam do not move here, they now join Blaenau Gwent & Rhymney and Caerphilly respectively and New Tredegar has long since bern removed from Islwyn. That name is a contraction of the parish of Mynyddislwyn (‘below the grove’). The communities that do move here include Argoed, Blackwood, Newbridge, Cross Keys and Risca. Since 1996 in local government terms the area has been subsumed within the Caerphilly county borough and unitary authority. This area is very much the heart of the valleys, as the Islwyn area is currently almost entirely surrounded by other ex-mining constituencies: Torfaen to the east, Blaenau Gwent to the north, Caerphilly to the south and south west, and Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney to the north west.
In the May 2022 Caerphilly county borough elections, Labour won almost all the electoral divisions within Islwyn with a handful of Independent exceptions such as in Blackwood and Ynysddu.
Turning now to the ‘Newport West’ part of the seat. The wards of Newport West in the new seat do take in those that lie physically between the city and Islwyn – Rogerston and Graig, which are increasingly commuter towns to Newport and Cardiff. But they also include several wards of the city itself: the middle class residential area of Allt-yr-yn, set on a hill west of the City Centre, and Gaer and Tredegar Park nearer its centre. Finally added is Marshfield. This is a large rural ward that crosses the M4 and extends all the way to the Severn estuary and almost to the edge of Cardiff. This really does not fit with, for example, the far north end of the seat, Argoed ward, which follows the valley of the Sirhowy towards Tredegar, almost at the Heads of the Valleys road. Newport West and Islwyn will therefore be only partially a valleys constituency, and may be one of the more illogical productions of the entire review.
The area from Newport West has been politically quite marginal between Labour and the Conservatives recently. And in 2019, when Labour held Newport West by 902 votes, the Conservatives would certainly have been ahead in this section. The Tories have a significant presence in several of the Newport wards, including Allt-yr-yn, Rogerstone North and Graig which all elected Tories in the May 2022 Newport elections (on new ward boundaries); in 2017 they had also taken Marshfield and the unified Rogerstone
In the 2022 local elections, total numbers of councillors elected in this new constituency, were Labour 29, Conservative 4, Independent 4.
Newport West has usually been a marginal Labour constituency .In its first contest in the Conservative landslide year of 1983, Conservative Mark Robinson crept home by 581 votes. Robinson served a single term here before losing out to Labour’s Paul Flynn, who then went on to serve the constituency for over 30 years until his death in 2019. In the by election to succeed Flynn held in April 2019, Labour’s Ruth Jones was elected by 2000 votes, and then just 8 months later in a rematch with Conservative Matthew Evans, crept home again by 902 votes.
The new constituency is actually fairly middling on most demographics. It has a fairly average age profile, it is 70.3% owner occupied and 93.6% white.
Overall Newport West and Islwyn may have had a notional Labour majority of under 2,000 In 2019, though that looks at present a high water mark for the Conservatives for the foreseeable future. Newport West only ranks 161st in the 2021 census for England and Wales for ‘no religion’. That merely underlines that its pairing with Islwyn is a forced merger of two different traditions and ways of seeing the world; this is caused by the relative drop in population in the heart of the ‘valleys’. Their distinctive culture patterns are therefore in decline in two ways, shrinkage and historical transformation – and the impact they have on British electoral politics is also in the process of reduction.
One of the outcomes of the reduction from 40 to 32 parliamentary constituencies in Wales is that several of the names of the new constituencies, including this one, appear to be the complete merger of 2 existing parliamentary constituencies. The consituency names of Newport West and Islwyn both date back to the 1983 boundary review. Newport West essentially covered the Western half of the then town of Newport, together with some outlying villages, and Islwyn took the name of a then local government district ( abolished in 1996). Islwyn would perhaps have been one of the more obscure constituency names, but for the prominence of its first MP, who went on to lead his party and harboured, ultimately frustrated, hopes of becoming Prime minister whilst serving as MP for Islwyn.
This new constituency is to say the least a bit awkward, mixing city suburbs with valley communities. The 2 predecessor seats were both well under the minimum electorate for a constituency in the 2023 review. 70.6% of the current Islwyn, essentially the southern two thirds of that constituency moves here and makes up just over half (53%) of the new seat. This covers the communities of Risca, Crosskeys, Newbridge, Crumlin and Blackwood. The other 47% of this new seat comes from the Western half ( almost exactly 50%) of Newport West. This covers the western suburbs of the city of Allt-yr-yn, Gaer and Tredegar Park and then some of the separate communities outside of the city including Marshfield, Bassaleg and Rogerstone. If any seat is abolished here it is Newport West.
Starting with the slightly larger ‘half’ - the valleys from Islwyn. One of the most striking social developments in Britain has been the decline of expressed commitment to Christianity. This made newspaper headlines in autumn 2022 when the findings of the 2021 census relating to religion were released, which confirmed a continuing steep diminution in the number claiming to be Christians compared with 2011. Many of the highest percentages of respondents answering that they had ‘no religion’ were to be found in the former South Wales coalfield. In the constituency of Islwyn, for example, well over half came into that category, 57.9%. This placed the seat 3rd in the list of constituencies in England and Wales. Six of the other seats in the top ten are also in the valleys, with Rhondda ranked at no.1. Why is there such a concentration of unbelief in this sub-region? The answer probably has to do with its denominational history. The coal valleys were strongholds of Nonconformist Protestantism – Methodism, Baptism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism and so on; essentially it was the land of the chapel, as a study of any historic Ordnance Survey map will show, with all the symbolic plus-sign crosses. This tradition has suffered from a decline in active worship even steeper than that of the ‘Anglican’ branch of the Protestant persuasion.
