Post by nyx on Dec 27, 2023 23:42:45 GMT
The Isle of Wight, which for quite a long time has been the country's most populous parliamentary seat, is being divided into two. It is, awkwardly, theoretically entitled to just over one and a half seats, so given the heavy opposition to the prospect of a seat uniting part of the Isle of Wight with part of the mainland, the decision was made for the most recent boundary review to grant the Isle of Wight two whole seats.
This is the geographically larger of the two new Isle of Wight seats, albeit the one with a slightly smaller population. It's also the seat which contains the Isle of Wight's county town, Newport, and is where the incumbent Conservative MP Bob Seely is standing for re-election. It is difficult to say which of this seat and Isle of Wight East is the more Conservative-leaning overall, as both seem to have a fairly similar political lean nowadays, and any difference certainly won't be major as can be seen by the notional 2019 election results-
Notional 2019 General Election result in Isle of Wight West (New Statesman): Bob Seely (Con) 20,241 (54.8%), Richard Quigley (Lab) 9,010 (24.4%), Vix Lowthion (Green) 6,072 (16.5%), others 1,582 (4.3%).
Actual 2019 General Election result in the Isle of Wight seat: Bob Seely (Con) 41,815 (56.2%), Richard Quigley (Lab) 18,078 (24.3%), Vix Lowthion (Green) 11,338 (15.2%), others 3,211 (4.3%).
So whilst this seat would appear the marginally less Conservative-leaning of the two, notionals are of course going to be impacted by local factors such as the fact that in the 2021 local elections the Greens (successfully) campaigned heavily to unseat the Conservative leader of the Isle of Wight Council, whose council seat happened to be within the borders of the Isle of Wight West constituency. If I had to guess, I would predict that this would be the easier of the two IoW seats for the Conservatives to retain, simply because the MP Bob Seely is reasonably popular and without any major controversy.
The seat is quite varied in its feel. A majority of its population is located in the towns on the River Medina: the Newport area (including suburbs like Carisbrooke) and the twin coastal towns five miles away of Cowes and East Cowes, Cowes being famous for its yachting tradition. These places all have good transport links- a bus service every ten minutes from Newport to Cowes leads directly to a foot passenger catamaran service to Southampton, whilst East Cowes has a car ferry to Southampton. The rest of the seat, most of which is generally known as West Wight, is much more sparsely populated, consisting of a lot of small villages and narrow lanes with an almost West Country-like feel. The Freshwater/Totland area near the western tip of the island has around 8,000 people, and every other settlement in the constituency is much smaller (I'm not sure if any exceed a thousand people).
However, despite the geographic variety in the seat, politically it is all relatively similar- historically a Conservative-Liberal battleground until the Lib Dems faded from relevance here in the noughties, and nowadays a question of the Conservatives seeing local opposition by any of the Greens, Lib Dems, Labour, and various independents depending on the ward in question and who has put the effort in to campaign. The only area of the seat which could potentially be described as left wing is the Pan and Barton ward (formerly known as Newport East), which is an area of Newport which is very heavy in council housing and has a slightly rough reputation, and has been held at the council by Independent Labour councillor Geoff Brodie since 2005 (until recently a member of the Labour Party). Of course one councillor being reelected could just be down to individual popularity, but this ward does have the feel of being somewhere that's probably more likely to vote Labour than the rest of the seat.
In 2024 I would say this seat is most likely going to comfortably stay with the Conservatives, not least because the opposition is quite divided- the Greens have struggled to break out but have still reached double digits in the united Isle of Wight seat in the last three general elections so will surely put at least some effort in even if it isn't one of their main target seats, and Labour came second in 2019 and will have the national polling to bring their hopes up. The Lib Dems, despite standing aside for the Greens in 2019, are now on the resurgence on the island, being the second-largest party on the Isle of Wight Council after a few recent impressive by-election victories, so are unlikely to entirely ignore this seat too. However, in the long term there is definitely potential for the Conservatives to once again lose this seat in the event of a poor national performance and a relatively unified opposition.
