Post by Robert Waller on Feb 2, 2024 18:01:55 GMT
This builds on the original profile by greenhert, combined with material from the print Almanac and extensive updating on boundary changes, local election results and Census details
South Dorset was created in 1885; it experienced a major boundary change in 1918 when Dorchester was moved to West Dorset; it gained Swanage that year. It comprises the entirety of the former borough of Weymouth & Portland and also the southern part of the former district of Purbeck. In the most recent boundary changes, finally reported and enacted in 2023, South Dorset loses a small area south of Wareham town with less than two thousand electors due to ward adjustment, but gains 6% (about 5,000 voters) west and north west of Weymouth in the form of the whole of the Chickerell ward (a small part of which around Nottington was already in the South constituency). The net result is to increase the notional Conservative majority by about 1,000 and make it very slightly safer.
Despite its tradition of patrician representation (Viscount Hinchingbrooke 1945–62, Viscount Cranborne 1979–87), South Dorset is not primarily a rural seat of rolling acres. It is centred on the seaside resort of Weymouth, the Portland naval base and the Isle of Purbeck, famed for its marble quarries. Weymouth, the largest town in the constituency (population 55,543 in 2021), is a seaside and harbour town which once hosted cross-channel ferries to France and a tramway (which was dismantled in 2020-21), and tourism has been its key economic source for decades. Portland Harbour nearby on the Isle of Portland was home to a key naval base, HMNB Portland, until that closed in 1995 following defence spending cuts, and being a popular windsurfing location on the south coast is also home to the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, which hosted the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games. Portland is also the site of two jails, HMP Portland and HMP Verne.
Swanage, on the eastern edge of the constituency, home to just over 9,000 souls, is a popular seaside resort and also a key quarrying town in Dorset, with Purbeck stone having been used in the rebuilding of London by Sir Christopher Wren; next to it is the Studland & Godlings on Heath National Nature Reserve. Also on the Isle of Purbeck (actually a peninsula) are to be found varied tourist attractions such as Corfe Castle, brooding on its crag, and Lulworth Cove on the dramatic coastline, as well as the ghost village of Tyneham, seized by the armed services in 1943, although access to it is more limited.
South Dorset is the least-well educationally qualified constituency in Dorset, with only 28% overall holding degrees, although this is mainly because of the low qualification levels on the Isle of Portland and around Weymouth itself; the figure is 23% in the southern Portland MSOA, Southwell & Weston, 25% in northern Portland and 25% in Wyke Regis in central Weymouth. There is also a significantly higher proportion of apprentices than average, reflecting the working-class nature of this part of South Dorset. However the northern suburbs on the edge of the former Weymouth & Portland conurbation – for example Preston & Lodmoor 33.6% - and around Swanage (31.6%) and in the Isle of Purbeck especially in Corfe Castle & Langtin Matravers MSOA (37.6%) are considerably better, or at least further, educated.
Weymouth Town, Melcombe Regis & Rodwell MSOA has one of the highest proportion of private renters in the South West at 40%, whereas the north Weymouth suburbs of Preston & Lodmoor and Westham North & Radipole have high owner-occupation rates even by Dorset standards (84% and 73% respectively). There is some social housing in central Weymouth (17% in Westham South) and north Portland (20%) but the only solid concentration is in Littlemoor village (between 38% and 68% social rented in its small OAs (Output Areas), but Littlemoor’s population is only around 3,000. The highest proportion in professional and managerial occupations is in the heart of Purbeck in Corfe Castle and Langton Matravers (38%), but overall South Dorset is below the national average on this indicator, while higher than the norm for routine and semi-routine workers. The latter are particularly prevalent on Portland (32% in its northern Underhill & Grove MSOA), in central Weymouth (30%) and Westham South (31%), and of course the Littlemoor part of Broadwey & Littlemoor, where the figure reaches 40% at the smaller OA level.
