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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jan 14, 2024 3:18:35 GMT
This contains content from Merseymike hengo and Pete Whitehead and my ownWirral has a Dee-side and a Mersey-side and boundary changes for the next general election almost straddle the two for here, the "West" seat which will connect the leafy Hoylake, Heswall, and West Kirby with Clatterbridge, taking the small villages and countryside outside Wallasey and Birkenhead together in one seat. Almost in the middle is the Woodchurch estate, once as notorious a rough, drug-and-gang estate as any across the Mersey in Liverpool. The seat was established in 1983, when the old safe Tory Wirral division was split, and there have been some minor boundary changes since, but the seat is essentially, as the name suggests, the western side of the Wirral peninsula. It consists of a collection of small towns , villages, and the large social housing estate of Woodchurch. Like Wallasey, only even more so, it votes Conservative much more heavily at local than national level. The three Conservative wards used to comfortably be, in order of safety are West Kirby and Thurstaston, Hoylake and Meols, and Greasby, Frankby and Irby, where the Tories usually gained at least 50% of the vote, with Labour in second place, but a long way behind. West Kirby and Hoylake are the two main townships in the constituency, and are both very noticeably middle class. The Greasby ward includes a collection of the villages in the centre of the Wirral, as does the Pensby and Thingwall ward. This is more socially mixed, with a lot of recent housing development, and has been represented by all three parties since 2000. Where does Labour strength come from here? There is one theory, which perhaps also works also with Wallasey, where comfortably paid public sector workers increasingly occupying relatively expensive properties in areas away from Liverpool or Birkenhead. Not so much perhaps the multi million pound properties in Caldy, but definitely in West Kirby and Hoylake with their excellent commuter links with Liverpool; secondly the transformation and improvement of the large Woodchurch estate. Is the local tide turning around the comfort and cosiness of the Wirral villages?. In 2023, Greasby etc was a 3x Labour victory, between 200-700 votes ahead of the fourth placed Conservative candidate. Pensby etc was also 3x Labour, the lead candidate 400 votes ahead of the nearest Tory. Labour held Wirral West first between 1997 and 2010, where barrister Stephen Hesford was a nationally low-profile MP with a local reputation for diligence, but then stood down, and the seat was won by Esther McVey. She became very much the focus of local Labour campaigning, and in the following election was beaten by Labour's Margaret Greenwood. Electoral wards here give away their Norse heritage: Greasby, Frankby, and Irby (the "by" is 'býr' from the passing Vikings); Heswall; Pensby and Thingwall (the "wall" from "vollr"). Upton ward, divided in half for the next election to just cover Woodchurch, is always strongly Labour. From Robert Waller [/i][/div] Turnout 42,918 77.3 -1.2 Labour hold Swing 2.6 Lab to C
[/quote] The proposed boundary changes could hardly be more favourable for the Conservatives here. Half the safe Labour Upton ward is moved into Wallasey and the Clatterbridge and Heswall wards are added from the abolished Wirral South seat. These (especially Heswall) are strongly Conservative. This makes for a notional Conservative seat and a net loss of two for Labour on the Wirral. Of course the Conservatives will contrive to lose it at the next election 2019 Notional result | Con | 26653 | 47.1% | | Lab | 23945 | 42.3% | | LD | 3477 | 6.1% | | Grn | 1341 | 2.4% | | BxP | 1222 | 2.2% |
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| | | | | | Majority | 2708 | 4.8% |
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Post by batman on Jan 14, 2024 9:00:04 GMT
Pensby & Thingwall ward has been won by Labour more than once in the last decade or so. There have also been some close calls in Greasby, Frankby & Irby though usually the Tories are fairly well ahead there. I'd imagine both wards vote Labour in general elections, especially Pensby & Thingwall, in recent years though not longer ago.
The derivations of Frankby & Irby are interesting, Frankby meaning "stronghold of the Franks/Frenchmen" and Irby meaning "stronghold of the Irishmen".
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Post by bjornhattan on Jan 14, 2024 10:05:17 GMT
Pensby & Thingwall ward has been won by Labour more than once in the last decade or so. There have also been some close calls in Greasby, Frankby & Irby though usually the Tories are fairly well ahead there. I'd imagine both wards vote Labour in general elections, especially Pensby & Thingwall, in recent years though not longer ago. The derivations of Frankby & Irby are interesting, Frankby meaning "stronghold of the Franks/Frenchmen" and Irby meaning "stronghold of the Irishmen".Thingwall too - this is cognate with Dingwall in Easter Ross and ultimately derives from the Scandinavian word þing (thing) meaning where they held an assembly or local council. Indeed even the Manx Tynwald has the same etymology. |
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Post by thirdchill on Jan 14, 2024 10:39:27 GMT
Pensby & Thingwall ward has been won by Labour more than once in the last decade or so. There have also been some close calls in Greasby, Frankby & Irby though usually the Tories are fairly well ahead there. I'd imagine both wards vote Labour in general elections, especially Pensby & Thingwall, in recent years though not longer ago. The derivations of Frankby & Irby are interesting, Frankby meaning "stronghold of the Franks/Frenchmen" and Irby meaning "stronghold of the Irishmen". Greasby, Frankby & Irby elected 3 labour councillors in the all-outs last election - democracy.wirral.gov.uk/mgElectionResults.aspx?ID=15&V=1&RPID=529528217 - and one labour councillor in particular was elected quite comfortably. (Pensby & Thingwall also did so last year). I agree that both will likely to be fairly consistently voting labour at a general election though, even if fairly narrowly at times. |
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Post by batman on Jan 14, 2024 10:40:48 GMT
I hadn't clocked that for some reason, so really the profile will need to be reworded a bit.
