Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 24, 2023 19:15:35 GMT
The Liberal Democrats (and their predecessors, the Alliance in the 1980s and before that the Liberal party) had a tradition of gaining unexpected seats in by-elections on huge swings, from both main parties, all the way back to Orpington in 1962. They had had a fallow period since going into government themselves however, gaining just one seat in each of the previous two Parliaments and those in seats they had recently held (Richmond Park and Brecon & Radnorshire).
In June 2021 they broke their duck by gaining the hitherto safely Conservative seat of Chesham & Amersham in Buckinghamshire on a swing of 25%. This occurred just over a month after the first elections to the new Unitary Buckinghamshire council in which the Conservatives won 26 of the council seats in this constituency and the Lib Dems just 1.
More symbolically, it came just over a month after the Conservatives had gained Hartlepool from Labour on another large swing. It is difficult to imagine two more contrasting constituencies in England than Hartlepool and Chesham & Amersham. A lot of rubbish is spouted by journalists about ‘Red Walls’ and ‘Blue Walls’, but undoubtedly the 2019 general election saw the culmination of a significant realignment in British politics which had actually been going on more slowly for a couple of decades or more.
The major fault line which at least symbolised the new dichotomy was Britain’s membership of the European Union and it is notable that while 70% of voters in Hartlepool had voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, 55% of those in the Chiltern district (with which this seat was coterminous) voted to remain. There had already been a swing of 9% from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems in the previous general election, almost entirely due to this issue.
There were other more specifically local issues at play in the by-election such as those to do with housing development, and HS2 which tears up part of the countryside was a long running sore. The Lib Dems were able to play on the strong ‘NIMBY’ sentiments of local voters even while having supported some of these developments themselves.
Regardless of the reasons, the result was a terrible blow for the Conservatives who had never fallen below 50% of the vote here nor had less than a 5-figure majority. Arguably this marked the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership, although it took another year and some other spectacular by-election losses before he was toppled.
This constituency was created in 1974 from parts of the Aylesbury and South Buckinghamshire constituencies and since 2010 it has shared the same boundaries as the now defunct Chiltern district. Before the byelection, it had had just two MPs in that time – the notable ‘wet’ Sir Ian Gilmour from 1974 to 1992 and since then Dame Cheryl Gillan.
This seat can be divided into four roughly equal parts.
The largest town here is Chesham towards the North of the constituency. Chesham is in fact an old industrial town which has developed into a commuter base due to its location at the end of the Metropolitan line. Nevertheless, there remain several distinctly downmarket areas of the town with sizeable council estates throughout and dingy terraced streets to the North of the town centre. There is also a substantial Pakistani population here. In parts of Chesham one could easily imagine being in the Pennines rather than the Chilterns.
In the initial elections to Chiltern council in 1973 a majority of councillors elected from Chesham were Labour and though they have declined subsequently they retained some strength in a number of wards while this town will still provide a large proportion of the Labour vote in general elections. The Lib Dems though have more recently provided the main challenge to the Conservatives here at all levels and presumably won over most of the Labour vote in the by-election.
Directly South of Chesham, and also on the Met line, is Amersham. Together with its satellites of Chesham Bois and Little Chalfont it is of a similar size to Chesham. There is a sizeable council estate in Little Chalfont but on the whole, this is a much more upmarket area than Chesham, Chesham Bois being notably affluent. It does however share a tendency to some Lib Dem strength at the local level in Amersham itself, though the Labour vote has been derisory for a long time now.
Further south still we have the Chalfonts – Chalfont St Peter is the main town here while we also have Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont Common. There is a very little social variety here – it is almost universally affluent and, in some areas, extremely wealthy. The area around Austenwood common in the far south blends into Gerrards Cross. All of this territory is also extremely Conservative with that party winning all the council seats here comfortably in the most recent local elections.
The fourth and final element of the constituency was the rural element. This is not primarily an agricultural region (thought here are farms of course) but a series of affluent and commuterised villages in the Chiltern hills. The most notable of these villages is Great Missenden which has direct rail links to London but there are numerous others – Chartridge, Holmer Green, Ley Hill and so on. Penn in the South West mostly comprises the extremely wealthy area of Knotty Green which is really an extension of Beaconsfield. Notwithstanding the odd Independent and Lib Dem local election victory, all this territory is also very Conservative and with derisory Labour support.
This did all add up to an extremely well off and safe Conservative seat, notwithstanding the not inconsiderable grottiness in Chesham – the remainder of the seat is set amongst some of the most desirable residential terrain in the country.