There is a strong history of relationship between Nonconformity and political preference and voting patterns. Take for example the analysis in Kenneth Wald’s work Crosses on the Ballot (Princeton 1983). As the double meaning of its title implies, in the epoch before the era of class related voting, essentially up to the First World War, the predominant cleavage in British elections was between Nonconformist Liberal voters and Church of England (or at least what the Americans would call episcopalian) Conservatives. With the decline of the Liberal party, there was some element of transfer of Nonconformist support to the Labour party, although its disproportionate survival in parts of the ‘Celtic fringes’ was also associated with continuing Liberal relative success. Certainly Nonconformity was an inhibitor to support for the Conservative party.
Labour strength has indeed weakened in the ex-mining parts of South Wales recently. Although it is hard to see a direct connection with the decline of religious practice, the end of mining and its associated trade unionism must have played a part in a weakening of the community ‘neighbourhood effect’. It is not just the Brexit issue, as a Labour share of over 70% in Islwyn in 1987 (not a nationally good year for the party) fell to the low 60s even when they formed a government in 2005, and to below half (49%) as early as 2010. In December 2019 it reached a new nadir, 44.7% - and the Tories reached 28%, which would have been unthinkable back in the active coalfield days.
When Neil Kinnock started his parliamentary career in 1970, the constituency was called Bedwellty, also not the easiest place to locate geographically. Neither Bedwellty nor Islwyn are names of prominent towns. Bedwellty had been an ancient parish, then a confected Urban District consisting of the communities of Aberbargoed, Argoed, Blackwood, New Tredegar, and Pengam. Aberbargoed and Pengam do not move here, they now join Blaenau Gwent & Rhymney and Caerphilly respectively and New Tredegar has long since bern removed from Islwyn. That name is a contraction of the parish of Mynyddislwyn (‘below the grove’). The communities that do move here include Argoed, Blackwood, Newbridge, Cross Keys and Risca. Since 1996 in local government terms the area has been subsumed within the Caerphilly county borough and unitary authority. This area is very much the heart of the valleys, as the Islwyn area is currently almost entirely surrounded by other ex-mining constituencies: Torfaen to the east, Blaenau Gwent to the north, Caerphilly to the south and south west, and Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney to the north west.
In the May 2022 Caerphilly county borough elections, Labour won almost all the electoral divisions within Islwyn with a handful of Independent exceptions such as in Blackwood and Ynysddu.
Turning now to the ‘Newport West’ part of the seat. The wards of Newport West in the new seat do take in those that lie physically between the city and Islwyn – Rogerston and Graig, which are increasingly commuter towns to Newport and Cardiff. But they also include several wards of the city itself: the middle class residential area of Allt-yr-yn, set on a hill west of the City Centre, and Gaer and Tredegar Park nearer its centre. Finally added is Marshfield. This is a large rural ward that crosses the M4 and extends all the way to the Severn estuary and almost to the edge of Cardiff. This really does not fit with, for example, the far north end of the seat, Argoed ward, which follows the valley of the Sirhowy towards Tredegar, almost at the Heads of the Valleys road. Newport West and Islwyn will therefore be only partially a valleys constituency, and may be one of the more illogical productions of the entire review.
The area from Newport West has been politically quite marginal between Labour and the Conservatives recently. And in 2019, when Labour held Newport West by 902 votes, the Conservatives would certainly have been ahead in this section. The Tories have a significant presence in several of the Newport wards, including Allt-yr-yn, Rogerstone North and Graig which all elected Tories in the May 2022 Newport elections (on new ward boundaries); in 2017 they had also taken Marshfield and the unified Rogerstone
In the 2022 local elections, total numbers of councillors elected in this new constituency, were Labour 29, Conservative 4, Independent 4.
Newport West has usually been a marginal Labour constituency .In its first contest in the Conservative landslide year of 1983, Conservative Mark Robinson crept home by 581 votes. Robinson served a single term here before losing out to Labour’s Paul Flynn, who then went on to serve the constituency for over 30 years until his death in 2019. In the by election to succeed Flynn held in April 2019, Labour’s Ruth Jones was elected by 2000 votes, and then just 8 months later in a rematch with Conservative Matthew Evans, crept home again by 902 votes.
The new constituency is actually fairly middling on most demographics. It has a fairly average age profile, it is 70.3% owner occupied and 93.6% white.
Overall Newport West and Islwyn may have had a notional Labour majority of under 2,000 In 2019, though that looks at present a high water mark for the Conservatives for the foreseeable future. Newport West only ranks 161st in the 2021 census for England and Wales for ‘no religion’. That merely underlines that its pairing with Islwyn is a forced merger of two different traditions and ways of seeing the world; this is caused by the relative drop in population in the heart of the ‘valleys’. Their distinctive culture patterns are therefore in decline in two ways, shrinkage and historical transformation – and the impact they have on British electoral politics is also in the process of reduction.