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Post by finsobruce on Jan 14, 2024 10:41:08 GMT
Pensby & Thingwall ward has been won by Labour more than once in the last decade or so. There have also been some close calls in Greasby, Frankby & Irby though usually the Tories are fairly well ahead there. I'd imagine both wards vote Labour in general elections, especially Pensby & Thingwall, in recent years though not longer ago. The derivations of Frankby & Irby are interesting, Frankby meaning "stronghold of the Franks/Frenchmen" and Irby meaning "stronghold of the Irishmen".Thingwall too - this is cognate with Dingwall in Easter Ross and ultimately derives from the Scandinavian word þing (thing) meaning where they held an assembly or local council. Indeed even the Manx Tynwald has the same etymology. Can I advocate a cross border seat of former Viking meeting places - Thingwall and Dingwall. |
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Post by Robert Waller on Jan 14, 2024 11:07:06 GMT
I would suggest that one of the points of updating profiles is to look at the local election results since 2020 when many of them were originally written. There are plenty of places where these can be easily accessed. Not everyone has Adam Gray's additions of the votes cast, though, so I'll mention here that for Wirral West in May 2023 this was: Conservative 39%, Labour 36%, LD 14%, Green 10.5%, Independent 0.6% |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jan 14, 2024 11:11:33 GMT
I hadn't clocked that for some reason, so really the profile will need to be reworded a bit. Done. |
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hengog
Conservative
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Post by hengog on Jan 14, 2024 17:24:38 GMT
I once escorted a party of French visitors around the Woodchurch estate: at the time notorious for drugs etc. They were, as I had anticipated astonished by its appearance. Broad avenues of good housing and virtually no visual evidence of disadvantage , let alone criminality. It had the air of a well planned and relatively pleasant estate. The Council had, it is true , recently implemented a radical new housing policy , greatly reducing the numbers of families placed there. This had the desired effect , although creating its own problem of dramatically falling rolls in the schools: rapidly going from being overcrowded , with some children having to be bussed elsewhere, to facing closures.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 14, 2024 18:58:05 GMT
I once escorted a party of French visitors around the Woodchurch estate: at the time notorious for drugs etc. They were, as I had anticipated astonished by its appearance. Broad avenues of good housing and virtually no visual evidence of disadvantage , let alone criminality. It had the air of a well planned and relatively pleasant estate. The Council had, it is true , recently implemented a radical new housing policy , greatly reducing the numbers of families placed there. This had the desired effect , although creating its own problem of dramatically falling rolls in the schools: rapidly going from being overcrowded , with some children having to be bussed elsewhere, to facing closures. This is interesting. I've never been to Woodchurch and had not looked at it on Google maps before. As you say some of the housing there (not all) is really quite attractive and not at all how I had imagined from previous comments. Of course pleasant architecture can conceal deprivation, but the worst estates tend to look run down and have a kind of air about them which is even discernable from a 'virtual' tour. On a related note, my notional results treats the two parts of the divided Upton ward as electorally uniform, when clearly the area departing (Upton itself) is quite different from Woodchurch and looks quite upmarket in parts (certainly relatively so). Given this is Merseyside and 2019, this may not make as much difference to the relative party strengths as we should normally expect, but the Conservatives do seem to get a consistent quarter of the vote in Upton ward and I imagine that is mostly from the Northern half (the bit which is being removed). As such my notional result may slightly overstate the Conservative majority |
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Post by Adam Gray on Jan 14, 2024 20:02:07 GMT
I would suggest that one of the points of updating profiles is to look at the local election results since 2020 when many of them were originally written. There are plenty of places where these can be easily accessed. Not everyone has Adam Gray 's additions of the votes cast, though, so I'll mention here that for Wirral West in May 2023 this was: Conservative 39%, Labour 36%, LD 14%, Green 10.5%, Independent 0.6% This is one of those constituencies (and Mets) where voters are a lot less willing to vote Labour in council elections than national ones. So even with the Tories ahead (they usually were on the current, less favourable constituency boundaries, though weren't last year) that shouldn't give the party too much optimism about a contra-indicative gain at the GE. |
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Post by batman on Jan 14, 2024 22:02:15 GMT
I hadn't clocked that for some reason, so really the profile will need to be reworded a bit. Done. except the penultimate line? |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jan 15, 2024 3:13:06 GMT
except the penultimate line? You don't miss a trick do you! |
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Post by batman on Jan 15, 2024 9:02:18 GMT
Thanks Dok. I do do quite a lot of proof-reading, both for my wife & also regularly for my Choir. Although I have retired from its Committee I have told our Publicity Officer (who is in fact quite a bit senior to me) that I am happy to continue proofreading all our publicity, which is required pretty regularly. Sometimes I even find errors in soloists' biographies, which isn't a great idea from their point of view in terms of looking for work in a very competitive little field. The worst one was recently when we showed the German text of a very obscure & rarely-played choral work by Max Bruch in the programme of our last concert: I had to explain that every single noun in German has to be capitalised and that in a fairly long text was quite an undertaking. I also always check my own constituency profiles once I've posted them & typically at least 5 edits per constituency are necessary, not just because of typos which are very rare coming from me but because of things like repetition or lack of clarity in my English.
