Post by Robert Waller on Nov 28, 2023 17:53:59 GMT
This is based on the original by Devil Wincarnate, who is the 'first person' below, plus updates and additions by myself
Cheshire has been plagued with constituency names that do not easily give away the scope of the seat. Tatton is one of those, and together with parts of the neighbouring seats of Macclesfield, Altrincham & Sale West and Cheadle is often referred to locally as being the Manchester stockbroker belt. This gives away that the seat is rather wealthy - indeed, it is by several measures one of the most affluent patches outside London, and certainly the richest in the North West of England. Knutsford is often cited as the most expensive town in which to buy a house in Northern England, and Aston Martin sell more cars in Wilmslow than anywhere else. The name of the seat derives from Tatton Park, the stately home near Knutsford which is best known for hosting a major RBS flower show, and which sits on the site of the lost village of Tatton. The hall itself has historical political significance, being once a seat of the Stanleys (later Earls of Derby) and then a branch of the prominent Egerton family, raised to several dukedoms. However, the modern constituency is focussed upon the settlements of Knutsford (2021 population 13,000), Wilmslow (25,000), Handforth (9,800) and Alderley Edge (4,800).
The area is economically diverse. In popular imagination, it is a mix of commuter belt and playground for professional footballers, ironic for a seat with no full time professional sport whatsoever. The “Golden Triangle” between Wilmslow, Alderley Edge and Prestbury is infamous in popular culture for supposed nouveau riche excess. However, this is not where the local wealth derives. The seat sits in the shadow of Manchester Airport and supports many of its associated industries, and has major bases for pharmaceuticals and finance. Wilmslow is home to Umbro sportswear and the Information Commissioner’s Office, as well as being the main site of Royal London insurance; Over Peover near Knutsford hosts an enormous Barclays campus. Tabley is the home of the Cheshire Showground. There are nonetheless pockets of deprivation, particularly in Handforth and Wilmslow where several overspill estates for Manchester were built, the largest one being Colshaw Farm, set south of Handforth station and half way between Handforth and Dean Row, whose census OAs were still as high as 60% and 61% social rented in 2021, and a secondary estate along Finnies Road in Lacey Green, north west Wilmslow.
The constituency first emerged in 1983, cobbled together from parts of the abolished seats of Knutsford, Northwich and Runcorn, as well as the still-extant Cheadle. This gives a flavour of the geographical breadth still involved. The original boundaries included most of Northwich, but this was peeled off and assigned to Weaver Vale (and now largely Mid Cheshire), with the exception of a few of its outlying sections. In its early years, the contests were between the Tories and the Social Democratic Party, with Labour trailing well behind- a candidate of note in 1987 was Hazel Blears, later MP for Salford and a stalwart of the New Labour era. The Conservative MP, a Welsh barrister named Neil Hamilton, consistently achieved large majorities despite being a relatively controversial figure for his hard line stances on a number of matters- Tatton was the fourth-safest Conservative seat by 1992. However, it was not Hamilton’s political positions that put Tatton on the map. Instead, he found himself embroiled in the Cash For Questions scandal, an affair that is sometimes seen as emblematic of the crumbling of eighteen dramatic years of Conservative rule.
(NB: I’m not going to go into the details here, as I’m not sure it really adds much to the description of the seat)
In 1997, Hamilton found himself opposed by an unlikely candidate, Martin Bell. Bell was a famed BBC war correspondent, son of the inventor of the Times crossword and brother of Anthea Bell, an esteemed translator known particularly for bringing Asterix to English. Bell had no links to the area, and his candidature came out of the blue. The Liberal Democrats and Labour stood aside in his favour. In an appalling night for the Conservatives across the country, Hamilton found his majority swept away, and Bell turned a 15,860 Tory lead into his own of 11,077. Clad in his trademark white suit, Bell promised to serve for only one term. He kept to this pledge, and moved onto Brentwood in Essex in 2001, where he lost.
Enter George Osborne. A former special adviser and speechwriter in the late Major years, his arrival saw Tatton revert to the Tory fold. Several independents contested the seat in 2001, but none managed to ride the Bell wave. Osborne quickly rose through the ranks, joining the Shadow Cabinet before the 2005 election, and would serve as Chancellor in the Cameron government, before eventually retiring from Parliament at the 2017 election. He is now known as the editor of the Evening Standard.
