stb12
Top Poster
Posts: 8,366 
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Carlisle
Mar 13, 2024 22:37:58 GMT
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Post by stb12 on Mar 13, 2024 22:37:58 GMT
Carlisle
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Post by Forfarshire Conservative on Mar 14, 2024 0:40:49 GMT
My hometown looks like an inevitable Labour gain. The incumbent John Stevenson is standing again for us here and has done a pretty good job of increasing his voting percentage at every election since his somewhat narrow gain from Labour in 2010. However, he faces an uphill battle with Labour's candidate Julie Minns who is a comms consultant and native Carlislian. The party has fallen back in my hometown recently, even losing the relatively staunch Stanwix Urban in a landslide to the Liberal Democrats in the 2022 election for the new Labour dominated Cumberland Council. There's also a strong populist streak in Carlisle that Reform can tap into with UKIP gaining 2.4% last time, the highest anywhere in 2019, and with UKIP gaining a seat on the city's district council in 2019 and holding it right up until its abolition in March 2023. That's something that is also bad news for the Conservatives.
Candidates so far:
Green - Gavin Hawkton
SDP - Rachel Hayton
Labour - Julie Minns
Conservative - John Stevenson (inc.)
Reform UK - Stephen Ward
Liberal Democrats - Brian Wernham
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Post by johnloony on Mar 14, 2024 12:39:11 GMT
My hometown looks like an inevitable Labour gain. ... I realised the other day that the new version of Carlisle is still only mostly the town / small area of the old version, and that the big increase in area is mostly land not people. |
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Post by bjornhattan on Mar 14, 2024 14:46:48 GMT
My hometown looks like an inevitable Labour gain. ... I realised the other day that the new version of Carlisle is still only mostly the town / small area of the old version, and that the big increase in area is mostly land not people. The area added does have a reasonably significant population - Brampton and Longtown both have populations in the thousands. But much of the territory is extremely sparse, and among the most desolate country in England. This doesn't shift the balance of the seat too much in terms of demographics - firstly because a rural ward on the southern side of Carlisle is lost (covering Dalston and Burgh by Sands among others) but also because Brampton and Longtown are rather more urban than you might expect. The former in particular has some rather grim estates to the south of the town centre; deprivation statistics don't show this area as one of particular hardship but certainly the aesthetics leave a lot to be desired. Politically though Brampton has only ever been Labour once (in 1990) and hasn't been particularly marginal for nearly 30 years, barring a strong Green second place in the first Cumberland Council elections and a successful independent in 2019 (who had previously won Hayton so will have had a base there). Longtown has generally voted Conservative too but the Lib Dems took it in a by election in 2022 and retained it for the Cumberland elections - in its pre-1998 incarnation (Arthuret ward) it had been a volatile marginal swinging between Labour and the Conservatives. |
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Post by Forfarshire Conservative on Mar 14, 2024 14:59:40 GMT
Yes, I was just about to name Brampton as one of the more significant additions, but even then the population there is only about 4,000. Cumbria is the third largest county in England, but it has something like the seventh smallest population and so it is sparsely populated.
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Carlisle
Mar 16, 2024 7:31:19 GMT
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 16, 2024 7:31:19 GMT
Carlisle itself is the largest city in England by area isn't it?
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,905
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Post by YL on Mar 16, 2024 7:41:39 GMT
Carlisle itself is the largest city in England by area isn't it? I imagine that it isn't any more now that the City Council has been abolished and the charter trustees cover a smaller area. |
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iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,426
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Post by iain on Jun 8, 2024 12:29:52 GMT
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right
Conservative
Posts: 18,762
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Post by right on Jun 21, 2024 14:10:08 GMT
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Post by John Chanin on Jun 21, 2024 15:12:10 GMT
Agree with this. I haven't been following all your links but many I have seen are motherhood and apple pie. It's all rather odd. Historically independents normally had a great big buzzing bee in their bonnet, and the last thing their leaflets were was contentless. Perhaps this is a side effect of disillusion with the parties, coupled with low deposits, and a strong sense of self importance. There's a raft of people who think all that is required is 'common sense' and people might vote for them on that basis. |
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Ports
Non-Aligned
Posts: 605
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Carlisle
Jun 21, 2024 15:15:08 GMT
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Post by Ports on Jun 21, 2024 15:15:08 GMT
Yes one wonders how many of these independents must be highly surprised when they discover their final total and far more often than not their lost deposit, given they must find their own material to be convincing?
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Post by johnloony on Jun 21, 2024 15:58:45 GMT
Yes one wonders how many of these independents must be highly surprised when they discover their final total and far more often than not their lost deposit, given they must find their own material to be convincing? Depends on whether they are Benjamin Bartons or normal candidates. |
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Post by johnloony on Jun 21, 2024 16:03:52 GMT
Agree with this. I haven't been following all your links but many I have seen are motherhood and apple pie. It's all rather odd. Historically independents normally had a great big buzzing bee in their bonnet, and the last thing their leaflets were was contentless. Perhaps this is a side effect of disillusion with the parties, coupled with low deposits, and a strong sense of self importance. There's a raft of people who think all that is required is 'common sense' and people might vote for them on that basis. I remember several years ago there was a report in the local newspaper in Croydon that a group of self-important weirdoes were announcing that they were going to form a “Common Sense Party” (obviously oblivious to the fact that there was already a registered party so-named) and that they were going to contest all the seats in the local elections a few months later (spoiler alert: they didn’t) |
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Post by heslingtonian on Jul 1, 2024 21:09:40 GMT
Will be quite sorry to see John Stevenson go down to probably an inevitable defeat here. He's been a decent MP and a good standard bearer for the Conservative cause here.
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,889
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Post by The Bishop on Jul 5, 2024 14:45:27 GMT
He lost by just over 5k, with the Labour increase being the most modest of their Cumbrian gains.
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batman
Labour
Posts: 12,359
Member is Online
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Post by batman on Aug 13, 2024 16:30:41 GMT
This constituency has now sprouted so much rural territory that it is now classed as a County Constituency, no longer a Borough one. I don't think Labour will be too displeased at the size of their majority in such circumstances : the swing was closer to 17 than 16%, and that is a goodly figure which just about wipes away the aggregated above-average results the Tories have had in the seat since Labour's previous victory of 2005.
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