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jan 15, 2024 9:50:09 GMT
Thanks Dok. I do do quite a lot of proof-reading, both for my wife & also regularly for my Choir. Although I have retired from its Committee I have told our Publicity Officer (who is in fact quite a bit senior to me) that I am happy to continue proofreading all our publicity, which is required pretty regularly. Sometimes I even find errors in soloists' biographies, which isn't a great idea from their point of view in terms of looking for work in a very competitive little field. The worst one was recently when we showed the German text of a very obscure & rarely-played choral work by Max Bruch in the programme of our last concert: I had to explain that every single noun in German has to be capitalised and that in a fairly long text was quite an undertaking. I also always check my own constituency profiles once I've posted them & typically at least 5 edits per constituency are necessary, not just because of typos which are very rare coming from me but because of things like repetition or lack of clarity in my English. Oh it's fine. I was a copyeditor for an online magazine and I'm used to being edited from my music reviewing days. I'm only on a phone, not a laptop, so errors will bound to kick in! |
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 39,009
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Post by The Bishop on Jan 15, 2024 10:32:33 GMT
I ended up editing my own profiles in the "old" Almanac several times because of sometimes quite "obvious" errors and omissions.
And even then, I likely missed a thing or two.
It really is amazing what a fresh pair of eyes can see.
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hengog
Conservative
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Post by hengog on Jan 15, 2024 17:25:11 GMT
Coincidentally, I received a personally addressed letter today from the Labour candidate, one Matthew Patrick. Who stresses his local credentials - grew up in Birkenhead and is currently councillor for Woodchurch! ( I’m not sure valuable those credentials are here ) . However he then makes no reference whatsoever to any local issues but confides that his priorities are ending the cost of living crisis , bringing down energy bills and “getting our country growing”. From which I conclude this is simply a national script ‘ topped and tailed’.
However there is one big local issue here which is bound to be important during the election in the southern ( Heswall) bit of the new constituency. This is the proposal from the trustees of the Leverhulme estate for a huge housing scheme on green belt agricultural land around Heswall. At present this has been opposed by the council , including presumably Matthew ( from his letter we seem to be on first name terms, though I confess not to have heard of him before). It will be interesting to see how he responds to inevitable questioning on this, given his Party leader’s robust pronouncement on ‘ nimbyism ‘ and how a future Labour government would deal with local opposition to house building.
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Post by Robert Waller on Jan 16, 2024 20:10:20 GMT
2021 Census, new boundariesAge 65+ 28.1% 23/575 Owner occupied 80.2% 8/575Private rented 11.5% 562/575 Social rented 8.3% 557/575 White 96.2% 116/575 Black 0.3% 510/575 Asian 1.7% 432/575 Managerial & professional 42.7% 74/575 Routine & Semi-routine 17.6% 466/575 Degree level 40.7% 94/575 No qualifications 13.6% 484/575 Students 5.2% 353/575 General Election 2019: Wirral WestParty Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Margaret Greenwood 20,695 48.2 -6.1Conservative Laura Evans 17,692 41.2 -0.9 Liberal Democrats Andy Corkhill 2,706 6.3 +3.7 Green John Coyne 965 2.2 +1.2 Brexit Party John Kelly 860 2.0 New
Lab Majority 3,003 7.0 -5.2Turnout 42,918 77.3 -1.2 Labour hold Swing 2.6 Lab to C Boundary ChangesWirral West consists of 88.8% of Wirral West 38.9% of Wirral South Mapboundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_281_Wirral%20West_Portrait.pdf2019 Notional result (Rallings & Thrasher) | Lab | 25318 | 45.2% | | Con | 24863 | 44.4% | | LD | 3204 | 5.7% | | Grn | 1416 | 2.5% | | BxP | 1245 | 2.2% |
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| | | | | | Majority | 455 | 0.8% |
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The proposed boundary changes could hardly be more favourable for the Conservatives here. Half the safe Labour Upton ward is moved into Wallasey and the Clatterbridge and Heswall wards are added from the abolished Wirral South seat. These (especially Heswall) are strongly Conservative. This makes for a notional Conservative seat and a net loss of two for Labour on the Wirral. Of course the Conservatives will contrive to lose it at the next election