One of its predecessor constituencies, Weymouth & Melcombe Regis, had Sir Christopher Wren himself as its MP during the reign of Queen Anne. Most of its Conservative MPs have had aristocratic or political relations somewhere; Robert Gascoyne Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, was Conservative MP for South Dorset from 1929-41 and his grandson, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the 7th and current Marquess of Salisbury and also Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire, was Conservative MP for this seat from 1979-87. Victor Montagu, who disclaimed the title of Earl of Sandwich (his son John is the 11th Earl of Sandwich), was this seat's Conservative MP from 1941-62 until his succession to the aforementioned title; one of his grandsons, Jesse Norman, is a Conservative MP (for Hereford & South Herefordshire). The resulting by-election of 1962 saw Guy Barnett become the first ever Labour MP in Dorset after anti-Common Market Conservative Sir Piers Debenham stood as an Independent, splitting the Conservative vote. By October 1964 Sir Piers had died and no similar anti-Common Market candidate took his place, allowing former Labour MP Evelyn Mansfield King (as a Conservative) to defeat Mr Barnett, who later served as MP for Greenwich.
Labour finally recaptured the seat at a general election in 2001, when Jim Knight defeated Ian Bruce by just 153 votes (Mr Bruce held on in 1997 by 77 votes despite a Referendum Party intervention); it marked the only Labour gain from the Conservatives that year. There have always been pockets of Labour support in Weymouth and Portland, and two additional factors helped Jim Knight to reverse the 1997 result: the social and economic changes along the south coast of England which had seen the Tories lose previously in such other seats as Hastings, Hove, Thanet South and Torbay; and tactical voting, at its most publicly organised in Dorset in 2001.
In 2005, the Conservative candidate Ed Matts ran into trouble when he was forced to apologise for manipulating photographs in campaign literature and making a false claim about Mr Knight supporting the closure of a school in the constituency; the resulting negative publicity for the Conservatives helped Mr Knight boost the Labour majority to 1,812. It could not last, though, as the Conservatives' Richard Drax (full name Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) won the seat in 2010 on a 9.3% swing and it has reverted to being a safe Conservative seat for the time being. Mr Drax has his own considerable Establishment connections: he is descended from the Barons Dunsany (his cousin is the 19th Baron Dunsany), six of his ancestors were MPs in the West of England, many of his ancestors were military officers of high rank, he himself achieved the rank of captain in the British Army before relinquishing his British Army commission, and two of his former wives are connected to nobility and royalty in some fashion.
At a local level, after the most recent local elections (though that is a relative statement, as very unusually there has not been a full set here since May 2019) South Dorset has the only Labour councillors in the whole of the Dorset Council area (one represents Portland, the other the Rodwell & Wyke division of Weymouth). It also entertains three of the four Greens on Dorset Council, all of whom represent divisions in the former Weymouth & Portland borough: two of the three in the split Rodwell & Wyke, including taking the top spot, and the sole representative of Melcombe Regis, where in an odd contest between three incumbents the Green took 63%, the Conservative 20% and Labour 17%. The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives represent the generally more affluent suburbs in the north of that ex-borough: the LDs took Radipole, Westham and Upwey & Broadwey, and the Tories won Littlemoor & Preston, where the former is a working class social housing estate that sits uncomfortably with its surroundings. There was a byelection in this ward in January 2024, which the Conservatives easily retained despite the threat if their candidate being disqualified for holding office under the council (as a school lollipop man)
www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/24004095.weymouth-lollipop-man-reported-police-election-bid/
In May 2019 the Liberal Democrats also took Crossways, a more rural ward between the Weymouth area and West Purbeck. However the eastern divisions in what was formerly Purbeck council are currently all Conservative but, except for Swanage, not safely so; a strong Independent challenge was made in that area in May 2019. The Littlemoor & Preston result might not offer enough evidence as to the general proclivities of South Dorset in 2024 due to its odd circumstances, but the scheduled Dorset Council elections (currently on a 5 year cycle, again very unusually) in May 2024 are likely to take place before a general election and will offer better intelligence.
