Post by Robert Waller on Nov 23, 2023 21:36:31 GMT
This is based on the original profile by Devil Wincarnate, with his kind permission, and includes the work of Pete Whitehead on boundary changes; the updating and expansion is my responsibility
As befits an ancient capital of England, Winchester has been represented since the Model Parliament, even if its boundaries have changed quite significantly during that time. Until 1885, it was a borough constituency, and covered a large section of Hampshire. Winchester is the county town, even if the shire itself was once known as the County of Southampton. In earlier times, the constituency was held by several notable figures. Thomas Fleming was one of the judges of Guy Fawkes. Sir John Lisle represented the seat during the English Civil War, and was a regicide of Charles I, being later murdered in Lausanne by royalist agents. It was also briefly held by Henry Temple, better known as the father of the later Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.
Since the emergence of the modern party system, the seat has broadly been a Conservative-Liberal battleground, a trend that was interrupted in the middle part of the twentieth century but has re-emerged and continued well into the twenty-first century. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century and early twentieth, the names Bonham-Carter and Baring crop up repeatedly. John Bonham-Carter was the Whig and then Liberal MP for the seat, who married into the Barings. Francis Baring briefly represented the seat for the Liberals alongside several Tories. The last of this axis was Guy Baring, a Conservative this time, who held the seat between 1906 and his death at the Somme in 1916. Ironically, another Bonham-Carter (Arthur) also fell at the Somme.
Conservative dominance remained until 1945, when the Attlee landslide carried the venerable cathedral city with it. The losing Tory member, Gerald Palmer, never returned to politics but instead became a renowned scholar and translator of Greek Orthodox philosophy and Modern Greek poetry. His replacement was George Jeger, brother-in-law of the formidable Lena Jeger. Jeger lasted one term, having arranged a chicken-run to Goole, and the seat reverted to the Conservatives. Labour were not helped by the removal of Eastleigh to form its own seat- the railway town had been a key source of Labour votes, and indeed the new Eastleigh seat would be a Tory-Labour marginal for several subsequent elections. The constituency was represented by a succession of interesting characters. Peter Smithers, a former diplomat alleged to be an inspiration for James Bond, served until 1964. He was succeeded by the remarkable Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles, a decorated war hero whom even Tito considered a bit of a hard man, and who later helped save HMS Belfast. The Liberals re-emerged as regular contenders for the race for a distant second place around this time.
After the retirement of Morgan-Giles, the Conservative position began to degenerate. His successor, John Browne, served from 1979 until his de-selection in 1992, at which point he made the first of two failed bids to return as an independent. During his tenure, the Social Democrats emerged as the major challengers, setting the base for heavy Lib Dem challenges in the Nineties. At this point, Winchester's hitherto rather dull political scene burst on to the national stage. In 1997, having lost the seat to the Lib Dems by 2 votes, the Tory incumbent Gerald Malone launched an electoral petition and a by-election was called. His Lib Dem replacement, a former SDP councillor from Watford named Mark Oaten, turned a 2 vote majority into one of over 21,000. Labour were annihilated and scored less than 2% of the vote. The two Winchester contests also led indirectly to the Registration of Political Parties Act of 1998, after one Richard Huggett carried out two more of his efforts of running as a "Literal Democrat" and similar - indeed, he had initially attempted to run under the name "Gerald Maclone".
Oaten was a high-profile MP, helped no doubt by being part of the largest third-party caucus in Parliament for decades. After two more successes in Winchester, he made an aborted attempt to become Lib Dem leader in 2006, but withdrew due to lack of support. Shortly afterwards, however, lurid stories about his private life emerged in the press, and he announced he would not stand at the next election. By this point, the city council elections were showing a great deal of volatility between Conservatives and Lib Dems, and the stage was set for the most competitive contest in many years.
In 2010, the seat looked very different, and now consisted of the City of Winchester wards plus four relatively Conservative-leaning, affluent wards in the Chandlers Ford area of Eastleigh. The redrawn constituency was won with a 3,048 majority by the Conservative Steve Brine, who was re-elected with larger majorities in 2015 and 2017. However, the seat became unexpectedly dramatic. In a constituency that voted 58.1% Remain in 2016 and featuring a heavy Lib Dem presence, it was inevitable that this would prove difficult for a pro-Leave MP. However, Brine also found himself temporarily expelled from the party for voting for a bill aimed at preventing a no-deal outcome. Re-admitted, Brine's majority was reduced to just 985 in December 2019.
