The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,605
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Jun 19, 2021 10:28:23 GMT
How did Labour used to be able to win the old Carmarthen constituency? Eye-balling it on Wikipedia, it seems a largely rural agricultural seat that shouldn't have been voting Labour in years as bad as 1979. Compared to its main successor, it did include Carmarthen, the rural south west and Kidwelly, but even assuming they were Labour leaning that should be more than outweighed by the fact it excluded a good chunk of the then heavily Labour Amman Valley (unless Wikipedia is wrong, wouldn't be the first time). Any idea Sibboleth or anyone else? IIRC the seat always included Ammanford, which used to be a *very* pro-Labour town (though less so in recent years)
|
|
|
Post by minionofmidas on Jun 19, 2021 11:00:26 GMT
How did Labour used to be able to win the old Carmarthen constituency? Eye-balling it on Wikipedia, it seems a largely rural agricultural seat that shouldn't have been voting Labour in years as bad as 1979. Compared to its main successor, it did include Carmarthen, the rural south west and Kidwelly, but even assuming they were Labour leaning that should be more than outweighed by the fact it excluded a good chunk of the then heavily Labour Amman Valley (unless Wikipedia is wrong, wouldn't be the first time). Any idea Sibboleth or anyone else? IIRC the seat always included Ammanford, which used to be a *very* pro-Labour town (though less so in recent years) trying to make sense of the constituency maps it looks like Ammanford was not in the seat but all points further up the Vale were?
|
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,605
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Jun 19, 2021 11:16:43 GMT
Wikipedia says otherwise - indeed claims the 1918-97 version contained the whole county except for the "Llanelli area".
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 19, 2021 11:23:13 GMT
Wikipedia says otherwise - indeed claims the 1918-97 version contained the whole county except for the "Llanelli area". Wikipedia is a very unreliable source for these kind of things. These were the boundaries 1955-74 and I don't think they changed in 1974
|
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,605
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Jun 19, 2021 11:27:04 GMT
Ah right, the Wikipedia article in question specifically claims it *did* include Ammanford. As you say not the most reliable source on these things!
Though that still leaves the original question unanswered - if not there, then where was the Labour support strongest?
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 19, 2021 11:34:21 GMT
Ah right, the Wikipedia article in question specifically claims it *did* include Ammanford. As you say not the most reliable source on these things! Though that still leaves the original question unanswered - if not there, then where was the Labour support strongest? Kidwelly (now in Llanelli) is I think Labour supporting and some of the areas close to Ammanford share a similar industrial heritage and demographic base, but I think its probably mainly as someone else already said down to a preponderance of Welsh speaking peasants. Of course in 1979 the Conservatives did advance very strongly in this seat - one of their biggest increases anywhere I believe and from an extremely low base and then again in 1983. On each of these occasions Labour won with a pretty low vote share thanks to a split opposition.
|
|
|
Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jun 19, 2021 13:32:21 GMT
I think it was actually Cardiganshire which had the highest Conservative increase in 1979 - 20% against 18% in Carmarthen - but the similarities of the two seats underlines the point.
|
|
|
Post by greatkingrat on Jun 25, 2021 22:59:17 GMT
On another thread there is speculation about Tony Lloyd resigning to allow Andy Burnham to return to Parliament. I was wondering who was the last MP to voluntarily resign from the Commons more than once?
|
|
|
Post by Merseymike on Jun 25, 2021 23:03:34 GMT
On another thread there is speculation about Tony Lloyd resigning to allow Andy Burnham to return to Parliament. I was wondering who was the last MP to voluntarily resign from the Commons more than once? I actually can't think of any. There were those who did a second run after giving up a seat - Alan Clark comes to mind -but he died in office.
|
|
|
Post by michael2019 on Jun 25, 2021 23:57:49 GMT
On another thread there is speculation about Tony Lloyd resigning to allow Andy Burnham to return to Parliament. I was wondering who was the last MP to voluntarily resign from the Commons more than once? I guess you mean during Parliament - rather than not standing at a General Election. It doesn't quite qualify - but Quintin Hogg/Lord Halisham succeeded his father's hereditary peerage - now this wasn't a voluntary resignation as an MP because it was before the act that allowed you to disclaim hereditary peerages and thus be disqualified as an MP. He subsequently used the Peerage Act that had subsequently been passed following Tony Benn succeeding to his father's peerage and being disqualified as an MP that allowed you to disclaim a hereditary peerage. And Hogg re-entered the House of Commons. In 1970 accepted a life peerage and resigned from the Commons causing a further by-election. So he resigned twice from *a* House of Parliament (albeit different chambers) - and did cause a by-election twice - even if one was not (strictly) of his own making. Obviously Lord Home/Alec Douglas-Home followed a similar route - MP, hereditary peerage, disclaim peerage, MP, life peer. But he didn't stand in the second '74 general election.