Despite the history of Labour representation at parliamentary level, it seems unlikely that they will gain South Dorset in a 2024 general election. The swing required, 17%, sounds like a bridge too far in this constituency of islands, or at least isles. One demographic feature not so far mentioned may be decisive, or at least make a major contribution to the outcome. According to the 2021 census, South Dorset lies 31st out of the 575 seats in England and Wales as far as residents aged over 65 is concerned, with over 27% - and far more than that in the electorate of course, and given turnout patterns even more among actual voters. Not only that, but the 65+ percentage has increased since 2011 more than average, a phenomenon also seen elsewhere in rural Dorset. Correspondingly, South Dorset is among the 20 seats with the fewest full time students, a mere 4.0%. Both of these characteristics – and we might add the education and occupational profile too - mean that South Dorset is less likely to register an extreme swing away from the Conservatives and to Labour. Therefore, even if Labour return to government with a comfortable overall majority, democracy here could still maintain that rather aristocratic preference.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 27.3% 31/575
Owner occupied 67.0% 262/575
Private rented 19.8% 216/575
Social rented 13.2% 375/575
White 96.8% 79/575
Black 0.4% 487/575
Asian 1.1% 509/575
Managerial & professional 31.5% 312/575
Routine & Semi-routine 26.4% 195/575
Degree level 28.1% 394/575
No qualifications 16.9% 339/575
Students 4.0% 557/575
General Election 2019: South Dorset
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Richard Drax 30,024 58.8 +2.7
Labour Carralyn Parkes 12,871 25.2 -8.4
Liberal Democrats Nick Ireland 5,432 10.6 +4.7
Green Jon Orrell 2,246 4.4 0.0
Independent Joseph Green 485 0.9
C Majority 17,153 33.6 +11.1
2019 electorate 72,924
Turnout 51,250 69.4 +0.7
Conservative hold
Swing 5.5 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
South Dorset consists of
98.2% of South Dorset
6.0% of West Dorset
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-west/South%20West_413_South%20Dorset_Landscape.pdf
2019 notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
South Dorset was created in 1885; it experienced a major boundary change in 1918 when Dorchester was moved to West Dorset; it gained Swanage that year. It comprises the entirety of the former borough of Weymouth & Portland and also the southern part of the former district of Purbeck. In the most recent boundary changes, finally reported and enacted in 2023, South Dorset loses a small area south of Wareham town with less than two thousand electors due to ward adjustment, but gains 6% (about 5,000 voters) west and north west of Weymouth in the form of the whole of the Chickerell ward (a small part of which around Nottington was already in the South constituency). The net result is to increase the notional Conservative majority by about 1,000 and make it very slightly safer.
Despite its tradition of patrician representation (Viscount Hinchingbrooke 1945–62, Viscount Cranborne 1979–87), South Dorset is not primarily a rural seat of rolling acres. It is centred on the seaside resort of Weymouth, the Portland naval base and the Isle of Purbeck, famed for its marble quarries. Weymouth, the largest town in the constituency (population 55,543 in 2021), is a seaside and harbour town which once hosted cross-channel ferries to France and a tramway (which was dismantled in 2020-21), and tourism has been its key economic source for decades. Portland Harbour nearby on the Isle of Portland was home to a key naval base, HMNB Portland, until that closed in 1995 following defence spending cuts, and being a popular windsurfing location on the south coast is also home to the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, which hosted the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games. Portland is also the site of two jails, HMP Portland and HMP Verne.
Swanage, on the eastern edge of the constituency, home to just over 9,000 souls, is a popular seaside resort and also a key quarrying town in Dorset, with Purbeck stone having been used in the rebuilding of London by Sir Christopher Wren; next to it is the Studland & Godlings on Heath National Nature Reserve. Also on the Isle of Purbeck (actually a peninsula) are to be found varied tourist attractions such as Corfe Castle, brooding on its crag, and Lulworth Cove on the dramatic coastline, as well as the ghost village of Tyneham, seized by the armed services in 1943, although access to it is more limited.
