Post by Robert Waller on Jan 19, 2024 23:35:20 GMT
Credit and thanks to Merseymike for the original profile, Pete Whitehead for the commentary on boundary changes, and bjornhattan for the calculation of constituency 2021 Census figures. I am responsible for the collation and the additions, and for any mistakes.
There are some constituencies which have clearly swung determinedly towards one party or another, without quite the swing necessary to see a change of representative. Wycombe is a good example of such a seat. While it did elect a Labour MP in the 1945 landslide, when it was known as the centre of the furniture industry, it reverted to Conservatism in 1951, and has remained a Tory seat ever since - usually with comfortable majorities, reaching over 20,000 in 1979, albeit with different boundaries. The last two general elections have seen Wycombe become a marginal seat, with a swing towards Labour in 2019 and a majority of just over 4,000.
Wycombe is not greatly affected by the boundary changes occasioned by the addition of an 8th seat to Buckinghamshire but it is over quota on current boundaries and some change is required. The addition of a small area in the West Wycombe ward, to realign with 'new' ward boundaries is more than offset by the removal of 7,500 voters in Hazlemere which is added to Chesham & Amersham. This not a politically neutral exchange as Hazlemere is much older, whiter and more Conservative than the core of High Wycombe itself and what is already a marginal seat will become more so. On the other hand Hazlemere may prove helpful to the Conservatives in retaking Chesham & Amersham from the Lib Dems. The notional results by Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings released in January 2024 suggest that the boundary changes, though apparently fairly minor in scope and in terms of the numbers of electors removed, would have reduced the Conservative majority in 2019 to less than 1,500.
Wycombe has the distinction of being a seat where its Labour candidates in three successive elections went on to leave the party - one to the Lib Dems then set up her own Wycombe Independents party, another to the Conservatives, and a third to the Liberal Democrats. Which rather sums up Labour's history in this seat - they have consistently underperformed at a local level. The town of High Wycombe itself is politically marginal, yet the Tories have often managed to win more wards than predicted. At one time the town was divided into four huge six-member wards which were all fairly close, but more often than not the Tories won all four, and even when they were split into two, the most likely Labour ward, Oakridge and Tinkers Wood, returned three Tories.
The last (2010) set of boundary changes for the now-defunct district council promised better returns for Labour, yet still they failed to win wards such as Sands and lost their perennial 'safe seat' of Micklefield. Local results, then, fail to account for the rise of Labour at a national level in Wycombe. In both the last District and County elections, they failed to win seats which, on paper, should be theirs for the taking, including the eastern side of town where the Wycombe Independents still have a presence. Buckinghamshire was converted into a unitary authority in 2019. The first elections were scheduled for May 2020 but postponed as all others were that year, because of the first wave of the Covid epidemic.
When they did take place in May 2021, in the nine wards included in the Wycombe constituency (new boundaries), Labour won none outright. They took the top two places out of the three in Booker, Cressex & Castlefield in High Wycombe - and the third seat available out of three in another urban ward, Downley, in the north west of the main town. Independents won two: Ryemead & Micklefield and Totteridge & Bowerdean (both in east Wycombe but north of the London Road and the river Wye), and shared a third (West Wycombe) with the Conservatives. The Tories won the other four wards. These were Abbey in High Wycombe (the affluent southern sector of the town running up Marlow Hill, including the very high status private Wycombe Abbey girls school), the suburban Tylers Green & Loudwater (also including Penn), Terriers & Amersham Hill (running north of the town centre), and the largest by area, Chiltern Villages, which covers about half the acreage of the new seat and includes such attractive nooks as Hambleden, Fingest, Frieth Skirmett and Turville, where The Vicar of Dibley was filmed. Despite their rural sounding names, all the other wards apart from West Wycombe (Sir Francis Dashwood, Caves, Hellfire Club) are effectively within the built up area of High Wycombe. Therefore in 2021 Labour were still not doing as well in municipal elections as befitted a party so clearly on the rise in parliamentary contests in Wycombe, though it might be noted that 2021 was a much less strong year for them than 2022 and 2023, when there were no elections for Buckinghamshire council.
