Post by andrewp on Feb 28, 2024 16:04:06 GMT
This is heavily based on an excellent profile by @europeanlefty with updates on local elections and census data and other bits and bobs from me.
Gloucester is the county town of, and largest city in, the County of Gloucestershire. It sits roughly centrally within the modern Non-Metropolitan County, about 13 miles from the northernmost point in Tewkesbury; 19 miles from the southernmost point near Tetbury; around 17 miles from the Welsh border at Symonds Yat and 22 miles from the Oxfordshire border. However, the ceremonial county stretches another ten miles southwards and the historic border was the River Avon, running through the middle of Bristol. The constituency borders the Forest of Dean to its West, Stroud to the South, and Tewkesbury to the North and east. Despite its proximity to Bristol, it is not massively overshadowed by it and maintains a proud and distinct identity as a city. People from the market towns and valleys to the south of the city are far more likely to tell you that they come from “near Gloucester” than “near Bristol”, although in truth “Gloucestershire” is preferred to either of those as a description.
As at 2021, Gloucester has a population of 132,000 and growing, and therefore the Gloucester city council area and indeed the built up area of the city are slightly too large for one parliamentary constituency. In 2010, one ward from the city of Gloucester, Longlevens, a mostly lower-middle class community in the north of the city was removed into the Tewkesbury constituency. Now, in the boundary changes in the 2019-24 parliament, a second ward in the north of the city, neighbouring Elmbridge with its 4800 electors, is removed into the Tewkesbury constituency too.
Within the Gloucester seat is Quedgely to the south, a separate town and parish which is really part of the city (just don’t tell them); the middle class although not wealthy suburb of Tuffley to the south east: the very middle-class communities of Abbeymead and Hucclecote to the east and north east; the more deprived area of Kingsholm around the famous rugby ground of the same name to the north west; a city centre divided between a rather run down area between the station and the quays, and a much more pleasant area around the famous cathedral; and a large and more working-class residential area slightly to the east of the centre. The city centre is actually in Westgate ward, right on the western edge of the seat. There has been very little development to the west of the centre, because of the high risk of flooding from the Severn. Gloucester is quite mixed, and its premiership rugby club is widely regarded as having one of the more working class support bases of any premiership rugby club, compared to say Bath or any of the London clubs, with a ‘shed’ stand down one side of the pitch, which is widely regarded as one of the most hostile to away teams.
The history of Gloucester is long and eventful. It was founded as Colonia Glevum Nevensis by the Romans in 97AD, essentially as a retirement community for Roman soldiers. One of the city’s major attractions is the archaeological remains of the roman city. In the early middle ages, Gloucester was home to a number of religious sites, including St Oswalds Priory, founded in the late 9th century; St Peter’s Abbey, founded in 679 and later to become the city’s famous cathedral, and Llanthony Secunda Priory, founded in 1136. Henry III was crowned in Gloucester in 1216 at the age of ten, and Edward II was buried here after his rather brutal death at nearby Berkeley Castle in 1327. Interestingly, his tomb is one of two in the cathedral to have the eyes carved open, in this case to symbolise his looking up at heaven, represented by the beautifully painted ceiling, in death; the implication being that he did not make it in. It is monuments like this, as well as a corridor that can be seen briefly in the Harry Potter films, that make the cathedral an attraction for tourists from all over the country. Richard II convened parliament in Gloucester for the first time in 1378 and parliaments continued to be held here until 1406. Two grammar schools survive from the Tudor and Stuart eras, The Crypt school founded in 1539 and Sir Thomas Rich’s, founded in 1666. The New Inn, a former coaching inn built in 1450 is still open for business, and is one of the most popular pubs in Gloucester; it was in fact here that Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen on
her accession to the throne in 1553. Robert Raikes, the founder of the Sunday School Movement, was born in Gloucester and is commemorated by a pub called Robert Raikes’ House on Southgate Street.
Gloucester, with its position in the Severn, was something of a medieval export hub, mainly for Cotswolds wool, but also leather and iron. It also has a long history of fishing, to which the Mariners’ Chapel on the docks is a testament. Despite this, outside the docks area, there has never been a huge amount of industry within Gloucester itself. The Gloucester and Sharpness canal added to the traffic coming through the docks by making it easier to move the produce from surrounding areas into the city.
