Post by Robert Waller on Jan 14, 2024 0:00:34 GMT
Original profile: greenhert. Boundary change coverage: Pete Whitehead. Constituency census material on new boundaries: bjornhattan. Everything else: me
The Newbury constituency was created in 1885 from the western part of the Berkshire county division; it has continuously existed since then but its boundaries have changed a few times. In the most recent review, Berkshire is entitled to nine seats and a new seat is created in the centre of the county, in the Reading suburbs. Most of the remaining constituencies remain more or less intact but with varying degrees of changes to accommodate the new seat. Newbury being at one end of the county is less affected than some others but is well over quota currently and around 12,000 voters in the rural east of the constituency are lost to the 'new' Reading West & Mid Berkshire seat (actually a heavily redrawn and renamed Reading West). These voters in Aldermaston, Basildon, Bradfield, Bucklebury and Compton are more Conservative than average for this constituency, with Lib Dem strength being greatest in Newbury and Thatcham. Consequently the Conservative majority is reduced quite substantially.
Newbury now consists of the eponymous town itself, the town of Hungerford at its western end near the border with Wiltshire, its attractive sloping main street shocked by a gun spree massacre back in 1987, and the majority of the unitary authority of West Berkshire, the most rural of the Berkshire council areas. It is crossed by a very rural section, marked by deer warning signs, of 19 miles broken only by junction 4 with the A34 at Chieveley. The former house of the Princes of Wales in Bucklebury, and the prestigious Bradfield College, have been removed in the most recent boundary changes, but the site remains of the former Greenham Common Airbase, which became the focus of anti-nuclear protests during the 1980s.
Almost every MP for this seat had at least one relative who was an MP before them and/or after them and every single MP for this seat has been privately educated, usually at Eton. William Mount (MP from 1905-06 and 1910-22) was the great-grandfather of former PM David Cameron, Howard Clifton Brown (MP from 1922-23 and 24-45) was the great-great-uncle of current Conservative MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Anthony Hurd (MP from 1945-64) was the son of Percy Hurd, the father of Douglas Hurd and the paternal grandfather of Nick Hurd. John Astor (MP from 1964-74) was from the famous Astor family and his relative Nancy Astor was the first ever woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. Michael McNair-Wilson (MP from 1974-92) was the brother of Patrick McNair-Wilson, who sat alongside him in Parliament for 18 years. Judith Chaplin, who served for only 316 days before dying during a heart operation, was once married to Robert Walpole, a direct descendant of the very first British PM, Sir Robert Walpole himself.
The 1993 by-election was won by David Rendel on a monumental 28.4% swing, making him the first non-Conservative MP for Newbury since 1923. Even then he had his own "Establishment" connections; he was educated at Eton and his great-great-uncle, Stuart Rendel, was Liberal MP for Montgomeryshire from 1880-94. David Rendel was defeated in 2005 by Richard Benyon, son of former Conservative MP Sir William Benyon. He was one of 21 Conservative MPs to lose the whip over voting for a no-deal Brexit in 2019; the whip was subsequently restored but he retired from Parliament anyway. The current MP is Laura Farris, who is the daughter of the late Michael McNair-Wilson.
The Newbury constituency has an average proportion of owner occupied housing, but more than a typical amount of this is detached and semi-detached, a key indicator of middle-class populations. There is slightly more than average social housing, which may surprise some. Its concentrations are to be found in Newbury NW middle layer census area (over 20%, and particularly in the north eastern part of Speen) and Newbury SW (nearly 25%, for example around Elizabeth Avenue on the south western edge and The Nightingales due south of the town centre), in Thatcham Town (over 26%, particularly around Park Avenue in its north eastern quadrant) and less expectedly in the rural Lambourn and Great Shefford MSOA (over 18%, particularly in the former large village, which is best known as a centre of racehorse training stables, with gallops on the Downs).
