St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire

[stb12]

St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire

[bigfatron]

There have been relatively recent MRP polls giving narrow wins to each of Labour, Lib Dems and Tories here. This looks like a genuine three-way marginal.

Two of my daughters live in this constituency so I will pick up the odd hint of how it’s going. One (living in St Neots) has already been canvassed by the Lib Dems and both have had Lib Dem leaflets… nothing yet from any of the others but it’s early days.

[doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️]

[bsjmcr]

May 15, 2024 4:42:40 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

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x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1791383787906949306?s=46&t=ChpsB0QIjJdidQnGdQbkoQ


Seems to have caused a bit of a furore. The ‘non-local’ factor will obviously play into the Lib Dems’ hands on top of the fact this was on ‘Labour’s non-target list’ (I wouldn’t be surprised ‘that list’ will supplement the bar charts on their leaflets)

Having said that, surely she isn’t the only London councillor chosen for a non-London seat (and this isn’t a million miles away from London), target or otherwise, in other words, have similarly non-local candidates received similar receptions in non London seats or is there a bit of a race element here. Mid Cambridgeshire particularly doesn’t seem like fertile ground for that kind of thinking but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were undertones amongst some of the strength of feeling.


I get the anger if it really is that local members didn’t have any say, but it’s not like there’s an abundance of Labour councillors in the area and they need to select quickly for the potentially imminent GE…

[Ports]

May 18, 2024 1:49:53 GMT bsjmcr said:

(I wouldn’t be surprised ‘that list’ will supplement the bar charts on their leaflets)

I can tell you for sure that in both Romsey and Southampton North and I'm Maidenhead it has (albeit presented poorly).

[East Anglian Lefty]

Stephen Ferguson standing as an independent here. Local councillor in St Neots. Claims to be annoyed by the Labour selection, but has a very high opinion of himself and would probably have been tempted to do it anyway.

That main impact of this is probably £500 extra revenue for Electoral Services but this does make it slightly less likely that the seat will change hands.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

I think the £500 goes to HM Treasury, but yep.

[Pete Whitehead]

	Con	Lab	Lib/LD
1974	46.2%	25.0%	28.8%
1974	46.7%	27.8%	25.6%
1979	55.4%	24.1%	19.8%
1983	58.9%	12.3%	28.7%
1987	61.7%	13.2%	25.0%
1992	60.5%	16.0%	22.0%

	Con	Lab	LD	Ref/UKIP	Grn
1997	50.0%	25.2%	18.3%	5.6%	0.9%
2001	49.2%	24.5%	22.6%	2.9%	0.7%
2005	50.1%	18.7%	27.3%	2.9%	0.9%
2010	51.2%	10.4%	29.4%	4.2%	1.4%
2015	53.1%	18.5%	10.9%	12.6%	4.9%
2017	54.7%	30.0%	12.1%	1.7%	1.4%
2019	51.3%	18.8%	26.8%		1.7%

[carolus]

www.scambs.gov.uk/media/o5laquk3/statement-of-persons-nominated-st-neots-mid-cambs.pdf

7 - Con, Green, Lab, LD, Reform UK, Party of Women, Ind

[right]

Leaflet from Party of Women

electionleaflets.org/leaflets/19985/

[bigfatron]

Just arrived in St Neots for the first time in three weeks.
- six Lib Dem communications including 2 personalised letters
- four Tory leaflets
- one each from Labour, Green, Reform, Party of Women and Indy

It does appear to be a two horse race…

[cogload]

www.bbc.com/news/election/2024/uk/constituencies/E14001512

It was indeed a 2 horse race in the end with the top two from South Cambridgeshire in 2019 slugging it out here and the positions reversed.

[bsjmcr]

Jul 7, 2024 17:21:55 GMT cogload said:

www.bbc.com/news/election/2024/uk/constituencies/E14001512

It was indeed a 2 horse race in the end with the top two from South Cambridgeshire in 2019 slugging it out here and the positions reversed.

Bit ironic though for the Lib Dem here that if he chose to stay in South Cambs he’d have double the numerical majority.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I don't think choosing has anything to do with it - South Cambs selected a long time before this one, this was just one where he could win the selection.

[OWL]

Didn't quite realise the boundaries of this one - extending into the Cambridge ring road (of sorts), including Girton College etc. 

[bsjmcr]

Jul 11, 2024 9:52:51 GMT OWL said:

Didn't quite realise the boundaries of this one - extending into the Cambridge ring road (of sorts), including Girton College etc. 

Cambridge Ring Road University.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Not just Girton, because Cambridge's boundaries haven't been revised in about 80 years it also includes a bunch of areas that look to all intents and purposes like they're part of Cambridge itself - about half the new Eddington development, the Meadows Estate in Arbury, randomly half a dozen houses in Kings Hedges because the boundary zigzags rather than following the road.

[bsjmcr]

Jul 11, 2024 16:13:11 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Not just Girton, because Cambridge's boundaries haven't been revised in about 80 years it also includes a bunch of areas that look to all intents and purposes like they're part of Cambridge itself - about half the new Eddington development, the Meadows Estate in Arbury, randomly half a dozen houses in Kings Hedges because the boundary zigzags rather than following the road.

Fortunately, Cambridge and South Cambs share their bin collection service, so no confusion there in terms of bin colours/days on a given street.

[YL]

Cambridge's city boundary is a real mess, and this means the constituency boundaries are a bit of a mess too. I'd move the city boundary in the north at least to the A14, as well as bringing in the overspill in the Cherry Hinton and Trumpington areas, though of course if the official city were bigger more of it would have to be excluded from the main Cambridge constituency.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

If you think Cambridge has a bad local authority boundary then I don’t know what you would say about Norwich.

In practice Cambridge expansion is much less of a problem than might appear because there are joint planning arrangements with South Cambridgeshire district council which basically work well.