The seat consists of the entire town of High Wycombe, plus some surrounding commuter villages and a wooded chunk of the Chiltern hills. Overall the seat is somewhat above average in terms of occupational class, with 37% in professional and managerial occupations, but nowhere near as many as in, say, Chesham and Amersham and Beaconsfield. This proportion reached these seat’s average level only in the MSAO of Tylers Green (including Penn) at 47%, with Terriers & Amersham Hill at 43% and most of all the rural MSOA covering the approximate area of the Chilterns Villages ward (49%). On the other hand Oakridge & Castlefield in the west of High Wycombe, and Micklefield in the east, are both decidedly working class (for Buckinghamshire) with 29% and 27% in routine and semi-routine jobs respectively. Micklefield is also one of the few centres of social housing in the constituency (32%); the only other above 20% is Totteridge, also in the east of the town (25.5%).
However Wycombe’s most distinctive demographic is the ethnic minority population. A majority (50.6%) in Oakridge & Castlefield MSOA is Asian (the highest of all around Rutland Avenue and Whitelands Road), as are 39% on the other (east) side of town in Bowerdean (most of all near Adelaide Road), and 35% in Town Centre & Marlow Hill (south), 28% in Sands (site of Wycombe Wanderers football ground) at the western extremity of High Wycombe itself, 23% in Totteridge, 22% in Terriers & Amersham Hill, 19% in Downley; so a significant scattering all around the town rather than a concentration in one or more neighbourhoods. Much the same is true of the smaller Black population, with a high of 10.6% in Micklefield at the far east end, but no MSOA in the town recotding lower than the 4.7% in Terriers & Amersham Hill.
It is certainly the case that Labour would have been ahead in the town itself at the last General Election. It’s strongly Brexit MP, Steve Baker, ironically represents a seat with a Remain majority in the referendum, which was once represented by perhaps the most diehard European federalist of any Tory MP, the late Sir Ray Whitney who set up the Conservative Positive European group (but who was actually a right wing traditionalist Tory on many issues). It also has a sizeable BME population, both Pakistani origin, and interestingly, from St. Vincent in the Caribbean, yet for years the Asian vote was far more Conservative than might have been expected - hence the victory of three Tories in the aforementioned Oakridge ward in its first contest. Wycombe's first Asian councillor and Town Mayor was a Conservative. However the Asian vote appears to have swung decisively to Labour, and its commuter population also appears to be moving away from the Conservatives.
The tradition here in Buckinghamshire is Conservative. Labour were certainly helped by the 2010 boundary changes, where both Marlow and the Hughenden area were switched for the somewhat less hostile Hazlemere, but the 2010 result saw Labour well behind the Lib Dems in third place, and while they regained second place in 2015, the Tories still managed 51% of the vote. So, what explains the rise in Labour fortunes in 2017 and 2019? It may be demographics, dislike of Baker, or Conservative policy among parts of the electorate. Or perhaps the seat is now displaying the sort of voting pattern which reflects its make-up and Labour have ceased to under-perform?
Whatever the reasons, notwithstanding those below-par local election results, if Labour fail to take Wycombe in the 2024 general election it might be their greatest surprise and disappointment. With the favourable boundary changes on top of the strong trend since the 2010 general election, there would be an expectation of success next time even if the national polls and byelection results were not strongly suggesting a likely national victory. As Wycombe was never gained in the New Labour triumphs from 1997-2005, this would mark an advance into new territory – though with its Remain preference towards Europe and a White population of only 65%, terrain which is fertile ground for the even more modern version of the Labour party.
2021 Census new boundaries
Age 65+ 14.2% 465/575
Owner occupied 63.8% 338/575
Private rented 21.5% 169/575
Social rented 14.7% 304/575
White 64.9% 484/575
Black 5.2% 134/575
Asian 22.8% 49/575
Managerial & professional 36.6% 187/575
Routine & Semi-routine 20.3% 408/575
Degree level 38.3% 142/575
No qualifications 16.3% 360/575
Students 7.5% 167/575
General Election 2019: Wycombe
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Steve Baker 24,766 45.2 −4.8
Labour Khalil Ahmed 20,552 37.5 −0.2
Liberal Democrats Toni Brodelle 6,543 11.9 +4.1
Green Peter Sims 1,454 2.7 +0.5
Wycombe Independents Julia Wassell 926 1.7 New
UKIP Vijay Srao 324 0.6 −1.7
Independent Edmund Gemmell 191 0.3 New
C Majority 4,214 7.7 −4.6
2019 electorate 78,094
Turnout 54,756 70.1 +0.7
Conservative hold
Swing 2.3 C to Lab
Boundary Changes
Wycombe consists of
90.4% of Wycombe
0.7% of Aylesbury
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_374_Wycombe_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
There are some constituencies which have clearly swung determinedly towards one party or another, without quite the swing necessary to see a change of representative. Wycombe is a good example of such a seat. While it did elect a Labour MP in the 1945 landslide, when it was known as the centre of the furniture industry, it reverted to Conservatism in 1951, and has remained a Tory seat ever since - usually with comfortable majorities, reaching over 20,000 in 1979, albeit with different boundaries. The last two general elections have seen Wycombe become a marginal seat, with a swing towards Labour in 2019 and a majority of just over 4,000.