Gloucester has been a parliamentary constituency since 1295. It recent times it is a marginal seat. It did elect a Radical as one of its two MPs in 1852 and 1857. Until 1918, it was a Liberal-Conservative marginal, the Conservatives winning by just 4 votes in December 1910. The Conservatives broke 50% against Liberal and Labour opposition in 1918, and then in 1922, the Labour Party increased their vote share by 18.8% to come within 51 votes of taking the seat. It would take until 1945 for Labour to win the seat, and by this time it had been well established as a Conservative-Labour marginal. However, it ceased to be a bellwether and was won by Labour, mostly by narrow margins, until 1970 when it was gained by Sally Oppenheim for the Conservatives. It remained marginally Conservative throughout the seventies, until the rise of the SDP hurt Labour and allowed the Tories to increase their majority by nearly ten points to 22.3% in 1983, despite losing vote share. Tess Kingham gained it for Labour on an 11.5% swing in 1997; she served just a single term before retiring and being replaced by Parmjit Dhanda in 2001. He held the seat until 2010, when current incumbent Richard Graham gained it on an 8.9% swing. In 2019, he won 54.2% of the vote and a majority of 19.1%, which represents quite a swing from when Labour last held the seat although still leaves it as lower-hanging fruit for Labour than some other seats lost in 2010.
In terms of demographics, Gloucester has a younger than average age profile, although not as young as some larger cities. It is in the top third of constituencies for people in the age categories under the age of 35, and the bottom third for people over 50. It is 62.5% owner occupied, which is below average, and 22.5% private rented. Gloucester is the most deprived of the constituencies in Gloucestershire, although still only the 216th most deprived in England, making it comparable with seats such as Dover, Stretford & Urmston and Kensington. Indices where it does significantly worse than its overall ranking are education (141st in England) and health and deprivation (157th). It does significantly better on crime and living environment, ranking 314th and 393rd in England respectively. 13% of its LSOAs are considered highly deprived, meaning they are in the most deprived decile in England.
Income is slightly below the national and regional averages and routine occupations are slightly over-represented in the workforce, while managerial ones are slightly under- represented. The only significantly over-represented industry is human health and social work, at 21% of the workforce compared to a national average of 13.2%. Education statistics are interesting, as all bands are under-represented compared to the country, except “other qualifications”. That said, the higher levels are the most significantly under-represented, with those having no qualifications only 0.1% less than the country at large. 26.9% of people are educated to degree level, which puts the constituency in the bottom quartile. 9.5% of people work in occupations classed as higher professional and 18.9% in lower professional both lower than the average. The constituency is in the top 50 for those in semi routine occupations.
Gloucester is a relatively conservative seat. It has a higher percentage of UK-born residents than the country at large, and unusually for a city of its size, is 84.2% white with 4% of people being of mixed race and 6.6% Asian. A not insignificant Asian population exists in the central ward of Barton & Tredworth, making up 29% of the ward’s population and this ward is now just over 50% white.
The constituency voted 58.9% leave at the referendum, which was enough to tip Gloucestershire as a whole from remain to leave. Every ward backed leave (these are on the new, post-2016 boundaries), although Kingsholm & Wotton only did so by 30 votes or 0.98%. The leave vote ranged from 50.49% in this ward to a massive 71.21% in Coney Hill. There is a positive correlation between the percentage of the vote cast for Labour at 2016’s local elections and the percentage for leave at the referendum, albeit a weak one.
Gloucester city council switched to all out elections in 2016, having elected by ‘thirds’ since 1979. It is fairly well documented that the 2021 local elections here were an absolute disaster for the Labour Party. Labour enjoyed an overall majority on the council from 1995-2002 and then ran the council in coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2004. In 2021, Labour won just 3 council seats in Gloucester as the Conservatives increased their overall majority and took 26 seats, whilst the Liberal Democrats took 10. Labour were reduced to 3 seats, in Barton & Tredworth and Moreland, both wards split with the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats won four wards in the North of the city and the Conservatives swept the rest. Even in 2006-08 Labour had managed to hold on to 8 councillors, but perhaps most surprisingly in 2021 the Conservatives gained the deprived Matson and Robinswood council estate ward. Overall city vote shares in 2021 were 44% to the Conservatives, 29% to the Liberal Democrats and 17% to Labour. Since then the Conservatives have lost two by elections to the Liberal Democrats but held a third in Tuffley ward in 2022 where Labour started 14% behind and looked to have a good chance of a gain. Labour’s performance in the last set of local elections here and in by elections make Gloucester, given the demographics, a contender for the Labour Party’s worst local underperformance anywhere.