The boundary changes ahead of the next election would not ordinarily do much to change the electoral balance but may be significant in as much as they bring in areas uninfluenced by the by-election.
The boundary commission have shown a willingness to split wards in Buckinghamshire to achieve sensible boundaries and there are no fewer than three ward splits here (the ward boundaries are awkward here as the new authority inherited the old county council divisions).
The whole ward of Great Missenden is removed to the new Mid Buckinghamshire seat – this area had been outside the constituency between 1983 and 2010 when it was part of the Aylesbury seat. Some rural parishes to the West of Chesham are also donated to that seat – these form part of the Chess Valley ward which also includes parts of Chesham, that part of the ward remaining in this seat. This was the ward which elected a solitary Lib Dem councillor in May 2021 and while this was probably down to the Chesham element, they were not without some strength in the rural areas – the Ballinger, South Heath and Chartridge ward was the only one where the Lib Dems topped the poll in 2015.
In exchange the seat gains two distinct urban areas which are at least as strongly Conservative as the areas departing. First Hazelmere is added. This is another return to the status quo ante as it was included in the constituency between 1983 and 2010. Hazlemere was previously part of the Wycombe district and is effectively a suburb of High Wycombe. It is not especially high status but is solidly middle class enough and is usually Conservative in local elections (the Hazlemere ward elected an Independent alongside two Conservatives in 2021 but this has never been a good area for the Lib Dems).
The other addition is far less ordinary. Gerrards Cross is one of the wealthiest communities in the whole country and has always been overwhelmingly Conservative. The ethnic minority population has increased massively here but this is due to the inflow of wealthy Indians mainly, from Slough and elsewhere, and doesn’t appear to have had much effect on the voting behaviour. The wards covering Gerrards Cross ward are awkward – the ward so named itself includes areas outside the parish such as Hedgerley and even takes in part of the town of Beaconsfield. Additionally, a small part of Gerrards Cross is itself included in the Denham ward. Thus the boundary commission opted to split both wards and add the whole area covered by Gerrards Cross parish.
Hazlemere and Gerrards Cross present challenges to the Lib Dems in what is likely to be a tight race to defend their gain. In some previous elections such as 1992 the Conservatives reversed all their by-election losses, but they won that election. In 1997 all their losses were confirmed except for Christchurch which was an even ‘safer’ seat than this one. The next election is more likely to resemble 1997 and Sarah Green has a decent chance of returning to Parliament, but it will be closely fought and the boundary changes could make all the difference.
In June 2021 they broke their duck by gaining the hitherto safely Conservative seat of Chesham & Amersham in Buckinghamshire on a swing of 25%. This occurred just over a month after the first elections to the new Unitary Buckinghamshire council in which the Conservatives won 26 of the council seats in this constituency and the Lib Dems just 1.
More symbolically, it came just over a month after the Conservatives had gained Hartlepool from Labour on another large swing. It is difficult to imagine two more contrasting constituencies in England than Hartlepool and Chesham & Amersham. A lot of rubbish is spouted by journalists about ‘Red Walls’ and ‘Blue Walls’, but undoubtedly the 2019 general election saw the culmination of a significant realignment in British politics which had actually been going on more slowly for a couple of decades or more.
The major fault line which at least symbolised the new dichotomy was Britain’s membership of the European Union and it is notable that while 70% of voters in Hartlepool had voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, 55% of those in the Chiltern district (with which this seat was coterminous) voted to remain. There had already been a swing of 9% from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems in the previous general election, almost entirely due to this issue.
There were other more specifically local issues at play in the by-election such as those to do with housing development, and HS2 which tears up part of the countryside was a long running sore. The Lib Dems were able to play on the strong ‘NIMBY’ sentiments of local voters even while having supported some of these developments themselves.
Regardless of the reasons, the result was a terrible blow for the Conservatives who had never fallen below 50% of the vote here nor had less than a 5-figure majority. Arguably this marked the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership, although it took another year and some other spectacular by-election losses before he was toppled.
This constituency was created in 1974 from parts of the Aylesbury and South Buckinghamshire constituencies and since 2010 it has shared the same boundaries as the now defunct Chiltern district. Before the byelection, it had had just two MPs in that time – the notable ‘wet’ Sir Ian Gilmour from 1974 to 1992 and since then Dame Cheryl Gillan.
This seat can be divided into four roughly equal parts.
