South West Wiltshire

[heslingtonian]

Jul 31, 2024 21:09:35 GMT nyx said:

Jul 31, 2024 20:51:47 GMT greenhert said:

There are 2 reasons for this: one, like in 1997, the opposition was divided, and two, the seat's outright owner-occupation rate is considerably above average and its education levels are lower than much of the south west.

Surely the other reason is simply that Labour, not the Lib Dems, were in second place in 2019. Harder for Labour to win seats like this than it is for the Lib Dems to.

True, although Labour were a clear second in East Wiltshire where the swing was 6% greater than here and Salisbury.

[evergreenadam]

Jun 7, 2024 12:04:58 GMT bjornhattan said:

I think the difficulty here for Labour is that Trowbridge only accounts for about a third of the seat. Labour will almost certainly win there (possibly by a quite comfortable margin), and it is also quite fertile territory for Reform. But is it enough to counteract the rest of the seat?

The remainder of the seat consists of four areas, of roughly equal size: Westbury, Warminster, "suburban" villages, and genuinely rural country. I imagine Westbury will have a reasonable Labour vote due to its more industrial nature, while Warminster would generally be considered much more Tory (but if military voters turn against them, perhaps less so?). The villages may have some Labour votes, but going by local elections, even those like Hilperton which are closest to the towns have minimal votes for anyone other than the Tories and local independent candidates.

My gut feeling is that Labour will come very close here - perhaps within 5% - but will just fall short.

Tory majority 7%, so you were pretty much bang on.

[nyx]

This seat along with the two other remaining Tory seats in Wiltshire (Salisbury, East Wiltshire) are places to keep an eye on as potential Lib Dem target seats at the next general election. Depending on how next year's Wiltshire Council election goes.

The Conservative performances in SW Wilts (34%), Salisbury (34%), and East Wiltshire (36%) weren't really much better than in the other Wiltshire seats of Melksham (34%), South Cotswolds (34%), Chippenham (29%)- Chippenham probably being slightly worse thanks to it being the main Lib Dem target seat and no Conservative incumbent. The only thing that kept the Conservatives in in the three Wiltshire seats they won was a split opposition vote.

Next general election, Labour is unlikely to have much incentive to be ambitious and try to win distant target seats like these when they have no local government presence and already have 400 seats, whereas the Lib Dems don't have a lot of other potential target seats in the area so are more likely to campaign seriously and position themselves as the main challenges to the Conservatives. So at the very least I'd expect the Lib Dems to come second here next election.

[evergreenadam]

Aug 17, 2024 22:16:44 GMT nyx said:

This seat along with the two other remaining Tory seats in Wiltshire (Salisbury, East Wiltshire) are places to keep an eye on as potential Lib Dem target seats at the next general election. Depending on how next year's Wiltshire Council election goes.

The Conservative performances in SW Wilts (34%), Salisbury (34%), and East Wiltshire (36%) weren't really much better than in the other Wiltshire seats of Melksham (34%), South Cotswolds (34%), Chippenham (29%)- Chippenham probably being slightly worse thanks to it being the main Lib Dem target seat and no Conservative incumbent. The only thing that kept the Conservatives in in the three Wiltshire seats they won was a split opposition vote.

Next general election, Labour is unlikely to have much incentive to be ambitious and try to win distant target seats like these when they have no local government presence and already have 400 seats, whereas the Lib Dems don't have a lot of other potential target seats in the area so are more likely to campaign seriously and position themselves as the main challenges to the Conservatives. So at the very least I'd expect the Lib Dems to come second here next election.

I agree that Labour have probably peaked in the three Wiltshire seats that they didn’t win and that next time they will be adopting a defensive strategy to try to hold on to most of their gains. I can imagine their activists will be sent to Poole, Bournemouth, Basingstoke and the Greater Reading seats. If the Greens continue to progress in Bristol then Labour may have to fight hard there too.

[swindonlad]

Be interesting to see how the council elections go in these constituencies next year, to see if there's any increase in the Lib Dem vote or Labour give it a push & try and solidify their 2nd place.

If Labour don't progress can see their activists being sent to campaign in Swindon North

[nyx]

Aug 18, 2024 18:37:25 GMT swindonlad said:

Be interesting to see how the council elections go in these constituencies next year, to see if there's any increase in the Lib Dem vote or Labour give it a push & try and solidify their 2nd place.

If Labour don't progress can see their activists being sent to campaign in Swindon North

Labour has never really done well in local elections in Wiltshire, I don't think that will change. It's mostly Con vs LD races.

[bjornhattan]

Aug 18, 2024 21:23:08 GMT nyx said:

Aug 18, 2024 18:37:25 GMT swindonlad said:

Be interesting to see how the council elections go in these constituencies next year, to see if there's any increase in the Lib Dem vote or Labour give it a push & try and solidify their 2nd place.

If Labour don't progress can see their activists being sent to campaign in Swindon North

Labour has never really done well in local elections in Wiltshire, I don't think that will change. It's mostly Con vs LD races.

Even in Trowbridge, which will have comfortably voted Labour in the General Election and has quite Labour-friendly demographics, they've never really troubled the scorers in Wiltshire Council elections. It's hard to see that suddenly changing overnight.

[The Bishop]

Especially if the Tories are still in the doldrums though, next year might be as about as good a chance as they will get.

[nyx]

Aug 21, 2024 10:37:31 GMT The Bishop said:

Especially if the Tories are still in the doldrums though, next year might be as about as good a chance as they will get.

"Tories doing badly" does not imply "Labour doing well" when the main opposition to the Tories on Wiltshire Council is very clearly the Lib Dems, not Labour.