High Peak

[jamie]

It was also incredibly good for Labour in the May elections even compared to the rest of Derbyshire, so the result does look surprisingly marginal.

[swix]

Jul 7, 2024 16:33:01 GMT jamie said:

It was also incredibly good for Labour in the May elections even compared to the rest of Derbyshire, so the result does look surprisingly marginal.

Exactly. The MRPs all suggested a much much bigger Labour win.

Clearly Largan had quite a good personal vote or the Labour campaign was a bit weak.

[bjornhattan]

Maybe all of the noise about "Labour for Largan" and "Reform for Robert" had more truth to it than any of us realised at the time?

[matureleft]

Jul 7, 2024 16:09:01 GMT swix said:

Jul 7, 2024 15:13:30 GMT matureleft said:

I think there’s a ceiling to the Labour vote here. Even in 1997 (when the national vote was far higher) Labour only just cleared 50%. They managed just under 50% in winning in 2017, again when the vote share nationally was much higher. The Tory vote also moves in a relatively narrow span (until Reform knocked them back).

There’s a decent Green vote that probably saw no reason to be squeezed - Labour seemed almost certain to win.

So essentially a seat that probably won’t swing much in normal circumstances

I don’t think this is quite right. High Peak had one of the highest swings to Labour anywhere in 2017. Also the prevailing narrative about the seat is that it is rapidly trending Labour. That hardly accounts for one of the smallest swings this time round.

There are some areas of agreement.
1. This area is trending left (not necessarily Labour, but mainly so). The proximity to Manchester and Sheffield has encouraged migration to the communities close to the cities. And the beautiful landscape along the Hope Valley attracts plenty of both arty and environmentally focused people who are unlikely to be Tories.
2. If the choice is clear (as it was in 2017) then Labour is the rallying point for broadly left sympathisers.

However this election wasn’t like that. Labour’s victory was assumed so the pressure to gather around one candidate wasn’t there. And, if one’s honest, the Labour offer wasn’t too inspiring for the wider left. And one shouldn’t assume that a substantial Reform effort only affects the Tories - the main impact yes but in the more traditional areas round Buxton there would be some effect. 

There remains a substantial Tory vote - it will gently decline but I would expect this to increasingly become a Labour seat in an even year. 

[swix]

Jul 7, 2024 19:23:28 GMT matureleft said:

If the choice is clear (as it was in 2017) then Labour is the rallying point for broadly left sympathisers.

However this election wasn’t like that. Labour’s victory was assumed so the pressure to gather around one candidate wasn’t there. And, if one’s honest, the Labour offer wasn’t too inspiring for the wider left. And one shouldn’t assume that a substantial Reform effort only affects the Tories - the main impact yes but in the more traditional areas round Buxton there would be some effect. 

There remains a substantial Tory vote - it will gently decline but I would expect this to increasingly become a Labour seat in an even year. 

But that was the case everywhere and in every seat. Why was the swing so much lower here?

[matureleft]

Jul 7, 2024 23:12:25 GMT swix said:

Jul 7, 2024 19:23:28 GMT matureleft said:

If the choice is clear (as it was in 2017) then Labour is the rallying point for broadly left sympathisers.

However this election wasn’t like that. Labour’s victory was assumed so the pressure to gather around one candidate wasn’t there. And, if one’s honest, the Labour offer wasn’t too inspiring for the wider left. And one shouldn’t assume that a substantial Reform effort only affects the Tories - the main impact yes but in the more traditional areas round Buxton there would be some effect. 

There remains a substantial Tory vote - it will gently decline but I would expect this to increasingly become a Labour seat in an even year. 

But that was the case everywhere and in every seat. Why was the swing so much lower here?

Well I’ve explained the Labour performance. High Peak produced the second highest Labour vote share in Derbyshire (marginally behind Chesterfield). Labour had (in an election when the national share was fairly modest) little further to go - the ceiling appears to be around 50%. And the Greens are reasonably rooted here and most wouldn’t see a reason to lend a vote as the polling suggested the result was clear (as it was). 

So I suppose your argument is about why the Tory candidate’s share wasn’t as severely damaged by Reform as many others? I wouldn’t see High Peak as very attractive territory for Reform and their result was comfortably below average. The political culture there, from a series of close contests with the seat changing hands regularly, is that this is a straight, fairly tight choice and that should have sharpened consolidation around him on the right. The Tory would have had a mild first-term incumbency benefit. I’m sure he was fairly assiduous but the impact would be fairly small. He’d moved to the area and that’s worth a little. And he clearly fought an active campaign (whereas some Tories seem to have pretty much given up). All credit to him.

He nevertheless lost comfortably and by a margin higher than the Tory loss here in 1997 (when the boundaries favoured the Tories more) and very comfortably the largest losing margin of either major party since the boundary change in 2010. A margin of over 16% is very big in High Peak terms!

[batman]

Jul 7, 2024 11:39:17 GMT swix said:

This actually ended up as one of the best Tory performances. Only an 8% swing. Labour majority of just 7,900. So a very striking over performance here, much much better than any polls or MRP suggested.

High Peak has a smaller Labour majority than next door Macclesfield, which is remarkable considering Rutley was defending a 10,000 majority and Largan was defending a 500 majority. And Sarah Dines lost Derbyshire Dales next door, despite defending a gigantic majority.

Anyone have any idea why this was a bit of an outlier?

nevertheless, this is Labour's second-highest ever majority in the constituency, beaten only by 1997. I don't think that a majority of nearly 8000 will worry Labour at all. But yes, a below-average swing. Perhaps Largan had accumulated a bit of a personal vote as he claimed.

[The Bishop]

Also a seat where Labour did rather better than the norm in both 2017 and even 2019 when they narrowly lost.

[sanders]

1997 was still Labour’s high peak.