Nevertheless, although this feels very much like the edge of the Home Counties, the Newbury division has a relatively high proportion of graduates and an even higher proportion of people in managerial and professional occupations. The latter reaches over 40% across the seat, which means it is just outside the national top 100 on this variable, a slight drop due to the new boundaries. However there are still areas where the professional and managerial proportion Is not far short of 50%, such as the Wash Common section of greater Newbury (south western edge) at over 47%, and, in the rural areas, over 45% in Kintbury & Boxford, and over 47% in the very affluent Hermitage & Cold Ash. The figure is nearly 45% in Newbury Central & Greenham and over 41% in Thatcham’s best quarter, North East. At the other end of the occupational scale, even in the census areas with the highest proportions of routine and semi-routine workers, Clay Hill (NE Newbury) and Thatcham Town, that figure did not quite reach 30%. Newbury constituency is nearly 93% white. The highest concentration of ethnic minority residents was in central Newbury, where the Asian population approaches 10% if the whole. This seat has a well below average number in full time studies. The highest proportion of graduates is in Hermitage & Cold Ash (44%) and Newbury Wash Common (43%).
In the most recent local elections for the unitary authority of West Berkshire which took place in May 2023, the Liberal Democrats surged forward to make 13 gains, which matched 13 losses for the Conservatives, and resulted in a straight switch of overall control from the latter to the former. Within the new boundaries of the Newbury parliamentary constituency, the Tories won only two wards outright. These covered the plentiful rural acres of Lambourne and Downlands in the upland north western quadrant of the seat, but this does not account for many voters – the electorate of these two wards is scarcely over 6,000. The Conservatives also shared the representation of Hungerford & Kintbury and Chieveley & Cold Ash (with, right at its heart, the elite girls boarding school Downe House). Meanwhile the Greens held one rural ward, Ridgeway (Compton, the Ilsleys, Hampstead Norreys), and retained the third council place in Newbury Wash Common. Labour actually contested very few of the wards and came nowhere near winning any. The Liberal Democrats won all the rest, including gains in Newbury Clay Hill ((2), Newbury Speen (2), Thatcham Colthrop & Crookham, and the other spot in Chieveley & Cold Ash.
Newbury has usually been a safe Conservative seat but the Liberal Democrats can win it in a very good year for them. The Liberals retained second place in 2015 (they have either been first or second continuously since 1974, when Dane Clouston came close to winning this seat) despite their national collapse and the fact they lost this seat as early as 2005; they have made a slow recovery since but it would still take another set of extraordinary circumstances for them to win this seat, despite their local strength in Newbury itself. This is also one of the weakest seats for Labour in the country; it consistently featured their lowest vote throughout the Blair years because of heavy tactical voting for the Liberal Democrats and in 2010 it was one of the five constituencies where they lost their deposit.
The question for 2024 is whether it will count as ‘a very good year’ for the Liberal Democrats. Adding up all the West Berkshire votes in the wards within the new boundaries for the May 2023 elections produces figures of 46.6% Lib Dem, 27.5% Conservative and 19.9% Green (Labour lagged again with 2.5%). That suggests that it certainly might be vulnerable, but the LDs and their predecessors have done very well in local elections (here and elsewhere) without converting this potential strength into parliamentary success. Although a swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat of the magnitude (28.4%) of that in the famous 1993 byelection cannot be expected, it does not need to be anywhere as great as that to produce another change of hand. Pete Whitehead’s notional calculations suggest that a mere 12% will do the trick. That’s still quite a challenge; but in any case Newbury should be considered as a marginal in a 2024 general election, and another chapter in its dramatic electoral history may be written. The Liberal Democrat candidate Lee Dillon, a Thatcham NE representative and leader of West Berkshire council, is not known to be related to any former MP ...
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.0% 297/575
Owner occupied 65.3% 307/575
Private rented 18.9% 252/575
Social rented 15.8% 253/575
White 92.7% 247/575
Black 0.9% 334/575
Asian 3.6% 317/575
Managerial & professional 40.2% 109/575
Routine & Semi-routine 21.4% 373/575
Degree level 36.1% 183/575
No qualifications 14.8% 431/575
Students 4.7% 463/575
General Election 2019: Newbury
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Laura Farris 34,431 57.4 -4.1
Liberal Democrats Lee Dillon 18,384 30.6 +9.2
Labour James Wilder 4,404 7.3 -6.8
Green Stephen Masters 2,454 4.1 +1.6
Independent Ben Holden-Crowther 325 0.5
C Majority 16,047 26.8 -13.3
2019 electorate 83,414
Turnout 59,998 71.9 -1.5
Conservative hold
Swing 6.7 C to LD
Boundary Changes
Newbury consists of
85.6% of Newbury
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_344_Newbury_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
The Newbury constituency was created in 1885 from the western part of the Berkshire county division; it has continuously existed since then but its boundaries have changed a few times. In the most recent review, Berkshire is entitled to nine seats and a new seat is created in the centre of the county, in the Reading suburbs. Most of the remaining constituencies remain more or less intact but with varying degrees of changes to accommodate the new seat. Newbury being at one end of the county is less affected than some others but is well over quota currently and around 12,000 voters in the rural east of the constituency are lost to the 'new' Reading West & Mid Berkshire seat (actually a heavily redrawn and renamed Reading West). These voters in Aldermaston, Basildon, Bradfield, Bucklebury and Compton are more Conservative than average for this constituency, with Lib Dem strength being greatest in Newbury and Thatcham. Consequently the Conservative majority is reduced quite substantially.
