|
|
Post by Andrew_S on Jul 11, 2024 20:19:49 GMT
I never realised this seat now also includes 'Peterborough South' hence I can now see how Labour gained it. The compass point name of this constituency tends to make you think it's a mainly rural seat which in this case is slightly misleading. At Brian Mawhinney's acceptable speech on the election night programme in 1997 he said something like "It's nice to be returned to represent the city this side of the river", to which many people in the audience chuckled in a sarcastic sort of way, because it was his attempt to imply he hadn't chicken-runned from Peterborough when he obviously had. But that reminded me that the seat did indeed include the south-of-the-river part of Peterborough. |
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 11, 2024 20:28:49 GMT
42% of the then new constituency came from Mawhinney's former Peterborough seat and almost a third of his old constituency came into this one. I don't think it was a chicken run in the classic sense. There are numerous examples following major boundary changes for a sitting MP to follow the more favourable part of their seat to a new one. Did Harvey Proctor 'chicken run' when he fought Billeircay in 1983 rather than 'staying' with the Basildon seat? I don't think so. In the case of David Amess, clearly he did.
|
|
|
|
Post by batman on Jul 11, 2024 22:31:26 GMT
It certainly took me by surprise. Most of the Peterborough wards included in this seat have been pretty solidly Tory although Labour has sometimes won in Fletton. Labour must have done far better than in any recent local elections to have won this one, and it was a very young challenger beating a highly experienced & well-established incumbent. Perhaps the boundary changes had a greater effect than I had realised.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2024 2:13:52 GMT
It took me by surprise because one often thinks, even though one knows it's not the case, that compass point shire seats are rock solid Tory in the south and east anglia. Well done Labour. 1945-level Cambridgeshire performance and were it not for the Lib Dems, I think Labour would've taken thhe Lib Dem won seats in Cantab. as well. A great night for the anti-Tory parties just like the 2021 mayoral election was.
|
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,905
|
Post by YL on Jul 12, 2024 7:13:35 GMT
It is really quite a misleadingly named constituency now. It was seriously oversized and so was cut down considerably in the boundary review, and everything that went was part of the rural Huntingdonshire component; it used to come almost to Huntingdon town and St Ives, but now doesn't get close. More than half of its electorate is now in urban Peterborough (as in not just in the City Council area, but in the built up area). batman is of course correct that Labour hasn't won many local elections in the area, but in the urban part of the seat (the Fletton and Stanground wards, the two Orton wards, Hampton Vale, Hargate & Hempsted) the Tories are hardly dominant either, with the Greens and Lib Dems both being well represented. I think Labour doing well in an area like that is consistent with the patterns of the election, and while the remaining rural area (north Huntingdonshire and the rural part of the old Soke of Peterborough, west of the city) must be normally very Tory, it seems like nowhere was really overwhelmingly Tory in this election and it wasn't quite enough to save them. I'd imagine that the next review is likely to remove even more of the rural Huntingdonshire component, but unfortunately for Sam Carling that isn't scheduled to happen before the next General Election. On another point, did the boundary changes save the Tories in Huntingdon? The area transferred from here is pretty Tory, and St Neots rather less so. |
|
bsjmcr
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,591 
|
Post by bsjmcr on Jul 12, 2024 8:45:39 GMT
Huntingdon and NE Cambridgeshire preventing Cambridgeshire from being a mirror image of Oxfordshire in being a varsity Tory-free zone. Having said that, like Oxford, all the constituencies directly surrounding the respective cities did go LD.
|
|
|
|
Post by hempie on Jul 12, 2024 11:22:25 GMT
My understanding is that the Conservatives struggled to find people willing to campaign on the ground and couldn't enthuse their usual supporters to turn out on the day. In my village there was very little activity from any party although I think I spotted Sam Carling delivering leaflets on the day before the election (unless he had a double!). The Lib Dems and Greens concentrated their efforts elsewhere but still saved their deposits. On the old boundaries UKIP came second here in 2015 so it is no surprise to me that Reform (whose candidate was the only one who lived in the Constituency) did well without doing a great deal of campaigning. As ever it is a shame that we don't have ward level results.