The largest town here is Chesham towards the North of the constituency. Chesham is in fact an old industrial town which has developed into a commuter base due to its location at the end of the Metropolitan line. Nevertheless, there remain several distinctly downmarket areas of the town with sizeable council estates throughout and dingy terraced streets to the North of the town centre. There is also a substantial Pakistani population here. In parts of Chesham one could easily imagine being in the Pennines rather than the Chilterns.
In the initial elections to Chiltern council in 1973 a majority of councillors elected from Chesham were Labour and though they have declined subsequently they retained some strength in a number of wards while this town will still provide a large proportion of the Labour vote in general elections. The Lib Dems though have more recently provided the main challenge to the Conservatives here at all levels and presumably won over most of the Labour vote in the by-election.
Directly South of Chesham, and also on the Met line, is Amersham. Together with its satellites of Chesham Bois and Little Chalfont it is of a similar size to Chesham. There is a sizeable council estate in Little Chalfont but on the whole, this is a much more upmarket area than Chesham, Chesham Bois being notably affluent. It does however share a tendency to some Lib Dem strength at the local level in Amersham itself, though the Labour vote has been derisory for a long time now.
Further south still we have the Chalfonts – Chalfont St Peter is the main town here while we also have Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont Common. There is a very little social variety here – it is almost universally affluent and, in some areas, extremely wealthy. The area around Austenwood common in the far south blends into Gerrards Cross. All of this territory is also extremely Conservative with that party winning all the council seats here comfortably in the most recent local elections.
The fourth and final element of the constituency was the rural element. This is not primarily an agricultural region (thought here are farms of course) but a series of affluent and commuterised villages in the Chiltern hills. The most notable of these villages is Great Missenden which has direct rail links to London but there are numerous others – Chartridge, Holmer Green, Ley Hill and so on. Penn in the South West mostly comprises the extremely wealthy area of Knotty Green which is really an extension of Beaconsfield. Notwithstanding the odd Independent and Lib Dem local election victory, all this territory is also very Conservative and with derisory Labour support.
This did all add up to an extremely well off and safe Conservative seat, notwithstanding the not inconsiderable grottiness in Chesham – the remainder of the seat is set amongst some of the most desirable residential terrain in the country.
The boundary changes ahead of the next election would not ordinarily do much to change the electoral balance but may be significant in as much as they bring in areas uninfluenced by the by-election.
The boundary commission have shown a willingness to split wards in Buckinghamshire to achieve sensible boundaries and there are no fewer than three ward splits here (the ward boundaries are awkward here as the new authority inherited the old county council divisions).
The whole ward of Great Missenden is removed to the new Mid Buckinghamshire seat – this area had been outside the constituency between 1983 and 2010 when it was part of the Aylesbury seat. Some rural parishes to the West of Chesham are also donated to that seat – these form part of the Chess Valley ward which also includes parts of Chesham, that part of the ward remaining in this seat. This was the ward which elected a solitary Lib Dem councillor in May 2021 and while this was probably down to the Chesham element, they were not without some strength in the rural areas – the Ballinger, South Heath and Chartridge ward was the only one where the Lib Dems topped the poll in 2015.
In exchange the seat gains two distinct urban areas which are at least as strongly Conservative as the areas departing. First Hazelmere is added. This is another return to the status quo ante as it was included in the constituency between 1983 and 2010. Hazlemere was previously part of the Wycombe district and is effectively a suburb of High Wycombe. It is not especially high status but is solidly middle class enough and is usually Conservative in local elections (the Hazlemere ward elected an Independent alongside two Conservatives in 2021 but this has never been a good area for the Lib Dems).
The other addition is far less ordinary. Gerrards Cross is one of the wealthiest communities in the whole country and has always been overwhelmingly Conservative. The ethnic minority population has increased massively here but this is due to the inflow of wealthy Indians mainly, from Slough and elsewhere, and doesn’t appear to have had much effect on the voting behaviour. The wards covering Gerrards Cross ward are awkward – the ward so named itself includes areas outside the parish such as Hedgerley and even takes in part of the town of Beaconsfield. Additionally, a small part of Gerrards Cross is itself included in the Denham ward. Thus the boundary commission opted to split both wards and add the whole area covered by Gerrards Cross parish.
Hazlemere and Gerrards Cross present challenges to the Lib Dems in what is likely to be a tight race to defend their gain. In some previous elections such as 1992 the Conservatives reversed all their by-election losses, but they won that election. In 1997 all their losses were confirmed except for Christchurch which was an even ‘safer’ seat than this one. The next election is more likely to resemble 1997 and Sarah Green has a decent chance of returning to Parliament, but it will be closely fought and the boundary changes could make all the difference.