The seat is relatively affluent, and is considered a Conservative-Lib Dem marginal, a status that shows little sign of changing imminently. Labour strength has dissipated and is these days most associated with the Winnall area to the north-east of the city proper. The last ward held by Labour here, St. Johns and All Saints, was lost to the Conservatives in 2015, and Labour trailed the Greens in their city-wide vote tally in 2019. In May 2023, the Liberal Democrats won nine of the ten Winchester city council wards that were already within the parliamentary seat, including all of those within Winchester itself, including St Luke’s, covering the environs of Stanmore, which the Conservatives had held when it was previously contested in 2021. The only Tory holdout in the whole council was Wonston & Micheldever at its north western tip, and even there there was a 7.6% swing to the Lib Dems since May 2019.
The proposed boundary changes return the Chandlers Ford area to Eastleigh and replace it with Bishops Waltham, Droxford and the Meon Valley from Meon Valley. This moves its geographical centre of gravity substantially in a south easterly direction within Hampshire, and brings the boundaries of the constituency closer to those of the district and to the pre-2010 boundaries and will be helpful to the Conservatives. The notional 2019 majority calculated by Rallings and Thrasher increases from the actual 985 to just over 9,000. However this probably overstates the scale of the increased task facing the Liberal Democrat challengers, as that Meon Valley element had previously not been in a constituency where they had a reasonable chance of victory, so it would not have been worked as hard in 2019 given the focus in Winchester then, nor would there have been such an effective squeeze on, say, the Labour share – which was over 10% in Meon Valley when it was under 5% in Winchester.
What is more, subsequent local elections in the quarter of the Meon Valley seat that is now transferred to Winchester suggest it does have potential for the LDs. In May 2023, for example, they gained the Bishop’s Waltham ward for the first time since 1995, and ousting the Tories with an increase of share of 20.0% since May 2019 and a positive swing of nearly 18%.They also gained Upper Meon Valley more narrowly (10 votes in fact). In Central Meon Valley it was the Greens, securing a whopping 63%, who ended a Tory run of success that went back to 1976.
One other effect of the boundary changes is to make the Winchester constituency even more generally gorgeous. As well as the historic small city itself (population still less than 50,000 though growing) with its highly distinguished private school, massive cathedral, and Arthurian legends, the seat contains swathes of highly attractive countryside as well as delightful villages and small towns. As the A32 winds its way down the valley of the Meon among its watercress beds, it passes between downs like Broadhalfpenny, the site of the original Hambledon cricket club, and hills such as Old Winchester with its Iron Age hill fort and distant views all the way to Portsmouth. Talking of cricket, the great commentator John Arlott lived for twenty years (1961-81) at New Alresford in this seat. This market town is only ‘New’ in the sense that it was found by the Bishops of Winchester in the late 12th century (then largely rebuilt in its fine Georgian architecture in the 18th after a major fire). At the other (south) end of the constituency and restored to its after a 14 year absence is Bishop’s Waltham, set on the upper River Hamble, with the extensive ruins of the Bishop’s Palace, and now the home of another sports broadcaster great in his own way, Jeff Stelling. Overall, Winchester is one of the most enjoyable seats to explore when testing the psephological waters.
It is also highly middle class and well educated for a seat far removed from capital cities. It is just outside the top 40 in England and Wales for professional and managerial occupations (13 of the top 20 are in Greater London, and just outside the top 50 for residents with educational degrees (18 out of the top 20 are in London, along with Cambridge and Bristol Central – none of these remotely rural). It does have a higher than average proportion of full time students, largely due to the presence of the University of Winchester (41% of the residents of Winchester Stanmore MSOA are full time students, for example in the Burma Road student village and the West Downs campus as well as in Stanmore housing). The percentage with degrees is even greater within the seat in Winchester Central & South MSOA (55%), in the less picturesque south eastern modern estates of Oliver’s Battery along with affluent rural Hursley (53% in the MSOA that coves both) and Winchester North & Sparsholt (52%). The proportion with no educational qualification surpassed 10% only in Winchester East and Stanmore, (the two more working class sectors of the city, with 40% living in social rented housing. These two areas had 23% and 17% routine / semi-routine workers respectively, hardly to be considered a high level in any other than a Winchester context). On the other hand, percentages of higher professional and managerial occupations reach 25%, and all prof/man around 50%, in many parts of the constituency, both within Winchester and in the more rural MSOAs.
