Post by YL on Jan 5, 2024 10:02:03 GMT
Both Normanton and Hemsworth are constituency names with a long history: until 2024 there has been a Hemsworth constituency since 1918, and there was a Normanton constituency from 1885 until 2010, with that name then added to the name of what had been Pontefract & Castleford. The name of this new constituency might suggest that it is a merger of the historic Hemsworth and Normanton constituencies, but this is not really accurate: it is really a modified version of the previous Hemsworth constituency with the town of Normanton itself replacing the ward of Wakefield South, which had been rather anomalously placed in Hemsworth since 1997. As such this is best thought of as a renaming of Hemsworth.
This is a coalfield constituency in south-eastern West Yorkshire; the area has been included in the Wakefield metropolitan district since 1974, but with the removal of Wakefield South no part of the main Wakefield urban area is included. Hemsworth was historically known for enormous Labour votes, with the Labour vote consistently over 80% from 1935 until February 1974; a combination of boundary changes and political change has made this less the case, and it was alarmingly close in 2019, but it remains the case that it has been consistently Labour ever since the constituency's creation in 1918.
It has many of the common demographic features of coalfield constituencies. The population is very working class, with low levels in professional and manageral jobs and high levels, indeed the fourth highest in England and Wales, in routine jobs, and deprivation is high across most of the constituency. It is not well-educated, being high on people with no qualifications and low on those with degrees. The proportion of houses which are socially rented is on the high side, though owner occupation levels are not strikingly low. It is not very diverse, being about 97% white.
There are six Wakefield wards included here. Four of them are dominated by small urban areas, of which two are in the south of the constituency, close to the South Yorkshire border. One of these is Hemsworth itself, which extends to include the village of Fitzwilliam, the community which produced Geoffrey Boycott. The other is the ward of South Elmsall & South Kirkby; the two named communities run together to form a single urban area which also includes Moorthorpe. Both of these wards are generally deprived ex-mining communities, and both wards usually vote Labour, sometimes overwhelmingly so, though both are capable of electing a popular local Independent.
Further north, Featherstone is another small urban area with a mining history; it is known for its rugby league team, Featherstone Rovers. Featherstone is also quite deprived, but not quite as much as the southern end of the constituency. Its ward, which also includes some smaller communities, has voting habits which are not that different from Hemsworth and South Elmsall & South Kirkby, and it has been consistently Labour for some time since a period electing Independents in the Noughties.
Normanton, which as mentioned above used to give its name to its own constituency and which is transferred here by the boundary changes, is the largest town in the constituency. It is also to a large extent a deprived working class ex-mining community, but it is the most convenient part of the constituency for commuting to Leeds and does contain some less deprived areas.
The remaining two wards are more rural, and both have lengthy names: Crofton, Ryhill & Walton in the west and Ackworth, North Elmsall & Upton in the east. Many of the villages here also have a mining history and some of them still have quite high deprivation and working class populations similar to those in the towns, but generally these two wards are less deprived than the more urban areas and there are more middle class elements in the population here. The village of Badsworth, between Ackworth and Upton, is the most middle class part of the constituency. These two wards do also usually vote Labour, but they are capable of voting Conservative and both did so in 2008 and 2021; presumably they were also carried by the Conservatives in the 2019 General Election.
Before 1983 the Hemsworth constituency was centred a little further south, and included areas now in South Yorkshire (mostly in the Barnsley North constituency) and did not include Featherstone or some of the areas closest to Wakefield. As mentioned this was an extremely safe Labour seat. In 1983 it lost the South Yorkshire areas and gained Featherstone, and in 1997 Wakefield South was added. As in some mining constituencies the Labour share fell strikingly after 1997, with above average vote share falls in all of 2001, 2005 and 2010, when it had fallen to 47%. It recovered a little in 2015 and 2017, before another sharp fall to 37.5% in 2019 which made the seat marginal, cutting the majority over the Conservatives to only just over 1000. The replacement of Wakefield South by Normanton will notionally increase this a little, though not as much as it might have done historically. The MP has been Jon Trickett, who is on the left of Labour and was in the Shadow Cabinet under Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, since a 1996 by-election.
As Normanton has ended up here and been added to the name, it's worth saying a little about the historic Normanton constituency. This was a Labour stronghold dating all the way back to its Lib-Lab MP Frederick Hall, who took the Labour whip in 1909 and was re-elected as Labour in later elections. Its boundaries changed a lot over the years, with Normanton itself being the only constant; it did include Featherstone from 1918 until 1950 and had previously included the Crofton and Walton area. Its final version, which was represented for its last five years by Ed Balls, was rather odd and rather less intrinsically safe for Labour; it stretched west from Normanton town to include the Stanley/Outwood area immediately north of Wakefield and then the towns of Ossett and Horbury west of Wakefield. Normanton then joined with Pontefract and Castleford from 2010 and now moves here; the Stanley/Outwood area formed the new Morley & Outwood constituency but will now move to Wakefield & Rothwell and Horbury and Ossett went to Wakefield but will now move to the new Ossett & Denby Dale constituency.