South Dorset is the least-well educationally qualified constituency in Dorset, with only 28% overall holding degrees, although this is mainly because of the low qualification levels on the Isle of Portland and around Weymouth itself; the figure is 23% in the southern Portland MSOA, Southwell & Weston, 25% in northern Portland and 25% in Wyke Regis in central Weymouth. There is also a significantly higher proportion of apprentices than average, reflecting the working-class nature of this part of South Dorset. However the northern suburbs on the edge of the former Weymouth & Portland conurbation – for example Preston & Lodmoor 33.6% - and around Swanage (31.6%) and in the Isle of Purbeck especially in Corfe Castle & Langtin Matravers MSOA (37.6%) are considerably better, or at least further, educated.
Weymouth Town, Melcombe Regis & Rodwell MSOA has one of the highest proportion of private renters in the South West at 40%, whereas the north Weymouth suburbs of Preston & Lodmoor and Westham North & Radipole have high owner-occupation rates even by Dorset standards (84% and 73% respectively). There is some social housing in central Weymouth (17% in Westham South) and north Portland (20%) but the only solid concentration is in Littlemoor village (between 38% and 68% social rented in its small OAs (Output Areas), but Littlemoor’s population is only around 3,000. The highest proportion in professional and managerial occupations is in the heart of Purbeck in Corfe Castle and Langton Matravers (38%), but overall South Dorset is below the national average on this indicator, while higher than the norm for routine and semi-routine workers. The latter are particularly prevalent on Portland (32% in its northern Underhill & Grove MSOA), in central Weymouth (30%) and Westham South (31%), and of course the Littlemoor part of Broadwey & Littlemoor, where the figure reaches 40% at the smaller OA level.
One of its predecessor constituencies, Weymouth & Melcombe Regis, had Sir Christopher Wren himself as its MP during the reign of Queen Anne. Most of its Conservative MPs have had aristocratic or political relations somewhere; Robert Gascoyne Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, was Conservative MP for South Dorset from 1929-41 and his grandson, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the 7th and current Marquess of Salisbury and also Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire, was Conservative MP for this seat from 1979-87. Victor Montagu, who disclaimed the title of Earl of Sandwich (his son John is the 11th Earl of Sandwich), was this seat's Conservative MP from 1941-62 until his succession to the aforementioned title; one of his grandsons, Jesse Norman, is a Conservative MP (for Hereford & South Herefordshire). The resulting by-election of 1962 saw Guy Barnett become the first ever Labour MP in Dorset after anti-Common Market Conservative Sir Piers Debenham stood as an Independent, splitting the Conservative vote. By October 1964 Sir Piers had died and no similar anti-Common Market candidate took his place, allowing former Labour MP Evelyn Mansfield King (as a Conservative) to defeat Mr Barnett, who later served as MP for Greenwich.
Labour finally recaptured the seat at a general election in 2001, when Jim Knight defeated Ian Bruce by just 153 votes (Mr Bruce held on in 1997 by 77 votes despite a Referendum Party intervention); it marked the only Labour gain from the Conservatives that year. There have always been pockets of Labour support in Weymouth and Portland, and two additional factors helped Jim Knight to reverse the 1997 result: the social and economic changes along the south coast of England which had seen the Tories lose previously in such other seats as Hastings, Hove, Thanet South and Torbay; and tactical voting, at its most publicly organised in Dorset in 2001.
In 2005, the Conservative candidate Ed Matts ran into trouble when he was forced to apologise for manipulating photographs in campaign literature and making a false claim about Mr Knight supporting the closure of a school in the constituency; the resulting negative publicity for the Conservatives helped Mr Knight boost the Labour majority to 1,812. It could not last, though, as the Conservatives' Richard Drax (full name Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) won the seat in 2010 on a 9.3% swing and it has reverted to being a safe Conservative seat for the time being. Mr Drax has his own considerable Establishment connections: he is descended from the Barons Dunsany (his cousin is the 19th Baron Dunsany), six of his ancestors were MPs in the West of England, many of his ancestors were military officers of high rank, he himself achieved the rank of captain in the British Army before relinquishing his British Army commission, and two of his former wives are connected to nobility and royalty in some fashion.
