Post by John Chanin on Dec 31, 2023 10:05:09 GMT
This is loosely based on the original profile by @europeanlefty , with updated census information, boundary changes, and an expanded description by me.
The Kettering constituency was coterminous with the borough of the same name, and had an electorate of just under 73,000, comfortably in the middle of the permitted range under the new rules. Surely the Boundary Commission would leave it unchanged? This turned out not to be the case. Kettering’s absorption into the new North Northamptonshire unitary removed the constraint on the old borough boundary. And Northamptonshire was oversized - creating 7 seats wholly within its boundaries required them to average nearly 76,000, close to the upper limit. They could have crossed the county boundary, but the neighbouring counties with some deficiency of electorate were in the West Midlands, South Eastern, and Eastern regions, and the regions form the rigid backbone to the Boundary Commission’s deliberations. So 7 seats in Northamptonshire it had to be. Now it was still possible to leave Kettering unaltered, but they had a particular problem with the oversized Wellingborough constituency, which was difficult to fix. Counter-intuitively part of the solution they came up with was to move 3400 electors from the Corby Rural ward on the border with Leicestershire, into Kettering . And this came in two separate portions - the old Rural West ward of Corby Borough based on the villages of Cottingham & Middleton comprising a bare 1500 voters, and the village of Stanion to the south-east of Corby, which accounted for another 1900. These largely Conservative voting peripheries of Corby will not make much difference to this seat, but their loss may make a difference in marginal Corby.
Kettering town, including the slightly detached areas of Barton Seagrave and Kingsley/Ise Lodge to the east of the river Ise, is a substantial place with a population of around 70,000, and accounts for just over half of the seat named after it. It was an industrial town, its population exploding in the 19th century, like in Northampton based mostly on boot and shoe making, and ironworks. This had a notable impact on the way the city grew, with many large and very grand houses being built for the factory owners, and smaller terraced housing being built for the workers. The industry has more or less disappeared since the 1970s, although its effects on the town still loom large. It is still a working class town, with routine workers exceeding managerial in all 4 of its wards, and educational qualifications to match, particularly in the Windmill ward on the east of the town, where over a quarter of households are social housing tenants. The exception is the new and wholly owner-occupied area to the east, annexed to the expansive rural Ise ward, at least until the new unitary boundaries come into effect in 2025. The Ise Lodge Estate was apparently the biggest private housing estate in Europe when built back in the 1970's. There is a significant ethnic minority presence, less than 90% being white, concentrated in the centre of the town. In terms of political geography, Labour perform best in central Kettering, regularly winning the old Avondale Grange, William Knibb and Northfield wards. The town as a whole was evenly balanced at District elections in 2011 and 2015, and the county council elections of 2017 when Labour and Conservative won 2 wards each. However in the first elections for the new unitary in 2021 (based on the county wards) Labour were reduced to just 1 of the 3 councillors in Windmill ward, with the Greens taking all 3 seats in the Clover Hill ward on the north side of town, and the Conservatives the rest. Electoral Calculus reckons that the Conservatives carried every ward in the 2019 General Election.
There are 3 other towns in this predominantly urban seat. Rothwell at the junction of the A6 and A14 is in origin a Saxon town, whose name derives from the Old Danish for “red wall” (no, not that red wall). Rothwell was once one of the three largest towns in Northamptonshire (alongside Northampton and Stamford, the second of which is now in Lincolnshire), although it declined in importance as the industrial revolution largely bypassed it in favour of nearby towns. It has a population of 8000, a substantial commercial centre with a handsome market square, and a lot of older housing. It is a little up market of Kettering, although the ward containing it is over a third rural, and the census data is therefore not entirely clear. There are Labour votes in Rothwell itself, although the ward as a whole votes Conservative.
Desborough, just 3 miles to the north, is a little larger, with a population of 11,000. It had some industry from the 17th century onwards, first in the wool industry, then silk manufacture, then in the shoemaking business that dominated the county town of Northampton and was significant elsewhere in the county. It was also a pioneer of the co-operative movement. However, it was not an industrial town to the extent of Corby, and the industry has largely disappeared. Desborough is demographically and politically very similar to Rothwell, perhaps a little more Conservative, a little more middle-class, and a little less attractive.