Newbury now consists of the eponymous town itself, the town of Hungerford at its western end near the border with Wiltshire, its attractive sloping main street shocked by a gun spree massacre back in 1987, and the majority of the unitary authority of West Berkshire, the most rural of the Berkshire council areas. It is crossed by a very rural section, marked by deer warning signs, of 19 miles broken only by junction 4 with the A34 at Chieveley. The former house of the Princes of Wales in Bucklebury, and the prestigious Bradfield College, have been removed in the most recent boundary changes, but the site remains of the former Greenham Common Airbase, which became the focus of anti-nuclear protests during the 1980s.
Almost every MP for this seat had at least one relative who was an MP before them and/or after them and every single MP for this seat has been privately educated, usually at Eton. William Mount (MP from 1905-06 and 1910-22) was the great-grandfather of former PM David Cameron, Howard Clifton Brown (MP from 1922-23 and 24-45) was the great-great-uncle of current Conservative MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Anthony Hurd (MP from 1945-64) was the son of Percy Hurd, the father of Douglas Hurd and the paternal grandfather of Nick Hurd. John Astor (MP from 1964-74) was from the famous Astor family and his relative Nancy Astor was the first ever woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. Michael McNair-Wilson (MP from 1974-92) was the brother of Patrick McNair-Wilson, who sat alongside him in Parliament for 18 years. Judith Chaplin, who served for only 316 days before dying during a heart operation, was once married to Robert Walpole, a direct descendant of the very first British PM, Sir Robert Walpole himself.
The 1993 by-election was won by David Rendel on a monumental 28.4% swing, making him the first non-Conservative MP for Newbury since 1923. Even then he had his own "Establishment" connections; he was educated at Eton and his great-great-uncle, Stuart Rendel, was Liberal MP for Montgomeryshire from 1880-94. David Rendel was defeated in 2005 by Richard Benyon, son of former Conservative MP Sir William Benyon. He was one of 21 Conservative MPs to lose the whip over voting for a no-deal Brexit in 2019; the whip was subsequently restored but he retired from Parliament anyway. The current MP is Laura Farris, who is the daughter of the late Michael McNair-Wilson.
The Newbury constituency has an average proportion of owner occupied housing, but more than a typical amount of this is detached and semi-detached, a key indicator of middle-class populations. There is slightly more than average social housing, which may surprise some. Its concentrations are to be found in Newbury NW middle layer census area (over 20%, and particularly in the north eastern part of Speen) and Newbury SW (nearly 25%, for example around Elizabeth Avenue on the south western edge and The Nightingales due south of the town centre), in Thatcham Town (over 26%, particularly around Park Avenue in its north eastern quadrant) and less expectedly in the rural Lambourn and Great Shefford MSOA (over 18%, particularly in the former large village, which is best known as a centre of racehorse training stables, with gallops on the Downs).
Nevertheless, although this feels very much like the edge of the Home Counties, the Newbury division has a relatively high proportion of graduates and an even higher proportion of people in managerial and professional occupations. The latter reaches over 40% across the seat, which means it is just outside the national top 100 on this variable, a slight drop due to the new boundaries. However there are still areas where the professional and managerial proportion Is not far short of 50%, such as the Wash Common section of greater Newbury (south western edge) at over 47%, and, in the rural areas, over 45% in Kintbury & Boxford, and over 47% in the very affluent Hermitage & Cold Ash. The figure is nearly 45% in Newbury Central & Greenham and over 41% in Thatcham’s best quarter, North East. At the other end of the occupational scale, even in the census areas with the highest proportions of routine and semi-routine workers, Clay Hill (NE Newbury) and Thatcham Town, that figure did not quite reach 30%. Newbury constituency is nearly 93% white. The highest concentration of ethnic minority residents was in central Newbury, where the Asian population approaches 10% if the whole. This seat has a well below average number in full time studies. The highest proportion of graduates is in Hermitage & Cold Ash (44%) and Newbury Wash Common (43%).