Winchester district voted 59% for Remain in the 2016 referendum, which fits with its educational and socio-economic profile. As the May 2023 local results on new boundaries sum to an 18% Liberal Democrats lead (49% to 31% for the Conservatives) it looks like this constituency is highly likely to return to their parliamentary tenure too after a 2024 general election. John Arlott, a Liberal parliamentary candidate on two occasions, would be pleased, if this were to come to pass. The MP Steve Brine (aged 49) announced in June 2023 that he is not standing again.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ - 21.3% 193/575
Owner occupied 66.3% 280/575
Private rented 17.5% 318/575
Social rented 16.2% 243/575
White 93.2% 233/575
Black 0.6% 412/575
Asian 3.3% 326/575
Managerial & professional 45.1% 41/575
Routine & Semi-routine 14.7% 532/575
Degree level 46.4% 53/575
No qualifications 10.7% 554/575
Students – 11.0% 79/575
General Election 2019: Winchester
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Steve Brine 28,430 48.3 –3.7
Liberal Democrats Paula Ferguson 27,445 46.6 +12.1
Labour George Baker 2,723 4.6 –5.9
Justice & Anti-Corruption Teresa Skelton 292 0.5 +0.2
C Majority 985 1.7 –15.8
2019 electorate 75,582
Turnout 58,890 77.9 –1.1
Conservative hold
Swing 7.9 C to LD
Boundary Changes
Winchester consists of
77.6% of Winchester
24.6% of Meon Valley
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_368_Winchester_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Result (Rallings & Thrasher)
As befits an ancient capital of England, Winchester has been represented since the Model Parliament, even if its boundaries have changed quite significantly during that time. Until 1885, it was a borough constituency, and covered a large section of Hampshire. Winchester is the county town, even if the shire itself was once known as the County of Southampton. In earlier times, the constituency was held by several notable figures. Thomas Fleming was one of the judges of Guy Fawkes. Sir John Lisle represented the seat during the English Civil War, and was a regicide of Charles I, being later murdered in Lausanne by royalist agents. It was also briefly held by Henry Temple, better known as the father of the later Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.
Since the emergence of the modern party system, the seat has broadly been a Conservative-Liberal battleground, a trend that was interrupted in the middle part of the twentieth century but has re-emerged and continued well into the twenty-first century. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century and early twentieth, the names Bonham-Carter and Baring crop up repeatedly. John Bonham-Carter was the Whig and then Liberal MP for the seat, who married into the Barings. Francis Baring briefly represented the seat for the Liberals alongside several Tories. The last of this axis was Guy Baring, a Conservative this time, who held the seat between 1906 and his death at the Somme in 1916. Ironically, another Bonham-Carter (Arthur) also fell at the Somme.
Conservative dominance remained until 1945, when the Attlee landslide carried the venerable cathedral city with it. The losing Tory member, Gerald Palmer, never returned to politics but instead became a renowned scholar and translator of Greek Orthodox philosophy and Modern Greek poetry. His replacement was George Jeger, brother-in-law of the formidable Lena Jeger. Jeger lasted one term, having arranged a chicken-run to Goole, and the seat reverted to the Conservatives. Labour were not helped by the removal of Eastleigh to form its own seat- the railway town had been a key source of Labour votes, and indeed the new Eastleigh seat would be a Tory-Labour marginal for several subsequent elections. The constituency was represented by a succession of interesting characters. Peter Smithers, a former diplomat alleged to be an inspiration for James Bond, served until 1964. He was succeeded by the remarkable Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles, a decorated war hero whom even Tito considered a bit of a hard man, and who later helped save HMS Belfast. The Liberals re-emerged as regular contenders for the race for a distant second place around this time.
