Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jan 2, 2024 5:30:58 GMT
This profile is a merger of original content by The Bishop and Pete Whitehead with some editing and alterations by me
Westmorland is an ancient historic county comprising much of the southern Lake District, which sent a representative to England's parliaments almost from their inception in the late 13th century. The traditional county town was Appleby, but in more recent times it was Kendal which has long been its principal urban centre. It also contains Windermere, which pub quizzes might call the biggest lake in England that gives its name to the county's second biggest town, and a sizeable slice of the Cumbrian mountains. (Men who drink in the many decent pubs of this area will tell you that Windermere is not a lake, and you are to allow them to find comfort in pedantry, as life is short.) This constituency was actually divided come 1885 into two county seats - Kendal and Appleby - and reunited as one in 1918. Both the smaller seats generally voted Tory with occasional Liberal breakthroughs, but the recreated Westmorland voted Tory in every election from 1918 to its final contest in that form come 1979. It was, however, a seat where the Liberals never went away; they took second place in 1950 and then every GE from 1959 onwards, cutting the Tory lead to under 15% in both the first 1974 election and 1979 (notably squeezing the residual Labour vote the latter time)
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Census[/div]
Westmorland is an ancient historic county comprising much of the southern Lake District, which sent a representative to England's parliaments almost from their inception in the late 13th century. The traditional county town was Appleby, but in more recent times it was Kendal which has long been its principal urban centre. It also contains Windermere, which pub quizzes might call the biggest lake in England that gives its name to the county's second biggest town, and a sizeable slice of the Cumbrian mountains. (Men who drink in the many decent pubs of this area will tell you that Windermere is not a lake, and you are to allow them to find comfort in pedantry, as life is short.) This constituency was actually divided come 1885 into two county seats - Kendal and Appleby - and reunited as one in 1918. Both the smaller seats generally voted Tory with occasional Liberal breakthroughs, but the recreated Westmorland voted Tory in every election from 1918 to its final contest in that form come 1979. It was, however, a seat where the Liberals never went away; they took second place in 1950 and then every GE from 1959 onwards, cutting the Tory lead to under 15% in both the first 1974 election and 1979 (notably squeezing the residual Labour vote the latter time)
It was a small county and thus an undersized seat, so unsurprisingly the changes for the 1983 GE were quite extensive. The northern part of the seat containing Appleby was actually added to Penrith and the Border, where it has remained, but this was more than recompensed by the addition of Lonsdale - previously the northern part of "Furness" in historic Lancashire. Lonsdale had been a seat in its own right between 1918 and 1945, mostly voting Tory but recording a Liberal win in 1923 that was reversed the following year. Between 1950 and 1979 it formed part of Morecambe and Lonsdale (the Lancaster and Fleetwood of its day!) however unwieldy the geography may have been, though, the politics was much simpler as Morecambe was at that time a Tory stronghold and the seat invariably returned comfortable wins for them. The seat also gained a chunk of territory, centred on Sedbergh, that had been in the north riding of Yorkshire prior to the county of Cumbria's creation in 1973 - a decision that was highly contentious at the time and is still not fully accepted locally.
The sitting Westmorland MP, Michael Jopling, inherited the new W/L seat and continued to get big majorities for the blue team (a personal note here: in his final election come 1992, the valiant Labour hopeful was one Dickon Abbott, for some years a personal friend and one time mentor - he tragically committed suicide in 2004 and is still missed by many) The first real signs of a "disturbance in the force" came in 1997 - the new Tory hopeful Tim Collins saw his majority cut to 4.5k by long time LibDem activist Stan Collins (no relation, and also the LibDem/"Alliance" candidate in 1992 and 1987) and the new MP may well have looked gratefully at the major Labour effort that saw them score over 20% and a five figure vote. Well, the LibDems knew what they needed to do to have a real shot at the seat....
The rest is, of course, fabled electoral history. In 2001 the not-MP Collins was replaced by Tim Farron as the LibDem standard bearer, this ruffled a few local feathers and was blamed for some local activists defecting and helping increase the Tory share by 5% to 47% - though Collins still saw his majority cut as the Labour vote started to collapse. In 2005, the sitting MP became the sole victim of the yellow team's fabled "decapitation strategy" against some Tory front benchers - Farron winning by less than 300 as the two main candidates took over 90% between them. Come 2010 he had a remarkable result in this one time Tory fiefdom - 60% of the vote and a majority of over 12k as the Labour share was reduced to an astonishingly puny 2% and barely four figures, their joint lowest GE score at parliamentary level ever.
