Weald of Kent

[stb12]

Weald of Kent

[yellowperil]

I may at least try and post on my own constituency even if it looks one of the safest Tory seats anywhere. Actually I did do a quick analysis of the LG results- this year's for the Maidstone and RTW wards, last year for the all-outs in the Ashford wards. Actually the Tory lead isn't quite as overwhelming as you might expect, and it's pretty clear who is in second place and that is the Greens. My quick rough figures ( and that is all they would be worth doing, I guess) put the Tories on 40% of the vote and 20 seats, the Greens on 18.8% and 6 seats, Labour on 13.4% but no seats, the Lib Dems on 13.3% and 2 seats, and ReformUK on 3% (and no seats, of course). Indies and Others are about 11.9% and 5 seats, for what that is worth. The difference between Lab and Lib Dem is that they have tended to have different electoral strategies- Labour put up paper candidates nearly everywhere, whereas the Lib Dems were much more selective, but got about twice as many votes where they did stand- whether that was a matter of policy or a struggle to find any candidates you can judge for yourselves. I am in touch with our PPC and hoping to be involved at least in the Ashford wards, but I am expecting an interesting maybe 4-way fight for second place. I have only heard from the Tory and Lib Dem candidates and have no idea about the other candidates- maybe some are announced in the relevant thread here but don't fancy ploughing through all the pages of that and the search is about as useful as ever.

[carolus]

The spreadsheet has candidates so far as:

Con - Katie Lam
LD - John Howson
Green - Kate Walder
Reform UK - Daniel Trigueirinho

[yellowperil]

I have had communications from Katie Lam and John Howson, but nothing from the other two and nothing on the local media that I have seen, and afaik Labour haven't yet even sorted a candidate. I did see a post on Nextdoor by an aggrieved voter from May who discovered they couldn't vote Reform when they turned up at the PS. I think they saw this as an evil conspiracy rather than realising Reform just weren't there on the ground, just on the pages of their preferred rag.Other than that the local issues in the media are undoubtedly waste collection(all local councils seen as useless regardless of political colour) and waste dumping (the Hoad's Wood issue reaching national awareness). Damian Green has been making a big issue out of the latter, but of course he won't be the MP for Hoad's Wood for more than a few more months. On the waste collection issue, Maidstone(sort-of blue led up to now) seems to get the worst press but green Ashford and yellow Tunbridge Wells aren't far behind. You do wonder whether being the party in power locally is much of a help when it comes to the general election.

[iain]

docs.maidstone.gov.uk/elections-2024/general-election-2024/Weald-of-Kent-Statement-of-Persons-Nominated-and-Notice-of-Poll.pdf

Just the 5 main parties

[yellowperil]

I have now delivered around 5 villages making up the two Ashford wards Eileen and I used to represent. Other than that, I have seen 2 LD posters and now 3 Con ones- the latter all in the same spot- on the Charing road out of Pluckley alongside on farmers field but buried so deep into a vigorously growing hedge they are almost invisible. I drove through Sissinghurst today,which Ms Lam claims is the village where she lives- no sign of any posters at all.
Yesterday got a Lam leaflet (RM addressed to Eileen), so that makes 2 since the campaign started, together with a RM Lib Dem unaddressed leaflet for Ashford, so wrongly delivered . Today got the correct one from John Howson, also RM delivered, so a double bonus for the LDs but a bit muddling with two different candidates.RM cockup, I think. So sort-of 3 from the LDs so far, but nothing at all from Labour ,Greens and Reform. And they are too late for me, I have received my ballot paper and voted.

[nyx]

2019 notional: Con 72.0%, Lab 14.1%, LD 10.1%, Green 3.9%

Even a significant advance by the Lib Dems to become second place would be an excellent result.

[Ports]

Unsurprising notional when you consider this has to be one of the seats with the least populous 'largest settlement' - from what I can tell it's Tenterden with just over 8,000 residents.

[xenon]

Jun 20, 2024 21:55:22 GMT Ports said:

Unsurprising notional when you consider this has to be one of the seats with the least populous 'largest settlement' - from what I can tell it's Tenterden with just over 8,000 residents.

Interesting statistic, the only ones I've found to beat it are the Western Isles (Stornoway 4,800) and Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Thurso, 7,390). Surprisingly Orkney and Shetland doesn't even come close as Kirkwall has over 10k residents.

[birkinabe]

Jun 20, 2024 21:55:22 GMT Ports said:

Unsurprising notional when you consider this has to be one of the seats with the least populous 'largest settlement' - from what I can tell it's Tenterden with just over 8,000 residents.

Somewhat surprised that this is the case in any seat as close to London as this one, although it does also make sense as I have been on holiday in the general area in the past.

[Ports]

Jun 20, 2024 22:16:40 GMT xenon said:

Interesting statistic, the only ones I've found to beat it are the Western Isles (Stornoway 4,800) and Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Thurso, 7,390). Surprisingly Orkney and Shetland doesn't even come close as Kirkwall has over 10k residents.