In the most recent local elections for the unitary authority of West Berkshire which took place in May 2023, the Liberal Democrats surged forward to make 13 gains, which matched 13 losses for the Conservatives, and resulted in a straight switch of overall control from the latter to the former. Within the new boundaries of the Newbury parliamentary constituency, the Tories won only two wards outright. These covered the plentiful rural acres of Lambourne and Downlands in the upland north western quadrant of the seat, but this does not account for many voters – the electorate of these two wards is scarcely over 6,000. The Conservatives also shared the representation of Hungerford & Kintbury and Chieveley & Cold Ash (with, right at its heart, the elite girls boarding school Downe House). Meanwhile the Greens held one rural ward, Ridgeway (Compton, the Ilsleys, Hampstead Norreys), and retained the third council place in Newbury Wash Common. Labour actually contested very few of the wards and came nowhere near winning any. The Liberal Democrats won all the rest, including gains in Newbury Clay Hill ((2), Newbury Speen (2), Thatcham Colthrop & Crookham, and the other spot in Chieveley & Cold Ash.
Newbury has usually been a safe Conservative seat but the Liberal Democrats can win it in a very good year for them. The Liberals retained second place in 2015 (they have either been first or second continuously since 1974, when Dane Clouston came close to winning this seat) despite their national collapse and the fact they lost this seat as early as 2005; they have made a slow recovery since but it would still take another set of extraordinary circumstances for them to win this seat, despite their local strength in Newbury itself. This is also one of the weakest seats for Labour in the country; it consistently featured their lowest vote throughout the Blair years because of heavy tactical voting for the Liberal Democrats and in 2010 it was one of the five constituencies where they lost their deposit.
The question for 2024 is whether it will count as ‘a very good year’ for the Liberal Democrats. Adding up all the West Berkshire votes in the wards within the new boundaries for the May 2023 elections produces figures of 46.6% Lib Dem, 27.5% Conservative and 19.9% Green (Labour lagged again with 2.5%). That suggests that it certainly might be vulnerable, but the LDs and their predecessors have done very well in local elections (here and elsewhere) without converting this potential strength into parliamentary success. Although a swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat of the magnitude (28.4%) of that in the famous 1993 byelection cannot be expected, it does not need to be anywhere as great as that to produce another change of hand. Pete Whitehead’s notional calculations suggest that a mere 12% will do the trick. That’s still quite a challenge; but in any case Newbury should be considered as a marginal in a 2024 general election, and another chapter in its dramatic electoral history may be written. The Liberal Democrat candidate Lee Dillon, a Thatcham NE representative and leader of West Berkshire council, is not known to be related to any former MP ...
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.0% 297/575
Owner occupied 65.3% 307/575
Private rented 18.9% 252/575
Social rented 15.8% 253/575
White 92.7% 247/575
Black 0.9% 334/575
Asian 3.6% 317/575
Managerial & professional 40.2% 109/575
Routine & Semi-routine 21.4% 373/575
Degree level 36.1% 183/575
No qualifications 14.8% 431/575
Students 4.7% 463/575
General Election 2019: Newbury
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Laura Farris 34,431 57.4 -4.1
Liberal Democrats Lee Dillon 18,384 30.6 +9.2
Labour James Wilder 4,404 7.3 -6.8
Green Stephen Masters 2,454 4.1 +1.6
Independent Ben Holden-Crowther 325 0.5
C Majority 16,047 26.8 -13.3
2019 electorate 83,414
Turnout 59,998 71.9 -1.5
Conservative hold
Swing 6.7 C to LD
Boundary Changes
Newbury consists of
85.6% of Newbury
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_344_Newbury_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 28075 | 55.1% |
| LD | 16615 | 32.6% |
| Lab | 3929 | 7.7% |
| Grn | 2027 | 4.0% |
| Oth | 325 | 0.6% |
| Majority | 11460 | 22.5% |