At a local level, after the most recent local elections (though that is a relative statement, as very unusually there has not been a full set here since May 2019) South Dorset has the only Labour councillors in the whole of the Dorset Council area (one represents Portland, the other the Rodwell & Wyke division of Weymouth). It also entertains three of the four Greens on Dorset Council, all of whom represent divisions in the former Weymouth & Portland borough: two of the three in the split Rodwell & Wyke, including taking the top spot, and the sole representative of Melcombe Regis, where in an odd contest between three incumbents the Green took 63%, the Conservative 20% and Labour 17%. The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives represent the generally more affluent suburbs in the north of that ex-borough: the LDs took Radipole, Westham and Upwey & Broadwey, and the Tories won Littlemoor & Preston, where the former is a working class social housing estate that sits uncomfortably with its surroundings. There was a byelection in this ward in January 2024, which the Conservatives easily retained despite the threat if their candidate being disqualified for holding office under the council (as a school lollipop man)
www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/24004095.weymouth-lollipop-man-reported-police-election-bid/
In May 2019 the Liberal Democrats also took Crossways, a more rural ward between the Weymouth area and West Purbeck. However the eastern divisions in what was formerly Purbeck council are currently all Conservative but, except for Swanage, not safely so; a strong Independent challenge was made in that area in May 2019. The Littlemoor & Preston result might not offer enough evidence as to the general proclivities of South Dorset in 2024 due to its odd circumstances, but the scheduled Dorset Council elections (currently on a 5 year cycle, again very unusually) in May 2024 are likely to take place before a general election and will offer better intelligence.
Despite the history of Labour representation at parliamentary level, it seems unlikely that they will gain South Dorset in a 2024 general election. The swing required, 17%, sounds like a bridge too far in this constituency of islands, or at least isles. One demographic feature not so far mentioned may be decisive, or at least make a major contribution to the outcome. According to the 2021 census, South Dorset lies 31st out of the 575 seats in England and Wales as far as residents aged over 65 is concerned, with over 27% - and far more than that in the electorate of course, and given turnout patterns even more among actual voters. Not only that, but the 65+ percentage has increased since 2011 more than average, a phenomenon also seen elsewhere in rural Dorset. Correspondingly, South Dorset is among the 20 seats with the fewest full time students, a mere 4.0%. Both of these characteristics – and we might add the education and occupational profile too - mean that South Dorset is less likely to register an extreme swing away from the Conservatives and to Labour. Therefore, even if Labour return to government with a comfortable overall majority, democracy here could still maintain that rather aristocratic preference.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 27.3% 31/575
Owner occupied 67.0% 262/575
Private rented 19.8% 216/575
Social rented 13.2% 375/575
White 96.8% 79/575
Black 0.4% 487/575
Asian 1.1% 509/575
Managerial & professional 31.5% 312/575
Routine & Semi-routine 26.4% 195/575
Degree level 28.1% 394/575
No qualifications 16.9% 339/575
Students 4.0% 557/575
General Election 2019: South Dorset
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Richard Drax 30,024 58.8 +2.7
Labour Carralyn Parkes 12,871 25.2 -8.4
Liberal Democrats Nick Ireland 5,432 10.6 +4.7
Green Jon Orrell 2,246 4.4 0.0
Independent Joseph Green 485 0.9
C Majority 17,153 33.6 +11.1
2019 electorate 72,924
Turnout 51,250 69.4 +0.7
Conservative hold
Swing 5.5 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
South Dorset consists of
98.2% of South Dorset
6.0% of West Dorset
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-west/South%20West_413_South%20Dorset_Landscape.pdf
2019 notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 31209 | 59.2% |
| Lab | 13062 | 24.8% |
| LD | 5628 | 10.7% |
| Green | 2335 | 4.4% |
| Oth | 485 | 0.9% |
| Majority | 18147 | 34.4% |