Wycombe is not greatly affected by the boundary changes occasioned by the addition of an 8th seat to Buckinghamshire but it is over quota on current boundaries and some change is required. The addition of a small area in the West Wycombe ward, to realign with 'new' ward boundaries is more than offset by the removal of 7,500 voters in Hazlemere which is added to Chesham & Amersham. This not a politically neutral exchange as Hazlemere is much older, whiter and more Conservative than the core of High Wycombe itself and what is already a marginal seat will become more so. On the other hand Hazlemere may prove helpful to the Conservatives in retaking Chesham & Amersham from the Lib Dems. The notional results by Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings released in January 2024 suggest that the boundary changes, though apparently fairly minor in scope and in terms of the numbers of electors removed, would have reduced the Conservative majority in 2019 to less than 1,500.
Wycombe has the distinction of being a seat where its Labour candidates in three successive elections went on to leave the party - one to the Lib Dems then set up her own Wycombe Independents party, another to the Conservatives, and a third to the Liberal Democrats. Which rather sums up Labour's history in this seat - they have consistently underperformed at a local level. The town of High Wycombe itself is politically marginal, yet the Tories have often managed to win more wards than predicted. At one time the town was divided into four huge six-member wards which were all fairly close, but more often than not the Tories won all four, and even when they were split into two, the most likely Labour ward, Oakridge and Tinkers Wood, returned three Tories.
The last (2010) set of boundary changes for the now-defunct district council promised better returns for Labour, yet still they failed to win wards such as Sands and lost their perennial 'safe seat' of Micklefield. Local results, then, fail to account for the rise of Labour at a national level in Wycombe. In both the last District and County elections, they failed to win seats which, on paper, should be theirs for the taking, including the eastern side of town where the Wycombe Independents still have a presence. Buckinghamshire was converted into a unitary authority in 2019. The first elections were scheduled for May 2020 but postponed as all others were that year, because of the first wave of the Covid epidemic.
When they did take place in May 2021, in the nine wards included in the Wycombe constituency (new boundaries), Labour won none outright. They took the top two places out of the three in Booker, Cressex & Castlefield in High Wycombe - and the third seat available out of three in another urban ward, Downley, in the north west of the main town. Independents won two: Ryemead & Micklefield and Totteridge & Bowerdean (both in east Wycombe but north of the London Road and the river Wye), and shared a third (West Wycombe) with the Conservatives. The Tories won the other four wards. These were Abbey in High Wycombe (the affluent southern sector of the town running up Marlow Hill, including the very high status private Wycombe Abbey girls school), the suburban Tylers Green & Loudwater (also including Penn), Terriers & Amersham Hill (running north of the town centre), and the largest by area, Chiltern Villages, which covers about half the acreage of the new seat and includes such attractive nooks as Hambleden, Fingest, Frieth Skirmett and Turville, where The Vicar of Dibley was filmed. Despite their rural sounding names, all the other wards apart from West Wycombe (Sir Francis Dashwood, Caves, Hellfire Club) are effectively within the built up area of High Wycombe. Therefore in 2021 Labour were still not doing as well in municipal elections as befitted a party so clearly on the rise in parliamentary contests in Wycombe, though it might be noted that 2021 was a much less strong year for them than 2022 and 2023, when there were no elections for Buckinghamshire council.
The seat consists of the entire town of High Wycombe, plus some surrounding commuter villages and a wooded chunk of the Chiltern hills. Overall the seat is somewhat above average in terms of occupational class, with 37% in professional and managerial occupations, but nowhere near as many as in, say, Chesham and Amersham and Beaconsfield. This proportion reached these seat’s average level only in the MSAO of Tylers Green (including Penn) at 47%, with Terriers & Amersham Hill at 43% and most of all the rural MSOA covering the approximate area of the Chilterns Villages ward (49%). On the other hand Oakridge & Castlefield in the west of High Wycombe, and Micklefield in the east, are both decidedly working class (for Buckinghamshire) with 29% and 27% in routine and semi-routine jobs respectively. Micklefield is also one of the few centres of social housing in the constituency (32%); the only other above 20% is Totteridge, also in the east of the town (25.5%).