2019 notional result (Rallings & Thrasher):
Lab 17152 (39.6%)
Con 13632 (31.4%)
Brexit Party 6609 (15.2%)
Lib Dem 1831 (4.2%)
Green 782 (1.8%)
Other 3361 (7.8%)
Lab majority 3520 (8.1%)
This is a coalfield constituency in south-eastern West Yorkshire; the area has been included in the Wakefield metropolitan district since 1974, but with the removal of Wakefield South no part of the main Wakefield urban area is included. Hemsworth was historically known for enormous Labour votes, with the Labour vote consistently over 80% from 1935 until February 1974; a combination of boundary changes and political change has made this less the case, and it was alarmingly close in 2019, but it remains the case that it has been consistently Labour ever since the constituency's creation in 1918.
It has many of the common demographic features of coalfield constituencies. The population is very working class, with low levels in professional and manageral jobs and high levels, indeed the fourth highest in England and Wales, in routine jobs, and deprivation is high across most of the constituency. It is not well-educated, being high on people with no qualifications and low on those with degrees. The proportion of houses which are socially rented is on the high side, though owner occupation levels are not strikingly low. It is not very diverse, being about 97% white.
There are six Wakefield wards included here. Four of them are dominated by small urban areas, of which two are in the south of the constituency, close to the South Yorkshire border. One of these is Hemsworth itself, which extends to include the village of Fitzwilliam, the community which produced Geoffrey Boycott. The other is the ward of South Elmsall & South Kirkby; the two named communities run together to form a single urban area which also includes Moorthorpe. Both of these wards are generally deprived ex-mining communities, and both wards usually vote Labour, sometimes overwhelmingly so, though both are capable of electing a popular local Independent.
Further north, Featherstone is another small urban area with a mining history; it is known for its rugby league team, Featherstone Rovers. Featherstone is also quite deprived, but not quite as much as the southern end of the constituency. Its ward, which also includes some smaller communities, has voting habits which are not that different from Hemsworth and South Elmsall & South Kirkby, and it has been consistently Labour for some time since a period electing Independents in the Noughties.
Normanton, which as mentioned above used to give its name to its own constituency and which is transferred here by the boundary changes, is the largest town in the constituency. It is also to a large extent a deprived working class ex-mining community, but it is the most convenient part of the constituency for commuting to Leeds and does contain some less deprived areas.
The remaining two wards are more rural, and both have lengthy names: Crofton, Ryhill & Walton in the west and Ackworth, North Elmsall & Upton in the east. Many of the villages here also have a mining history and some of them still have quite high deprivation and working class populations similar to those in the towns, but generally these two wards are less deprived than the more urban areas and there are more middle class elements in the population here. The village of Badsworth, between Ackworth and Upton, is the most middle class part of the constituency. These two wards do also usually vote Labour, but they are capable of voting Conservative and both did so in 2008 and 2021; presumably they were also carried by the Conservatives in the 2019 General Election.
Before 1983 the Hemsworth constituency was centred a little further south, and included areas now in South Yorkshire (mostly in the Barnsley North constituency) and did not include Featherstone or some of the areas closest to Wakefield. As mentioned this was an extremely safe Labour seat. In 1983 it lost the South Yorkshire areas and gained Featherstone, and in 1997 Wakefield South was added. As in some mining constituencies the Labour share fell strikingly after 1997, with above average vote share falls in all of 2001, 2005 and 2010, when it had fallen to 47%. It recovered a little in 2015 and 2017, before another sharp fall to 37.5% in 2019 which made the seat marginal, cutting the majority over the Conservatives to only just over 1000. The replacement of Wakefield South by Normanton will notionally increase this a little, though not as much as it might have done historically. The MP has been Jon Trickett, who is on the left of Labour and was in the Shadow Cabinet under Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, since a 1996 by-election.
As Normanton has ended up here and been added to the name, it's worth saying a little about the historic Normanton constituency. This was a Labour stronghold dating all the way back to its Lib-Lab MP Frederick Hall, who took the Labour whip in 1909 and was re-elected as Labour in later elections. Its boundaries changed a lot over the years, with Normanton itself being the only constant; it did include Featherstone from 1918 until 1950 and had previously included the Crofton and Walton area. Its final version, which was represented for its last five years by Ed Balls, was rather odd and rather less intrinsically safe for Labour; it stretched west from Normanton town to include the Stanley/Outwood area immediately north of Wakefield and then the towns of Ossett and Horbury west of Wakefield. Normanton then joined with Pontefract and Castleford from 2010 and now moves here; the Stanley/Outwood area formed the new Morley & Outwood constituency but will now move to Wakefield & Rothwell and Horbury and Ossett went to Wakefield but will now move to the new Ossett & Denby Dale constituency.
2019 notional result (Rallings & Thrasher):
Lab 17152 (39.6%)
Con 13632 (31.4%)
Brexit Party 6609 (15.2%)
Lib Dem 1831 (4.2%)
Green 782 (1.8%)
Other 3361 (7.8%)
Lab majority 3520 (8.1%)