Candidates for becoming this seat's inaugural MP in the 2024 general election:
Conservatives: Bob Seely, incumbent MP for Isle of Wight since 2017
Labour: TBD
Green Party: Cameron Palin, East Cowes town councillor, aged 20
Liberal Democrats: Nick Stuart, councillor for Brighstone, Calbourne and Shalfleet since the 2022 by-election
Reform UK: Ian Pickering, retired schoolteacher from Freshwater
This is the geographically larger of the two new Isle of Wight seats, albeit the one with a slightly smaller population. It's also the seat which contains the Isle of Wight's county town, Newport, and is where the incumbent Conservative MP Bob Seely is standing for re-election. It is difficult to say which of this seat and Isle of Wight East is the more Conservative-leaning overall, as both seem to have a fairly similar political lean nowadays, and any difference certainly won't be major as can be seen by the notional 2019 election results-
Notional 2019 General Election result in Isle of Wight West (New Statesman): Bob Seely (Con) 20,241 (54.8%), Richard Quigley (Lab) 9,010 (24.4%), Vix Lowthion (Green) 6,072 (16.5%), others 1,582 (4.3%).
Actual 2019 General Election result in the Isle of Wight seat: Bob Seely (Con) 41,815 (56.2%), Richard Quigley (Lab) 18,078 (24.3%), Vix Lowthion (Green) 11,338 (15.2%), others 3,211 (4.3%).
So whilst this seat would appear the marginally less Conservative-leaning of the two, notionals are of course going to be impacted by local factors such as the fact that in the 2021 local elections the Greens (successfully) campaigned heavily to unseat the Conservative leader of the Isle of Wight Council, whose council seat happened to be within the borders of the Isle of Wight West constituency. If I had to guess, I would predict that this would be the easier of the two IoW seats for the Conservatives to retain, simply because the MP Bob Seely is reasonably popular and without any major controversy.
The seat is quite varied in its feel. A majority of its population is located in the towns on the River Medina: the Newport area (including suburbs like Carisbrooke) and the twin coastal towns five miles away of Cowes and East Cowes, Cowes being famous for its yachting tradition. These places all have good transport links- a bus service every ten minutes from Newport to Cowes leads directly to a foot passenger catamaran service to Southampton, whilst East Cowes has a car ferry to Southampton. The rest of the seat, most of which is generally known as West Wight, is much more sparsely populated, consisting of a lot of small villages and narrow lanes with an almost West Country-like feel. The Freshwater/Totland area near the western tip of the island has around 8,000 people, and every other settlement in the constituency is much smaller (I'm not sure if any exceed a thousand people).
However, despite the geographic variety in the seat, politically it is all relatively similar- historically a Conservative-Liberal battleground until the Lib Dems faded from relevance here in the noughties, and nowadays a question of the Conservatives seeing local opposition by any of the Greens, Lib Dems, Labour, and various independents depending on the ward in question and who has put the effort in to campaign. The only area of the seat which could potentially be described as left wing is the Pan and Barton ward (formerly known as Newport East), which is an area of Newport which is very heavy in council housing and has a slightly rough reputation, and has been held at the council by Independent Labour councillor Geoff Brodie since 2005 (until recently a member of the Labour Party). Of course one councillor being reelected could just be down to individual popularity, but this ward does have the feel of being somewhere that's probably more likely to vote Labour than the rest of the seat.
In 2024 I would say this seat is most likely going to comfortably stay with the Conservatives, not least because the opposition is quite divided- the Greens have struggled to break out but have still reached double digits in the united Isle of Wight seat in the last three general elections so will surely put at least some effort in even if it isn't one of their main target seats, and Labour came second in 2019 and will have the national polling to bring their hopes up. The Lib Dems, despite standing aside for the Greens in 2019, are now on the resurgence on the island, being the second-largest party on the Isle of Wight Council after a few recent impressive by-election victories, so are unlikely to entirely ignore this seat too. However, in the long term there is definitely potential for the Conservatives to once again lose this seat in the event of a poor national performance and a relatively unified opposition.
Candidates for becoming this seat's inaugural MP in the 2024 general election:
Conservatives: Bob Seely, incumbent MP for Isle of Wight since 2017
Labour: TBD
Green Party: Cameron Palin, East Cowes town councillor, aged 20
Liberal Democrats: Nick Stuart, councillor for Brighstone, Calbourne and Shalfleet since the 2022 by-election
Reform UK: Ian Pickering, retired schoolteacher from Freshwater