However Wycombe’s most distinctive demographic is the ethnic minority population. A majority (50.6%) in Oakridge & Castlefield MSOA is Asian (the highest of all around Rutland Avenue and Whitelands Road), as are 39% on the other (east) side of town in Bowerdean (most of all near Adelaide Road), and 35% in Town Centre & Marlow Hill (south), 28% in Sands (site of Wycombe Wanderers football ground) at the western extremity of High Wycombe itself, 23% in Totteridge, 22% in Terriers & Amersham Hill, 19% in Downley; so a significant scattering all around the town rather than a concentration in one or more neighbourhoods. Much the same is true of the smaller Black population, with a high of 10.6% in Micklefield at the far east end, but no MSOA in the town recotding lower than the 4.7% in Terriers & Amersham Hill.
It is certainly the case that Labour would have been ahead in the town itself at the last General Election. It’s strongly Brexit MP, Steve Baker, ironically represents a seat with a Remain majority in the referendum, which was once represented by perhaps the most diehard European federalist of any Tory MP, the late Sir Ray Whitney who set up the Conservative Positive European group (but who was actually a right wing traditionalist Tory on many issues). It also has a sizeable BME population, both Pakistani origin, and interestingly, from St. Vincent in the Caribbean, yet for years the Asian vote was far more Conservative than might have been expected - hence the victory of three Tories in the aforementioned Oakridge ward in its first contest. Wycombe's first Asian councillor and Town Mayor was a Conservative. However the Asian vote appears to have swung decisively to Labour, and its commuter population also appears to be moving away from the Conservatives.
The tradition here in Buckinghamshire is Conservative. Labour were certainly helped by the 2010 boundary changes, where both Marlow and the Hughenden area were switched for the somewhat less hostile Hazlemere, but the 2010 result saw Labour well behind the Lib Dems in third place, and while they regained second place in 2015, the Tories still managed 51% of the vote. So, what explains the rise in Labour fortunes in 2017 and 2019? It may be demographics, dislike of Baker, or Conservative policy among parts of the electorate. Or perhaps the seat is now displaying the sort of voting pattern which reflects its make-up and Labour have ceased to under-perform?
Whatever the reasons, notwithstanding those below-par local election results, if Labour fail to take Wycombe in the 2024 general election it might be their greatest surprise and disappointment. With the favourable boundary changes on top of the strong trend since the 2010 general election, there would be an expectation of success next time even if the national polls and byelection results were not strongly suggesting a likely national victory. As Wycombe was never gained in the New Labour triumphs from 1997-2005, this would mark an advance into new territory – though with its Remain preference towards Europe and a White population of only 65%, terrain which is fertile ground for the even more modern version of the Labour party.
2021 Census new boundaries
Age 65+ 14.2% 465/575
Owner occupied 63.8% 338/575
Private rented 21.5% 169/575
Social rented 14.7% 304/575
White 64.9% 484/575
Black 5.2% 134/575
Asian 22.8% 49/575
Managerial & professional 36.6% 187/575
Routine & Semi-routine 20.3% 408/575
Degree level 38.3% 142/575
No qualifications 16.3% 360/575
Students 7.5% 167/575
General Election 2019: Wycombe
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Steve Baker 24,766 45.2 −4.8
Labour Khalil Ahmed 20,552 37.5 −0.2
Liberal Democrats Toni Brodelle 6,543 11.9 +4.1
Green Peter Sims 1,454 2.7 +0.5
Wycombe Independents Julia Wassell 926 1.7 New
UKIP Vijay Srao 324 0.6 −1.7
Independent Edmund Gemmell 191 0.3 New
C Majority 4,214 7.7 −4.6
2019 electorate 78,094
Turnout 54,756 70.1 +0.7
Conservative hold
Swing 2.3 C to Lab
Boundary Changes
Wycombe consists of
90.4% of Wycombe
0.7% of Aylesbury
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_374_Wycombe_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 20213 | 43.1% |
| Lab | 18719 | 39.9% |
| LD | 5310 | 11.3% |
| Grn | 1209 | 2.6% |
| Oth | 1441 | 3.1% |
| Majority | 1449 | 3.2% |