|
|
|
Post by minionofmidas on Jun 27, 2021 4:26:55 GMT
I just reread (as you do) Andrew's Preview of the Brecon & Radnor by-election and I stumbled over the fact that Labour's candidate in the 85 by-election in the same seat Richard Willey was a Radnor district councillor. Where in Radnorshire did Labour ever elect councillors!?
|
|
|
Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Jun 27, 2021 5:34:27 GMT
I just reread (as you do) Andrew's Preview of the Brecon & Radnor by-election and I stumbled over the fact that Labour's candidate in the 85 by-election in the same seat Richard Willey was a Radnor district councillor. Where in Radnorshire did Labour ever elect councillors!? He was initially elected as an Independent in 1983 then later (after by election) 1987 for Labour. Unopposed election on both occasions in Presteigne see Plymouth University pdf. of Radnor results from 1973 to 1991.
|
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,605
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Jun 27, 2021 9:23:41 GMT
Labour definitely won a handful of seats there in 1991 as well.
(4 in all, including 2 contested seats in Knighton)
|
|
|
Post by redvers on Jul 2, 2021 1:22:50 GMT
Was just watching the Sky News by-election coverage and they listed the lowest by-election turnouts since the war. No surprise to see a bunch of turnouts from the late 90s/early 00s, but surprised to see the third lowest was Shoreditch & Finsbury in 1958 at 24.9%. Don't often hear about low turnouts in the 50s - can anyone explain what it was so low that time?
|
|
|
Post by michael2019 on Jul 2, 2021 1:34:41 GMT
Was just watching the Sky News by-election coverage and they listed the lowest by-election turnouts since the war. No surprise to see a bunch of turnouts from the late 90s/early 00s, but surprised to see the third lowest was Shoreditch & Finsbury in 1958 at 24.9%. Don't often hear about low turnouts in the 50s - can anyone explain what it was so low that time? Well I can't say I exactly remember it! But it does seem from Wikipedia to be a place where they weighed the votes for Labour and only two candidates !!!! And it was held in November before you could get postal votes more easily - so I guess hardly something to get people motivated to turn out on a winter day.... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Shoreditch_and_Finsbury_by-election
|
|
cj
Socialist
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Posts: 3,282
|
Post by cj on Jul 2, 2021 2:11:27 GMT
Was just watching the Sky News by-election coverage and they listed the lowest by-election turnouts since the war. No surprise to see a bunch of turnouts from the late 90s/early 00s, but surprised to see the third lowest was Shoreditch & Finsbury in 1958 at 24.9%. Don't often hear about low turnouts in the 50s - can anyone explain what it was so low that time? It's possible the electoral register was in a poor state in that place and time, with the names of lots of people who no longer lived there. Other possibilities: the by-election was on 27th November so perhaps the weather was very bad, or there may have been one of those infamous London smogs. Funny enough smog was my first thought, but a quick internet look-see didn't mention anything. Apparently 1958 had a noticeably wet summer and some heavy storms in September but I couldn't find anything else.
|
|
|
Post by John Chanin on Jul 2, 2021 7:50:50 GMT
Was just watching the Sky News by-election coverage and they listed the lowest by-election turnouts since the war. No surprise to see a bunch of turnouts from the late 90s/early 00s, but surprised to see the third lowest was Shoreditch & Finsbury in 1958 at 24.9%. Don't often hear about low turnouts in the 50s - can anyone explain what it was so low that time? It's possible the electoral register was in a poor state in that place and time, with the names of lots of people who no longer lived there.Other possibilities: the by-election was on 27th November so perhaps the weather was very bad, or there may have been one of those infamous London smogs. This was the time when slum clearance was in full swing in places like this. This is therefore likely to be a significant part of the answer.
|
|
|
Post by nw12398 on Jul 2, 2021 8:24:34 GMT
Wikipedia doesn't seem to help in answering that one - the 1959 (i.e. the general election after that by-election) turnout suggests that the population approximately doubled between 1955 and 1959, and then went back to 1955 levels for 1964!
|
|
ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,031
Member is Online
|
Post by ilerda on Jul 2, 2021 8:25:53 GMT
Wikipedia says otherwise - indeed claims the 1918-97 version contained the whole county except for the "Llanelli area". Wikipedia is a very unreliable source for these kind of things. These were the boundaries 1955-74 and I don't think they changed in 1974 Where did you get this map from? I see it's Vision of Britain but when I go on there I can only ever find maps for a few random individual counties.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 2, 2021 8:31:52 GMT
|
|