2017, then 2019, saw the seat held for the Conservatives by its present incumbent, Esther McVey. A former television host, McVey lost her seat in Wirral West in 2015 before crossing the Cheshire Plain to take up Tatton. Her current majority is marginally higher than any achieved by Hamilton.
Labour remain the principal if distant challengers to the Conservatives in general elections. Despite Tatton being a middle-class, Remain-voting seat, the Liberal Democrats have never been able to really establish themselves. At a local level, the council wards in this seat are not as monolithically Tory as would be expected. After the most recent May 2023 Cheshire East council elections, there are independents and ratepayer councillors in Alderley Edge (‘Alderley Edge First’, 79.0%), Handforth (which unusually had one of each in 2019, though there was an Independent gain from Ratepayers in 2023), and all of Wilmslow (five ‘Residents of Wilmslow’, including the removal of the lone Conservative, in Wilmslow Lacey Green ward).
In May 2023 the Conservatives did hold Chelford (with a 66% share), High Legh (63%), and Mobberley (73%, having been unopposed in 2019). There are the three most rural wards, with the largest acreages, surrounding Knutsford in the west of the constituency. Given that Wilmslow, Knutsford, Handforth and Alderley Edge are all highly likely to be Tory strongholds in general elections, whatever their municipal localism, Tatton seems set to remain the most Conservative constituency in Cheshire and indeed in the North of England.
There are some boundary changes to be enacted before the next general election. The December 2019 electorate was less than 70,000 and Tatton needed to be expanded somewhat to fit the national quota. This has been achieved by transferring removing some of the ‘Cheshire’ segment in Warrington South in the form of most of the two Lymm wards, excluding, after the inquiry process, Thelwall, the site of the notable viaduct that so many have passed over on the M6, as Thelwall was seen as "an intrinsic part of central Warrington, separated from the rural market-town of Lymm by empty land and the M6 motorway". Lymm is now returned to its ancestral county within the ‘deep Cheshire’ Tatton constituency, although the rest of Tatton is in the Cheshire East unitary authority and Lymm is still in Warrington for local government purposes. Lymm has favoured Liberal Democrats in local elections, and in May 2021 (the most recent series in that borough) they took all three seats in Lymm North, and shared the two in Lymm South with a Conservative. In partial compensation a small section north east of Northwich around Wincham is transferred to the new Mid Cheshire.
Overall the boundary changes will make little political difference. The 2021 census details reveal that they further increase the proportion of owner occupiers, which is now over 75% - which places Tatton within the top decile of seats in England and Wales on this variable. The managerial and professional percentage is into the top 30 seats, and is exceptionally high outside London and its environs; the highest concentrations of these are in Wilmslow Town, which has over 30% in higher professional and managerial occupations and 57% overall, western Wilmslow (27.5% and 54% respectively), and South Knutsford (26% and 53%). The most downmarket job profile is in Handforth & Dean Row MSOA, but even there only 21% are routine and semi-routine. The proportion educated to degree level is also very high outside big cities, peaking at 57.4% in Wilmslow Town (central) MSOA, and lowest 39.5% in the Handforth & Dean Row, which is still well above the national norm. Ethnic minority residency is below average.
Finally, although the Tory share at the next general election may well decline, it would need to drop by 8% even to slip below 50% and thus give any other party a chance, and then Esther McVey should remain safe because of the competition for second place between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who will benefit if anyone does from the arrival of Lymm. As the years and decades pass, that high profile intervention by Martin Bell seems more and more aberrant in the electoral history of Tatton.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 23.7% 114/575
Owner occupied 75.4% 53/575
Private rented 14.4% 463/575
Social rented 10.2% 508/575
White 92.8% 246/575
Black 0.6% 438/575
Asian 3.5% 321/575
Managerial & professional 46.1% 29/575
Routine & Semi-routine 15.5% 516/575
Degree level 45.0% 64/575
No qualifications 12.6% 523/575
Students 4.9% 422/575
General Election 2019: Tatton
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Esther McVey 28,277 57.7 –0.9
Labour James Weinberg 10,890 22.2 –6.3
Liberal Democrats Jonathan Smith 7,712 15.7 +6.7
Green Nigel Hennerley 2,088 4.3 +2.2
C Majority 17,387 35.5 +5.4
2019 electorate 69,018
Turnout 48,967 70.9 –1.5
Conservative hold
Swing 2.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Tatton comprises
94.6% of Tatton
11.5% of Warrington South
1.2% of Weaver Vale
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_272_Tatton_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
Cheshire has been plagued with constituency names that do not easily give away the scope of the seat. Tatton is one of those, and together with parts of the neighbouring seats of Macclesfield, Altrincham & Sale West and Cheadle is often referred to locally as being the Manchester stockbroker belt. This gives away that the seat is rather wealthy - indeed, it is by several measures one of the most affluent patches outside London, and certainly the richest in the North West of England. Knutsford is often cited as the most expensive town in which to buy a house in Northern England, and Aston Martin sell more cars in Wilmslow than anywhere else. The name of the seat derives from Tatton Park, the stately home near Knutsford which is best known for hosting a major RBS flower show, and which sits on the site of the lost village of Tatton. The hall itself has historical political significance, being once a seat of the Stanleys (later Earls of Derby) and then a branch of the prominent Egerton family, raised to several dukedoms. However, the modern constituency is focussed upon the settlements of Knutsford (2021 population 13,000), Wilmslow (25,000), Handforth (9,800) and Alderley Edge (4,800).