|
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,905
|
Post by YL on Jul 13, 2024 9:54:48 GMT
Huntingdon and NE Cambridgeshire preventing Cambridgeshire from being a mirror image of Oxfordshire in being a varsity Tory-free zone. Having said that, like Oxford, all the constituencies directly surrounding the respective cities did go LD. It's tempting to draw parallels between the two counties, but Oxfordshire doesn't have an analogue to Peterborough (Peterborough arguably isn't really in Cambridgeshire, but I suppose it is still treated as such for constituency boundary drawing) nor to the rather remote-feeling Fenland areas in North East Cambridgeshire constituency. It certainly doesn't have anywhere which votes like North East Cambridgeshire. |
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Jul 13, 2024 9:58:26 GMT
Huntingdon and NE Cambridgeshire preventing Cambridgeshire from being a mirror image of Oxfordshire in being a varsity Tory-free zone. Having said that, like Oxford, all the constituencies directly surrounding the respective cities did go LD. It's tempting to draw parallels between the two counties, but Oxfordshire doesn't have an analogue to Peterborough (Peterborough arguably isn't really in Cambridgeshire, but I suppose it is still treated as such for constituency boundary drawing) nor to the rather remote-feeling Fenland areas in North East Cambridgeshire constituency. It certainly doesn't have anywhere which votes like North East Cambridgeshire. Well of course historically Peterborough wasn't in Cambridgeshire at all, but Northamptonshire.  |
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,905
|
Post by YL on Jul 13, 2024 10:06:34 GMT
It's tempting to draw parallels between the two counties, but Oxfordshire doesn't have an analogue to Peterborough (Peterborough arguably isn't really in Cambridgeshire, but I suppose it is still treated as such for constituency boundary drawing) nor to the rather remote-feeling Fenland areas in North East Cambridgeshire constituency. It certainly doesn't have anywhere which votes like North East Cambridgeshire. Well of course historically Peterborough wasn't in Cambridgeshire at all, but Northamptonshire. What county Peterborough is in is a Thorney topic. |
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Jul 13, 2024 10:08:21 GMT
Well of course historically Peterborough wasn't in Cambridgeshire at all, but Northamptonshire. What county Peterborough is in is a Thorney topic. The old Sokes in the pub talk of nothing else! |
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,755
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Jul 13, 2024 10:09:51 GMT
It's tempting to draw parallels between the two counties, but Oxfordshire doesn't have an analogue to Peterborough (Peterborough arguably isn't really in Cambridgeshire, but I suppose it is still treated as such for constituency boundary drawing) nor to the rather remote-feeling Fenland areas in North East Cambridgeshire constituency. It certainly doesn't have anywhere which votes like North East Cambridgeshire. Well of course historically Peterborough wasn't in Cambridgeshire at all, but Northamptonshire. Werrrrllll, historically Peterborough was in Peterborough. |
|
|
|
Post by finsobruce on Jul 13, 2024 10:11:34 GMT
Well of course historically Peterborough wasn't in Cambridgeshire at all, but Northamptonshire. Werrrrllll, historically Peterborough was in Peterborough. Don't make this any more difficult than it already is.  |
|
bsjmcr
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,591
|
Post by bsjmcr on Jul 14, 2024 22:47:54 GMT
Well of course historically Peterborough wasn't in Cambridgeshire at all, but Northamptonshire. What county Peterborough is in is a Thorney topic. Best to keep an Eye on this topic. Seriously though, whilst Labour didn’t quite take Huntingdon, which would have been symbolic being Major’s former seat - it’s surprising how oversized, geographically and population-wise, Huntingdon was before 1997, pretty much covering all of NW Cambs and stretching around Peterborough to the county boundary at the top. Probably why he got a record number of votes in 1992, he must have done well in the Peterborough suburbs even if he was very much Huntingdon-based. So in a way by taking this seat, Labour do have a significant part of John Major’s former territory even if not under the ‘Huntingdon’ name. |
|