Last of the towns is Burton Latimer with a population of 7500, to the south of Kettering, from which it is separated by the A14. Industry came later here,with ironstone quarrying from the 1870s and clothing manufacture from the 1880s, but it also hung around for longer and was far more instrumental in the creation of the town as it is today. Quarrying only ceased in 1983 and some industry has returned since 2000, most notably Weetabix which is made in the town. Like the other two towns it is linked with a large rural area for political purposes, and census data for the whole ward shows it to be a little less middle-class than the other two towns, although with more people with minimal qualifications than degrees. Independents were elected here prior to the formation of the unitary, but the new larger ward was safely Conservative in 2021.
The rest of the seat consists of flat rural countryside and villages, like Wilbarston between Desborough and Corby, and Broughton to the west of Kettering, probably amounting in total to about a fifth of the seat, including the new addditions from Corby. One piece of history is that Geddington, a small village between Kettering and Corby, contains one of only three extant Eleanor Crosses - the old district ward was named Queen Eleanor. These rural areas are not particularly attractive or up market, but are the source of reliable Conservative votes.
In summary Kettering is on the less deprived side of average, but not by much. It is a very divided constituency, with LSOAs in the most and least deprived deciles and everywhere in between. Managerial occupations are below average in the constituency, but so is social housing. The percentage with degrees is low. Average earnings are slightly below the national and more or less in line with the regional average. In terms of industry, the percentage of residents employed in human health and social work is significantly above average and manufacturing is slightly above. The seat voted 61% for leave in the 2016 referendum.
Although the constituency goes back to 1918, we can safely discard everything before 1983, due to the inclusion of Corby which will have altered the political dynamic of the seat to such an extent as to make any comparison almost meaningless. At the inaugural election in 1983, Conservative Roger Freeman won the seat with 48.4% of the vote, a 17.9% majority over the SDP. There was little change in ’87, but in 1992 Labour overtook the Liberal Democrats into second place. The 9.9% swing in 1997 was almost identical to the swing nationwide, and Labour gained the seat with a majority of just 0.3% or 189 votes. 2001 saw little change, the Labour majority climbing to 665 votes or 1.2%, before the seat was almost inevitably gained by the Conservative Philip Hollobone in 2005. Since then, it has been almost entirely one-way traffic, with Hollobone, a Londoner and former investment banker, raising his majority to over 15,000 in 2019. The reasoning behind this pattern is a familiar story. Bits of urban deprivation and some industrial history give Labour a base to start from. The average nature of the workforce – not overwhelmed with bankers or managers and not dominated by low-paid manual jobs – alongside the almost average incomes, makes it the archetype of the kind of seat that swung from Tory in the 80s to Labour in ’97 and the early 2000s. However, the low deprivation, high home-ownership, low education scores and high proportion of white-British people have contributed to Conservative dominance since then ad especially since 2016.
Overall, this is a naturally Conservative seat that was only won by Labour in two of the three Blair elections, and then by very narrow margins. Corbynism, brexit, and something of a return to political normality for the area has shifted it deep into the Conservative column, and it seems highly likely to remain safely Conservative for the foreseeable future. The minor boundary change will only help.
Census data: Owner-occupied 67% (266/575 in England & Wales), private rented 20% (219th), social rented 13% (366th).