The area is economically diverse. In popular imagination, it is a mix of commuter belt and playground for professional footballers, ironic for a seat with no full time professional sport whatsoever. The “Golden Triangle” between Wilmslow, Alderley Edge and Prestbury is infamous in popular culture for supposed nouveau riche excess. However, this is not where the local wealth derives. The seat sits in the shadow of Manchester Airport and supports many of its associated industries, and has major bases for pharmaceuticals and finance. Wilmslow is home to Umbro sportswear and the Information Commissioner’s Office, as well as being the main site of Royal London insurance; Over Peover near Knutsford hosts an enormous Barclays campus. Tabley is the home of the Cheshire Showground. There are nonetheless pockets of deprivation, particularly in Handforth and Wilmslow where several overspill estates for Manchester were built, the largest one being Colshaw Farm, set south of Handforth station and half way between Handforth and Dean Row, whose census OAs were still as high as 60% and 61% social rented in 2021, and a secondary estate along Finnies Road in Lacey Green, north west Wilmslow.
The constituency first emerged in 1983, cobbled together from parts of the abolished seats of Knutsford, Northwich and Runcorn, as well as the still-extant Cheadle. This gives a flavour of the geographical breadth still involved. The original boundaries included most of Northwich, but this was peeled off and assigned to Weaver Vale (and now largely Mid Cheshire), with the exception of a few of its outlying sections. In its early years, the contests were between the Tories and the Social Democratic Party, with Labour trailing well behind- a candidate of note in 1987 was Hazel Blears, later MP for Salford and a stalwart of the New Labour era. The Conservative MP, a Welsh barrister named Neil Hamilton, consistently achieved large majorities despite being a relatively controversial figure for his hard line stances on a number of matters- Tatton was the fourth-safest Conservative seat by 1992. However, it was not Hamilton’s political positions that put Tatton on the map. Instead, he found himself embroiled in the Cash For Questions scandal, an affair that is sometimes seen as emblematic of the crumbling of eighteen dramatic years of Conservative rule.
(NB: I’m not going to go into the details here, as I’m not sure it really adds much to the description of the seat)
In 1997, Hamilton found himself opposed by an unlikely candidate, Martin Bell. Bell was a famed BBC war correspondent, son of the inventor of the Times crossword and brother of Anthea Bell, an esteemed translator known particularly for bringing Asterix to English. Bell had no links to the area, and his candidature came out of the blue. The Liberal Democrats and Labour stood aside in his favour. In an appalling night for the Conservatives across the country, Hamilton found his majority swept away, and Bell turned a 15,860 Tory lead into his own of 11,077. Clad in his trademark white suit, Bell promised to serve for only one term. He kept to this pledge, and moved onto Brentwood in Essex in 2001, where he lost.
Enter George Osborne. A former special adviser and speechwriter in the late Major years, his arrival saw Tatton revert to the Tory fold. Several independents contested the seat in 2001, but none managed to ride the Bell wave. Osborne quickly rose through the ranks, joining the Shadow Cabinet before the 2005 election, and would serve as Chancellor in the Cameron government, before eventually retiring from Parliament at the 2017 election. He is now known as the editor of the Evening Standard.
2017, then 2019, saw the seat held for the Conservatives by its present incumbent, Esther McVey. A former television host, McVey lost her seat in Wirral West in 2015 before crossing the Cheshire Plain to take up Tatton. Her current majority is marginally higher than any achieved by Hamilton.