After the retirement of Morgan-Giles, the Conservative position began to degenerate. His successor, John Browne, served from 1979 until his de-selection in 1992, at which point he made the first of two failed bids to return as an independent. During his tenure, the Social Democrats emerged as the major challengers, setting the base for heavy Lib Dem challenges in the Nineties. At this point, Winchester's hitherto rather dull political scene burst on to the national stage. In 1997, having lost the seat to the Lib Dems by 2 votes, the Tory incumbent Gerald Malone launched an electoral petition and a by-election was called. His Lib Dem replacement, a former SDP councillor from Watford named Mark Oaten, turned a 2 vote majority into one of over 21,000. Labour were annihilated and scored less than 2% of the vote. The two Winchester contests also led indirectly to the Registration of Political Parties Act of 1998, after one Richard Huggett carried out two more of his efforts of running as a "Literal Democrat" and similar - indeed, he had initially attempted to run under the name "Gerald Maclone".
Oaten was a high-profile MP, helped no doubt by being part of the largest third-party caucus in Parliament for decades. After two more successes in Winchester, he made an aborted attempt to become Lib Dem leader in 2006, but withdrew due to lack of support. Shortly afterwards, however, lurid stories about his private life emerged in the press, and he announced he would not stand at the next election. By this point, the city council elections were showing a great deal of volatility between Conservatives and Lib Dems, and the stage was set for the most competitive contest in many years.
In 2010, the seat looked very different, and now consisted of the City of Winchester wards plus four relatively Conservative-leaning, affluent wards in the Chandlers Ford area of Eastleigh. The redrawn constituency was won with a 3,048 majority by the Conservative Steve Brine, who was re-elected with larger majorities in 2015 and 2017. However, the seat became unexpectedly dramatic. In a constituency that voted 58.1% Remain in 2016 and featuring a heavy Lib Dem presence, it was inevitable that this would prove difficult for a pro-Leave MP. However, Brine also found himself temporarily expelled from the party for voting for a bill aimed at preventing a no-deal outcome. Re-admitted, Brine's majority was reduced to just 985 in December 2019.
The seat is relatively affluent, and is considered a Conservative-Lib Dem marginal, a status that shows little sign of changing imminently. Labour strength has dissipated and is these days most associated with the Winnall area to the north-east of the city proper. The last ward held by Labour here, St. Johns and All Saints, was lost to the Conservatives in 2015, and Labour trailed the Greens in their city-wide vote tally in 2019. In May 2023, the Liberal Democrats won nine of the ten Winchester city council wards that were already within the parliamentary seat, including all of those within Winchester itself, including St Luke’s, covering the environs of Stanmore, which the Conservatives had held when it was previously contested in 2021. The only Tory holdout in the whole council was Wonston & Micheldever at its north western tip, and even there there was a 7.6% swing to the Lib Dems since May 2019.
The proposed boundary changes return the Chandlers Ford area to Eastleigh and replace it with Bishops Waltham, Droxford and the Meon Valley from Meon Valley. This moves its geographical centre of gravity substantially in a south easterly direction within Hampshire, and brings the boundaries of the constituency closer to those of the district and to the pre-2010 boundaries and will be helpful to the Conservatives. The notional 2019 majority calculated by Rallings and Thrasher increases from the actual 985 to just over 9,000. However this probably overstates the scale of the increased task facing the Liberal Democrat challengers, as that Meon Valley element had previously not been in a constituency where they had a reasonable chance of victory, so it would not have been worked as hard in 2019 given the focus in Winchester then, nor would there have been such an effective squeeze on, say, the Labour share – which was over 10% in Meon Valley when it was under 5% in Winchester.
What is more, subsequent local elections in the quarter of the Meon Valley seat that is now transferred to Winchester suggest it does have potential for the LDs. In May 2023, for example, they gained the Bishop’s Waltham ward for the first time since 1995, and ousting the Tories with an increase of share of 20.0% since May 2019 and a positive swing of nearly 18%.They also gained Upper Meon Valley more narrowly (10 votes in fact). In Central Meon Valley it was the Greens, securing a whopping 63%, who ended a Tory run of success that went back to 1976.