: White 90%(290th), Black 3%(194th), South Asian 3%(278th), Mixed 2%(312th), Other 2%(312th)
: Managerial & professional 35% (357th), Routine & Semi-routine 32% (175th)
: Degree level 28%(387th), Minimal qualifications 30%(212th)
: Students 5% (399th), Over 65- 18% (329th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 96% from Kettering, and 4% from Corby
It contains 100% of the old Kettering seat
The Kettering constituency was coterminous with the borough of the same name, and had an electorate of just under 73,000, comfortably in the middle of the permitted range under the new rules. Surely the Boundary Commission would leave it unchanged? This turned out not to be the case. Kettering’s absorption into the new North Northamptonshire unitary removed the constraint on the old borough boundary. And Northamptonshire was oversized - creating 7 seats wholly within its boundaries required them to average nearly 76,000, close to the upper limit. They could have crossed the county boundary, but the neighbouring counties with some deficiency of electorate were in the West Midlands, South Eastern, and Eastern regions, and the regions form the rigid backbone to the Boundary Commission’s deliberations. So 7 seats in Northamptonshire it had to be. Now it was still possible to leave Kettering unaltered, but they had a particular problem with the oversized Wellingborough constituency, which was difficult to fix. Counter-intuitively part of the solution they came up with was to move 3400 electors from the Corby Rural ward on the border with Leicestershire, into Kettering . And this came in two separate portions - the old Rural West ward of Corby Borough based on the villages of Cottingham & Middleton comprising a bare 1500 voters, and the village of Stanion to the south-east of Corby, which accounted for another 1900. These largely Conservative voting peripheries of Corby will not make much difference to this seat, but their loss may make a difference in marginal Corby.
Kettering town, including the slightly detached areas of Barton Seagrave and Kingsley/Ise Lodge to the east of the river Ise, is a substantial place with a population of around 70,000, and accounts for just over half of the seat named after it. It was an industrial town, its population exploding in the 19th century, like in Northampton based mostly on boot and shoe making, and ironworks. This had a notable impact on the way the city grew, with many large and very grand houses being built for the factory owners, and smaller terraced housing being built for the workers. The industry has more or less disappeared since the 1970s, although its effects on the town still loom large. It is still a working class town, with routine workers exceeding managerial in all 4 of its wards, and educational qualifications to match, particularly in the Windmill ward on the east of the town, where over a quarter of households are social housing tenants. The exception is the new and wholly owner-occupied area to the east, annexed to the expansive rural Ise ward, at least until the new unitary boundaries come into effect in 2025. The Ise Lodge Estate was apparently the biggest private housing estate in Europe when built back in the 1970's. There is a significant ethnic minority presence, less than 90% being white, concentrated in the centre of the town. In terms of political geography, Labour perform best in central Kettering, regularly winning the old Avondale Grange, William Knibb and Northfield wards. The town as a whole was evenly balanced at District elections in 2011 and 2015, and the county council elections of 2017 when Labour and Conservative won 2 wards each. However in the first elections for the new unitary in 2021 (based on the county wards) Labour were reduced to just 1 of the 3 councillors in Windmill ward, with the Greens taking all 3 seats in the Clover Hill ward on the north side of town, and the Conservatives the rest. Electoral Calculus reckons that the Conservatives carried every ward in the 2019 General Election.
There are 3 other towns in this predominantly urban seat. Rothwell at the junction of the A6 and A14 is in origin a Saxon town, whose name derives from the Old Danish for “red wall” (no, not that red wall). Rothwell was once one of the three largest towns in Northamptonshire (alongside Northampton and Stamford, the second of which is now in Lincolnshire), although it declined in importance as the industrial revolution largely bypassed it in favour of nearby towns. It has a population of 8000, a substantial commercial centre with a handsome market square, and a lot of older housing. It is a little up market of Kettering, although the ward containing it is over a third rural, and the census data is therefore not entirely clear. There are Labour votes in Rothwell itself, although the ward as a whole votes Conservative.
Desborough, just 3 miles to the north, is a little larger, with a population of 11,000. It had some industry from the 17th century onwards, first in the wool industry, then silk manufacture, then in the shoemaking business that dominated the county town of Northampton and was significant elsewhere in the county. It was also a pioneer of the co-operative movement. However, it was not an industrial town to the extent of Corby, and the industry has largely disappeared. Desborough is demographically and politically very similar to Rothwell, perhaps a little more Conservative, a little more middle-class, and a little less attractive.