Labour remain the principal if distant challengers to the Conservatives in general elections. Despite Tatton being a middle-class, Remain-voting seat, the Liberal Democrats have never been able to really establish themselves. At a local level, the council wards in this seat are not as monolithically Tory as would be expected. After the most recent May 2023 Cheshire East council elections, there are independents and ratepayer councillors in Alderley Edge (‘Alderley Edge First’, 79.0%), Handforth (which unusually had one of each in 2019, though there was an Independent gain from Ratepayers in 2023), and all of Wilmslow (five ‘Residents of Wilmslow’, including the removal of the lone Conservative, in Wilmslow Lacey Green ward).
In May 2023 the Conservatives did hold Chelford (with a 66% share), High Legh (63%), and Mobberley (73%, having been unopposed in 2019). There are the three most rural wards, with the largest acreages, surrounding Knutsford in the west of the constituency. Given that Wilmslow, Knutsford, Handforth and Alderley Edge are all highly likely to be Tory strongholds in general elections, whatever their municipal localism, Tatton seems set to remain the most Conservative constituency in Cheshire and indeed in the North of England.
There are some boundary changes to be enacted before the next general election. The December 2019 electorate was less than 70,000 and Tatton needed to be expanded somewhat to fit the national quota. This has been achieved by transferring removing some of the ‘Cheshire’ segment in Warrington South in the form of most of the two Lymm wards, excluding, after the inquiry process, Thelwall, the site of the notable viaduct that so many have passed over on the M6, as Thelwall was seen as "an intrinsic part of central Warrington, separated from the rural market-town of Lymm by empty land and the M6 motorway". Lymm is now returned to its ancestral county within the ‘deep Cheshire’ Tatton constituency, although the rest of Tatton is in the Cheshire East unitary authority and Lymm is still in Warrington for local government purposes. Lymm has favoured Liberal Democrats in local elections, and in May 2021 (the most recent series in that borough) they took all three seats in Lymm North, and shared the two in Lymm South with a Conservative. In partial compensation a small section north east of Northwich around Wincham is transferred to the new Mid Cheshire.
Overall the boundary changes will make little political difference. The 2021 census details reveal that they further increase the proportion of owner occupiers, which is now over 75% - which places Tatton within the top decile of seats in England and Wales on this variable. The managerial and professional percentage is into the top 30 seats, and is exceptionally high outside London and its environs; the highest concentrations of these are in Wilmslow Town, which has over 30% in higher professional and managerial occupations and 57% overall, western Wilmslow (27.5% and 54% respectively), and South Knutsford (26% and 53%). The most downmarket job profile is in Handforth & Dean Row MSOA, but even there only 21% are routine and semi-routine. The proportion educated to degree level is also very high outside big cities, peaking at 57.4% in Wilmslow Town (central) MSOA, and lowest 39.5% in the Handforth & Dean Row, which is still well above the national norm. Ethnic minority residency is below average.
Finally, although the Tory share at the next general election may well decline, it would need to drop by 8% even to slip below 50% and thus give any other party a chance, and then Esther McVey should remain safe because of the competition for second place between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who will benefit if anyone does from the arrival of Lymm. As the years and decades pass, that high profile intervention by Martin Bell seems more and more aberrant in the electoral history of Tatton.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 23.7% 114/575
Owner occupied 75.4% 53/575
Private rented 14.4% 463/575
Social rented 10.2% 508/575
White 92.8% 246/575
Black 0.6% 438/575
Asian 3.5% 321/575
Managerial & professional 46.1% 29/575
Routine & Semi-routine 15.5% 516/575
Degree level 45.0% 64/575
No qualifications 12.6% 523/575
Students 4.9% 422/575
General Election 2019: Tatton
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Esther McVey 28,277 57.7 –0.9
Labour James Weinberg 10,890 22.2 –6.3
Liberal Democrats Jonathan Smith 7,712 15.7 +6.7
Green Nigel Hennerley 2,088 4.3 +2.2
C Majority 17,387 35.5 +5.4
2019 electorate 69,018
Turnout 48,967 70.9 –1.5
Conservative hold
Swing 2.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Tatton comprises
94.6% of Tatton
11.5% of Warrington South
1.2% of Weaver Vale
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_272_Tatton_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 31732 | 57.3% |
| Lab | 12451 | 22.5% |
| LD | 8966 | 16.2% |
| Green | 2046 | 3.7% |
| Brexit | 199 | 0.4% |
| | ||
| Majority | 19281 | 34.8% |