One other effect of the boundary changes is to make the Winchester constituency even more generally gorgeous. As well as the historic small city itself (population still less than 50,000 though growing) with its highly distinguished private school, massive cathedral, and Arthurian legends, the seat contains swathes of highly attractive countryside as well as delightful villages and small towns. As the A32 winds its way down the valley of the Meon among its watercress beds, it passes between downs like Broadhalfpenny, the site of the original Hambledon cricket club, and hills such as Old Winchester with its Iron Age hill fort and distant views all the way to Portsmouth. Talking of cricket, the great commentator John Arlott lived for twenty years (1961-81) at New Alresford in this seat. This market town is only ‘New’ in the sense that it was found by the Bishops of Winchester in the late 12th century (then largely rebuilt in its fine Georgian architecture in the 18th after a major fire). At the other (south) end of the constituency and restored to its after a 14 year absence is Bishop’s Waltham, set on the upper River Hamble, with the extensive ruins of the Bishop’s Palace, and now the home of another sports broadcaster great in his own way, Jeff Stelling. Overall, Winchester is one of the most enjoyable seats to explore when testing the psephological waters.
It is also highly middle class and well educated for a seat far removed from capital cities. It is just outside the top 40 in England and Wales for professional and managerial occupations (13 of the top 20 are in Greater London, and just outside the top 50 for residents with educational degrees (18 out of the top 20 are in London, along with Cambridge and Bristol Central – none of these remotely rural). It does have a higher than average proportion of full time students, largely due to the presence of the University of Winchester (41% of the residents of Winchester Stanmore MSOA are full time students, for example in the Burma Road student village and the West Downs campus as well as in Stanmore housing). The percentage with degrees is even greater within the seat in Winchester Central & South MSOA (55%), in the less picturesque south eastern modern estates of Oliver’s Battery along with affluent rural Hursley (53% in the MSOA that coves both) and Winchester North & Sparsholt (52%). The proportion with no educational qualification surpassed 10% only in Winchester East and Stanmore, (the two more working class sectors of the city, with 40% living in social rented housing. These two areas had 23% and 17% routine / semi-routine workers respectively, hardly to be considered a high level in any other than a Winchester context). On the other hand, percentages of higher professional and managerial occupations reach 25%, and all prof/man around 50%, in many parts of the constituency, both within Winchester and in the more rural MSOAs.
Winchester district voted 59% for Remain in the 2016 referendum, which fits with its educational and socio-economic profile. As the May 2023 local results on new boundaries sum to an 18% Liberal Democrats lead (49% to 31% for the Conservatives) it looks like this constituency is highly likely to return to their parliamentary tenure too after a 2024 general election. John Arlott, a Liberal parliamentary candidate on two occasions, would be pleased, if this were to come to pass. The MP Steve Brine (aged 49) announced in June 2023 that he is not standing again.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ - 21.3% 193/575
Owner occupied 66.3% 280/575
Private rented 17.5% 318/575
Social rented 16.2% 243/575
White 93.2% 233/575
Black 0.6% 412/575
Asian 3.3% 326/575
Managerial & professional 45.1% 41/575
Routine & Semi-routine 14.7% 532/575
Degree level 46.4% 53/575
No qualifications 10.7% 554/575
Students – 11.0% 79/575
General Election 2019: Winchester
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Steve Brine 28,430 48.3 –3.7
Liberal Democrats Paula Ferguson 27,445 46.6 +12.1
Labour George Baker 2,723 4.6 –5.9
Justice & Anti-Corruption Teresa Skelton 292 0.5 +0.2
C Majority 985 1.7 –15.8
2019 electorate 75,582
Turnout 58,890 77.9 –1.1
Conservative hold
Swing 7.9 C to LD
Boundary Changes
Winchester consists of
77.6% of Winchester
24.6% of Meon Valley
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_368_Winchester_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Result (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 34552 | 54.0% |
| LD | 25472 | 39.9% |
| Lab | 3039 | 4.8% |
| Grn | 586 | 0.9% |
| Oth | 292 | 0.5% |
| Majority | 9,050 | 14.2% |