Labour’s strongest areas at general elections are the deprived, working class communities of the city centre and the inner-eastern bits, although these areas are not as monolithically Labour as they would be in a similar city in Lancashire or the North East. The Conservatives dominate the middle-class outer areas and Quedgeley. At local elections, the LibDems main strengths are in the northern areas nearest to Cheltenham, but that is not particularly useful for judging general elections: in 2015, the LibDems won 4,000 votes more in local elections than in the general election on the same day – 6,819 votes to 2,828 – despite the relatively strong LibDem ward of Elmbridge not having an election on that day. The demographics of the LibDem voting wards would suggest that a large chunk has gone Conservative at general elections since 2010. At general elections Labour are generally ahead in the city centre areas around Kingsholm, Barton, Moreland, Podsmead and Coney Hill, as well as Matson out to the east( although maybe not so there in 2019) ; the Conservatives dominate Quedgeley and the outer suburbs, while Westgate and Tuffley probably decide the winner.
Overall, this is a moderately deprived yet conservative constituency. Labour won it under Blair by making sure that their economic policy won over enough centrist and conservative voters, and the Conservatives have been able to win thanks to a combination of Corbyn and the city’s relative social conservatism.
This seat is fairly close to a bellwether constituency although over the last 40 years has usually, but not always, voted slightly more Conservative than the nation.
The boundary changes here are not particularly significant. They perhaps reduce the Conservative lead slightly in numerical terms but increase it in percentage terms.
Labour may have a chance here in local elections in May 2024 to increase their councillor base before the General election and given the national picture, really ought be to getting back into double figures on the council.
Despite their local election travails, any Labour underperformance at national level so far has been minimal, and they need a swing of just under 10% to gain this seat in 2024, an outcome that looks very likely at the moment and Gloucester will continue to flow with the tide.
Gloucester is the county town of, and largest city in, the County of Gloucestershire. It sits roughly centrally within the modern Non-Metropolitan County, about 13 miles from the northernmost point in Tewkesbury; 19 miles from the southernmost point near Tetbury; around 17 miles from the Welsh border at Symonds Yat and 22 miles from the Oxfordshire border. However, the ceremonial county stretches another ten miles southwards and the historic border was the River Avon, running through the middle of Bristol. The constituency borders the Forest of Dean to its West, Stroud to the South, and Tewkesbury to the North and east. Despite its proximity to Bristol, it is not massively overshadowed by it and maintains a proud and distinct identity as a city. People from the market towns and valleys to the south of the city are far more likely to tell you that they come from “near Gloucester” than “near Bristol”, although in truth “Gloucestershire” is preferred to either of those as a description.
As at 2021, Gloucester has a population of 132,000 and growing, and therefore the Gloucester city council area and indeed the built up area of the city are slightly too large for one parliamentary constituency. In 2010, one ward from the city of Gloucester, Longlevens, a mostly lower-middle class community in the north of the city was removed into the Tewkesbury constituency. Now, in the boundary changes in the 2019-24 parliament, a second ward in the north of the city, neighbouring Elmbridge with its 4800 electors, is removed into the Tewkesbury constituency too.
Within the Gloucester seat is Quedgely to the south, a separate town and parish which is really part of the city (just don’t tell them); the middle class although not wealthy suburb of Tuffley to the south east: the very middle-class communities of Abbeymead and Hucclecote to the east and north east; the more deprived area of Kingsholm around the famous rugby ground of the same name to the north west; a city centre divided between a rather run down area between the station and the quays, and a much more pleasant area around the famous cathedral; and a large and more working-class residential area slightly to the east of the centre. The city centre is actually in Westgate ward, right on the western edge of the seat. There has been very little development to the west of the centre, because of the high risk of flooding from the Severn. Gloucester is quite mixed, and its premiership rugby club is widely regarded as having one of the more working class support bases of any premiership rugby club, compared to say Bath or any of the London clubs, with a ‘shed’ stand down one side of the pitch, which is widely regarded as one of the most hostile to away teams.