Last of the towns is Burton Latimer with a population of 7500, to the south of Kettering, from which it is separated by the A14. Industry came later here,with ironstone quarrying from the 1870s and clothing manufacture from the 1880s, but it also hung around for longer and was far more instrumental in the creation of the town as it is today. Quarrying only ceased in 1983 and some industry has returned since 2000, most notably Weetabix which is made in the town. Like the other two towns it is linked with a large rural area for political purposes, and census data for the whole ward shows it to be a little less middle-class than the other two towns, although with more people with minimal qualifications than degrees. Independents were elected here prior to the formation of the unitary, but the new larger ward was safely Conservative in 2021.
The rest of the seat consists of flat rural countryside and villages, like Wilbarston between Desborough and Corby, and Broughton to the west of Kettering, probably amounting in total to about a fifth of the seat, including the new addditions from Corby. One piece of history is that Geddington, a small village between Kettering and Corby, contains one of only three extant Eleanor Crosses - the old district ward was named Queen Eleanor. These rural areas are not particularly attractive or up market, but are the source of reliable Conservative votes.
In summary Kettering is on the less deprived side of average, but not by much. It is a very divided constituency, with LSOAs in the most and least deprived deciles and everywhere in between. Managerial occupations are below average in the constituency, but so is social housing. The percentage with degrees is low. Average earnings are slightly below the national and more or less in line with the regional average. In terms of industry, the percentage of residents employed in human health and social work is significantly above average and manufacturing is slightly above. The seat voted 61% for leave in the 2016 referendum.
Although the constituency goes back to 1918, we can safely discard everything before 1983, due to the inclusion of Corby which will have altered the political dynamic of the seat to such an extent as to make any comparison almost meaningless. At the inaugural election in 1983, Conservative Roger Freeman won the seat with 48.4% of the vote, a 17.9% majority over the SDP. There was little change in ’87, but in 1992 Labour overtook the Liberal Democrats into second place. The 9.9% swing in 1997 was almost identical to the swing nationwide, and Labour gained the seat with a majority of just 0.3% or 189 votes. 2001 saw little change, the Labour majority climbing to 665 votes or 1.2%, before the seat was almost inevitably gained by the Conservative Philip Hollobone in 2005. Since then, it has been almost entirely one-way traffic, with Hollobone, a Londoner and former investment banker, raising his majority to over 15,000 in 2019. The reasoning behind this pattern is a familiar story. Bits of urban deprivation and some industrial history give Labour a base to start from. The average nature of the workforce – not overwhelmed with bankers or managers and not dominated by low-paid manual jobs – alongside the almost average incomes, makes it the archetype of the kind of seat that swung from Tory in the 80s to Labour in ’97 and the early 2000s. However, the low deprivation, high home-ownership, low education scores and high proportion of white-British people have contributed to Conservative dominance since then ad especially since 2016.
Overall, this is a naturally Conservative seat that was only won by Labour in two of the three Blair elections, and then by very narrow margins. Corbynism, brexit, and something of a return to political normality for the area has shifted it deep into the Conservative column, and it seems highly likely to remain safely Conservative for the foreseeable future. The minor boundary change will only help.
Census data: Owner-occupied 67% (266/575 in England & Wales), private rented 20% (219th), social rented 13% (366th).
: White 90%(290th), Black 3%(194th), South Asian 3%(278th), Mixed 2%(312th), Other 2%(312th)
: Managerial & professional 35% (357th), Routine & Semi-routine 32% (175th)
: Degree level 28%(387th), Minimal qualifications 30%(212th)
: Students 5% (399th), Over 65- 18% (329th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 96% from Kettering, and 4% from Corby
It contains 100% of the old Kettering seat
2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | |
Conservative | 28,616 | 57.9 | 29,787 | 60.3 | 31,369 | 60.3 |
Labour | 18,054 | 36.5 | 13,022 | 26.4 | 14,006 | 26.9 |
Liberal Democrat | 1,618 | 3.3 | 3,367 | 6.8 | 3,477 | 6.7 |
Green | 1,116 | 2.3 | 1,543 | 3.1 | 1,543 | 3.0 |
Other | 1,642 | 3.3 | 1,642 | 3.2 | ||
| Majority | 10,562 | 21.4 | 16,765 | 34.0 | 17,363 | 33.4 |