Yep - haven't managed to find any better. Some of the closest I could get were Central Devon (Crediton, 8,300); Dumfriesshire etc. (Peebles, 9,000); Gower (Pontarddulais, 9,000, though that's not really in the spirit of this exercise); and Dwyfor Meirionydd (Caernarfon, 9,830)

[nyx]

Jun 20, 2024 22:35:32 GMT Ports said:

Jun 20, 2024 22:16:40 GMT xenon said:

Interesting statistic, the only ones I've found to beat it are the Western Isles (Stornoway 4,800) and Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Thurso, 7,390). Surprisingly Orkney and Shetland doesn't even come close as Kirkwall has over 10k residents.

Yep - haven't managed to find any better. Some of the closest I could get were Central Devon (Crediton, 8,300); Dumfriesshire etc. (Peebles, 9,000); Gower (Pontarddulais, 9,000, though that's not really in the spirit of this exercise); and Dwyfor Meirionydd (Caernarfon, 9,830)

Matlock (Derbyshire Dales), Lydney (Forest of Dean), Leominster (North Herefordshire), Diss (Waveney Valley), Barton-upon-Humber (Brigg and Immingham) are all in the 10k-12k range.

For England, I think it's technically Thirsk and Malton, as Norton-on-Derwent (8,184 people in 2021) narrowly defeats Tenterden (8,198).

But Thirsk and Malton has a lot of other similarly sized towns, namely Sowerby (5,291), Thirsk (5,328), Malton (6,321), Filey (7,083), Pickering (7,257). Also, Malton and Norton adjoin each other (opposite sides of a river), and Thirsk and Sowerby are so intertwined it's impossible to tell where the divide between the two is.

[John Chanin]

Jun 20, 2024 22:18:26 GMT birkinabe said:

Jun 20, 2024 21:55:22 GMT Ports said:

Unsurprising notional when you consider this has to be one of the seats with the least populous 'largest settlement' - from what I can tell it's Tenterden with just over 8,000 residents.

Somewhat surprised that this is the case in any seat as close to London as this one, although it does also make sense as I have been on holiday in the general area in the past.

Mid Buckinghamshire is similar. The largest settlement is Princes Risborough, which also has a population of 8000.  Although to be fair it does have some Aylesbury suburbs.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Jun 21, 2024 6:03:49 GMT John Chanin said:

Jun 20, 2024 22:18:26 GMT birkinabe said:

Somewhat surprised that this is the case in any seat as close to London as this one, although it does also make sense as I have been on holiday in the general area in the past.

Mid Buckinghamshire is similar. The largest settlement is Princes Risborough, which also has a population of 8000.  Although to be fair it does have some Aylesbury suburbs.

You got me thinking about South Northamptonshire, but even Towcester and Brackley are comparative metropolises compared to Princes Risborough and Tenterden.

[yellowperil]

Now nearing the end of the campaign, and still have seen no literature at all from Labour, Greens or Reform. 3 from LibDems ( 2 of them I have delivered, in my patch, 2x 1250) plus RM freepost - I gather there has been a 4th hand delivered but not in my area. I have now seen a few Katie Lam posters in farmer's fields but very very few. I am told she is "not as confident as she was!" I wonder about her boast about her nearness to the centre of politics, talking about her time as a spad in No 10 under Boris. I do just wonder if that was a wise thing to mention. How were the parties, Katie?

I am told there have been 3 hustings events and the LD is the only candidate to have attended all 3.

This inspite of the fact John lives in Oxford so is the least local, and all of us have spent a lot of time in Tunbridge Wells helping out there.

[yellowperil]

I am still amazed that none of Labour,Reform or Greens have afaik availed themselves of the RM freepost - I thought that was the basic minimum for a serious party in a non-target seat. Am I wrong- have a lot of parties nationwide opted out of even that? I did this morning have a guy in Charing tell me he was voting Reform, the first I have encountered anywhere in this constituency. I've not been canvassing as such you understand, just delivering but a lot of people volunteer the information unasked if I meet them on the doorstep or in their gardens-mostly to say or at least imply they are voting for us. We are now reaching the stage where folk are giving back the last leaflet saying they have aready voted, and I should give it to somebody else who still needs to be convinced!Of course there are large parts of this constituency where the RM freepost is all the electorate will have had from us, and that's assuming that it  has indeed reached everybody. On the other hand where I have been delivering some parts will have had 3 deliveries, and I think the quality has been well upon what I have been putting out in the target seat next door.

To be fair though, the two Katie Lam things I've seen (RM addressed freepost and one hand delivered) have also been pretty high quality in terms of presentation, whatever you think of the message. The hand delivered one managed to get a photo of her in every parish in the constituency, and as that is well over 50 pics you have to hand it to her that she's trying.

She could of course be the next leader of the Tory party!She could be the parliamentary party!

[heslingtonian]

Can we have a poll here? You know you all want one!!