The history of Gloucester is long and eventful. It was founded as Colonia Glevum Nevensis by the Romans in 97AD, essentially as a retirement community for Roman soldiers. One of the city’s major attractions is the archaeological remains of the roman city. In the early middle ages, Gloucester was home to a number of religious sites, including St Oswalds Priory, founded in the late 9th century; St Peter’s Abbey, founded in 679 and later to become the city’s famous cathedral, and Llanthony Secunda Priory, founded in 1136. Henry III was crowned in Gloucester in 1216 at the age of ten, and Edward II was buried here after his rather brutal death at nearby Berkeley Castle in 1327. Interestingly, his tomb is one of two in the cathedral to have the eyes carved open, in this case to symbolise his looking up at heaven, represented by the beautifully painted ceiling, in death; the implication being that he did not make it in. It is monuments like this, as well as a corridor that can be seen briefly in the Harry Potter films, that make the cathedral an attraction for tourists from all over the country. Richard II convened parliament in Gloucester for the first time in 1378 and parliaments continued to be held here until 1406. Two grammar schools survive from the Tudor and Stuart eras, The Crypt school founded in 1539 and Sir Thomas Rich’s, founded in 1666. The New Inn, a former coaching inn built in 1450 is still open for business, and is one of the most popular pubs in Gloucester; it was in fact here that Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen on
her accession to the throne in 1553. Robert Raikes, the founder of the Sunday School Movement, was born in Gloucester and is commemorated by a pub called Robert Raikes’ House on Southgate Street.
Gloucester, with its position in the Severn, was something of a medieval export hub, mainly for Cotswolds wool, but also leather and iron. It also has a long history of fishing, to which the Mariners’ Chapel on the docks is a testament. Despite this, outside the docks area, there has never been a huge amount of industry within Gloucester itself. The Gloucester and Sharpness canal added to the traffic coming through the docks by making it easier to move the produce from surrounding areas into the city.
Gloucester has been a parliamentary constituency since 1295. It recent times it is a marginal seat. It did elect a Radical as one of its two MPs in 1852 and 1857. Until 1918, it was a Liberal-Conservative marginal, the Conservatives winning by just 4 votes in December 1910. The Conservatives broke 50% against Liberal and Labour opposition in 1918, and then in 1922, the Labour Party increased their vote share by 18.8% to come within 51 votes of taking the seat. It would take until 1945 for Labour to win the seat, and by this time it had been well established as a Conservative-Labour marginal. However, it ceased to be a bellwether and was won by Labour, mostly by narrow margins, until 1970 when it was gained by Sally Oppenheim for the Conservatives. It remained marginally Conservative throughout the seventies, until the rise of the SDP hurt Labour and allowed the Tories to increase their majority by nearly ten points to 22.3% in 1983, despite losing vote share. Tess Kingham gained it for Labour on an 11.5% swing in 1997; she served just a single term before retiring and being replaced by Parmjit Dhanda in 2001. He held the seat until 2010, when current incumbent Richard Graham gained it on an 8.9% swing. In 2019, he won 54.2% of the vote and a majority of 19.1%, which represents quite a swing from when Labour last held the seat although still leaves it as lower-hanging fruit for Labour than some other seats lost in 2010.
In terms of demographics, Gloucester has a younger than average age profile, although not as young as some larger cities. It is in the top third of constituencies for people in the age categories under the age of 35, and the bottom third for people over 50. It is 62.5% owner occupied, which is below average, and 22.5% private rented. Gloucester is the most deprived of the constituencies in Gloucestershire, although still only the 216th most deprived in England, making it comparable with seats such as Dover, Stretford & Urmston and Kensington. Indices where it does significantly worse than its overall ranking are education (141st in England) and health and deprivation (157th). It does significantly better on crime and living environment, ranking 314th and 393rd in England respectively. 13% of its LSOAs are considered highly deprived, meaning they are in the most deprived decile in England.