Even here, LibDem popularity was bound to take a hit from the coalition years - but after Farron became MP the already formidable LibDem machine had gone into overdrive and established a dominant presence electorally at local level. In 2015 he still had over half the vote and a majority of almost 9k, and as one of the few survivors of that electoral rout was elected LibDem leader that summer. Surely that would make him safe electorally for the foreseeable future? Then the Tories got a local lifeline in the form of the Brexit referendum - whilst the seat narrowly voted to remain (unlike the rest of Cumbria) the still substantial leave vote, and Farron's relative absence locally during his often trying stint as leader - culminating in *that* nightmare TV interview when he tried unsuccessfully to reconcile his evangelical Christianity with his liberalism, especially regarding gay rights - meant they had the route to an electoral comeback - and in 2017 Farron's majority was slashed to just 777 votes (he had apparently been seriously worried about losing during the campaign) This meant the Tories went into last year's poll with high hopes - but Farron again being locally based may have helped squeeze the Labour vote back to deposit losing status, and he took nearly 49% and a roughly 2k majority. Which meant that this was, remarkably, the only seat on the British mainland (Orkney/Shetland being the sole other) to vote Liberal Democrat in each of the last three general elections.
So what of the future here? Like all other Cumbrian seats this is overwhelmingly white (98%) but the "white British" percentage is a tad lower than most others at 95%, largely explained by the significant number of EU nationals employed in the tourism/hospitality industries. A relatively low number, by local standards, identify as Christian (68%) a relatively high number as "non-religious" (23%) and fully a third of adults are educated to degree level - all these figures help explain why this is now the only non-Tory seat in Cumbria. LibDems dominate the urban centres (in particular, they have almost totally annexed the formerly substantial Labour support in Kendal) and can at least compete in the rural divisions at local level - unlike with some formerly strong LibDem areas, the Greens have also struggled to get much of a foothold here. A lot depends on how much Brexit continues to be an important factor, should that fade then Farron can almost certainly feel safer. Even given that, there are two important future factors for the LibDems - future boundary changes, and (even if Farron were to become secure again) what happens when he finally retires?
The boundary changes remove around 15,000 voters from the south of the constituency to a cross-county Morecambe & Lunesdale. In their place come nearly 20,000 from the southern end of Penrith & The Border - the southern half of Eden district, which is all historically part of the county of Westmorland, centred on the town of Appleby. The Conservatives were probably ahead by a small amount in the area being removed but will have been massively ahead in the area being added and this is easily enough to notionally wipe out the Lib Dem majority.
The boundary changes remove around 15,000 voters from the south of the constituency to a cross-county Morecambe & Lunesdale. In their place come nearly 20,000 from the southern end of Penrith & The Border - the southern half of Eden district, which is all historically part of the county of Westmorland, centred on the town of Appleby. The Conservatives were probably ahead by a small amount in the area being removed but will have been massively ahead in the area being added and this is easily enough to notionally wipe out the Lib Dem majority.
Nevertheless, there is obviously potential for the Lib Dems to squeeze the (admittedly not large) Labour vote in the incoming areas and to attract defections from the Conservatives in an area they will not have worked as hard previously, especially in the context of an election where the latter are falling back nationally. The Lib Dems won all bar one seat in the incoming area in the inaugural elections to Westmorland & Furness council (and therefore all bar one within the new boundaries of this constituency). If Tim Farron stands again (and he's still relatively young), you'd have to fancy him again here
2019 Notional result
| Con | 26709 | 48.3% |
| LD | 22524 | 40.7% |
| Lab | 4446 | 8.0% |
| Grn | 685 | 1.2% |
| BxP | 605 | 1.1% |
| Oth | 325 | 0.6% |
4185
[/td][td] 7.6%
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Age 65+ 24.5% 14/650
Owner-occupied 72.1% 159/650
Private rented 14.8% 289/650
Social rented 10.6% 558/650
White 98.3% 79/650
Black 0.2% 545/650
Asian 0.8% 568/650
Managerial & professional 34.1%
Routine & Semi-routine 24.5%
Accommodation and food service activities 12.8% 2/650
Retired 20.1% 18/650
Degree level 33.3% 113/650
No qualifications 18.9% 505/650
Students 5.6% 569/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 71.6% 134/573
Private rented 17.2% 335/573
Social rented 11.2% 462/573
White 97.6%
Black 0.3%
Asian 0.8%
Managerial & professional 35.5% 212/573
Routine & Semi-routine 22.7% 323/573
Degree level 38.5% 125/573
No qualifications 14.0% 474/573
General Election 2019: Westmorland and Lonsdale
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Democrats Tim Farron 25,795 48.9 +3.1
Conservative James Airey 23,861 45.3 +1.0
Labour Phillip Black 2,293 4.4 -4.9
Brexit Party Steven Bolton 763 1.5 New
LD Majority 1,934 3.6 +2.1
Turnout 52,712 77.8 -0.1
Liberal Democrats hold
Swing 1.1 C to LD