Income is slightly below the national and regional averages and routine occupations are slightly over-represented in the workforce, while managerial ones are slightly under- represented. The only significantly over-represented industry is human health and social work, at 21% of the workforce compared to a national average of 13.2%. Education statistics are interesting, as all bands are under-represented compared to the country, except “other qualifications”. That said, the higher levels are the most significantly under-represented, with those having no qualifications only 0.1% less than the country at large. 26.9% of people are educated to degree level, which puts the constituency in the bottom quartile. 9.5% of people work in occupations classed as higher professional and 18.9% in lower professional both lower than the average. The constituency is in the top 50 for those in semi routine occupations.
Gloucester is a relatively conservative seat. It has a higher percentage of UK-born residents than the country at large, and unusually for a city of its size, is 84.2% white with 4% of people being of mixed race and 6.6% Asian. A not insignificant Asian population exists in the central ward of Barton & Tredworth, making up 29% of the ward’s population and this ward is now just over 50% white.
The constituency voted 58.9% leave at the referendum, which was enough to tip Gloucestershire as a whole from remain to leave. Every ward backed leave (these are on the new, post-2016 boundaries), although Kingsholm & Wotton only did so by 30 votes or 0.98%. The leave vote ranged from 50.49% in this ward to a massive 71.21% in Coney Hill. There is a positive correlation between the percentage of the vote cast for Labour at 2016’s local elections and the percentage for leave at the referendum, albeit a weak one.
Gloucester city council switched to all out elections in 2016, having elected by ‘thirds’ since 1979. It is fairly well documented that the 2021 local elections here were an absolute disaster for the Labour Party. Labour enjoyed an overall majority on the council from 1995-2002 and then ran the council in coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2004. In 2021, Labour won just 3 council seats in Gloucester as the Conservatives increased their overall majority and took 26 seats, whilst the Liberal Democrats took 10. Labour were reduced to 3 seats, in Barton & Tredworth and Moreland, both wards split with the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats won four wards in the North of the city and the Conservatives swept the rest. Even in 2006-08 Labour had managed to hold on to 8 councillors, but perhaps most surprisingly in 2021 the Conservatives gained the deprived Matson and Robinswood council estate ward. Overall city vote shares in 2021 were 44% to the Conservatives, 29% to the Liberal Democrats and 17% to Labour. Since then the Conservatives have lost two by elections to the Liberal Democrats but held a third in Tuffley ward in 2022 where Labour started 14% behind and looked to have a good chance of a gain. Labour’s performance in the last set of local elections here and in by elections make Gloucester, given the demographics, a contender for the Labour Party’s worst local underperformance anywhere.
Labour’s strongest areas at general elections are the deprived, working class communities of the city centre and the inner-eastern bits, although these areas are not as monolithically Labour as they would be in a similar city in Lancashire or the North East. The Conservatives dominate the middle-class outer areas and Quedgeley. At local elections, the LibDems main strengths are in the northern areas nearest to Cheltenham, but that is not particularly useful for judging general elections: in 2015, the LibDems won 4,000 votes more in local elections than in the general election on the same day – 6,819 votes to 2,828 – despite the relatively strong LibDem ward of Elmbridge not having an election on that day. The demographics of the LibDem voting wards would suggest that a large chunk has gone Conservative at general elections since 2010. At general elections Labour are generally ahead in the city centre areas around Kingsholm, Barton, Moreland, Podsmead and Coney Hill, as well as Matson out to the east( although maybe not so there in 2019) ; the Conservatives dominate Quedgeley and the outer suburbs, while Westgate and Tuffley probably decide the winner.
Overall, this is a moderately deprived yet conservative constituency. Labour won it under Blair by making sure that their economic policy won over enough centrist and conservative voters, and the Conservatives have been able to win thanks to a combination of Corbyn and the city’s relative social conservatism.
This seat is fairly close to a bellwether constituency although over the last 40 years has usually, but not always, voted slightly more Conservative than the nation.
The boundary changes here are not particularly significant. They perhaps reduce the Conservative lead slightly in numerical terms but increase it in percentage terms.
Labour may have a chance here in local elections in May 2024 to increase their councillor base before the General election and given the national picture, really ought be to getting back into double figures on the council.
Despite their local election travails, any Labour underperformance at national level so far has been minimal, and they need a swing of just under 10% to gain this seat in 2024, an outcome that looks very likely at the moment and Gloucester will continue to flow with the tide.
