I suppose this is “very safe” now
but it didn’t look like it for several years, despite this area’s electoral history.

I can’t quite recall what the 1992 notional was – and there was some disagreement over it – but it looks like the Con vote may be down slightly more than average compared to then.

Labour should of course regain a second position, but not as close as in 1997 to 2005.

1992 notional:

Con: 29,800
LD: 13,843
Lab: 10,981
Others: 62

1997 result:

Con: 21,629
Lab: 20,418
LD: 9,689
Others: 806

Changes:

Con: -13.33%
Lab: +18.78%
LD: -6.87%
Others: +1.42%

Thanks very much Andy.
Well that’s actually not a bad Con result in 2010,
25,000+ compared to 29,800 when they polled over 14 million nationally, given the very minor boundary change in 2010.

I think the Labour third place is somewhat artificial though and there is some underlying change in the area towards them.

Labour almost doubled their vote in 1997. I wonder what happened to James Cran.

This is an interesting seat. The Tory % majority over Labour in 2010 was about three quarters the size of the 1992 majority. As such, I think there has been some drift towards Labour, but not as much as seemed the case in the early 2000s.

Perhaps it’s one of these seats where there is some underlying trend in both directions.
It gets complicated where faded resorts correlate with a white working class tradition.
But that is not all of the seat – some of it will be like the Haltemprice area.

Maybe the much higher Labour vote was a bit of a New Labour vote that is rather related to political factors than long term.

The Tories look like they should hold on with decent majorities barring big demographic shifts.

There was a lot of talk about Labour doing well in the Holderness part of the seat a few years ago but they appear to have fallen back. The Tories probably led Labour by two to one there in 2010, but not on a terribly high share of the vote. I suspect UKIP and the BNP did quite well in those parts.

I agree – Labour did well in Holderness in the 1995 elections.
Looking at 2011, the Tories did even better than 2007, but Labour regained several second places off the Lib Dems.

All of the 1992 notional results are available as part of my 1997 declarations spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dEdJVmVrUGFkeDNQeXNwbHE1MWJNYXc#gid=0

That part used to be in the Bridlington constituency.

James Cran was lazy, hardly ever spoke in parliament, and turned a safe seat into a marginal! Things are better now because Graham Stuart has a high profile, and in fairness to him, works the constituency well.

I think the LD vote will collapse here but it will be a safe Tory seat.

Labour candidate- Margaret Pinder.
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Ex-Beverley-Mayor-Margaret-Pinder-stand-Labour/story-22129249-detail/story.html

Congratulations to Margaret who was an undergraduate at King’s College Cambridge in my year. She is the first Labour mayor of the town of Beverley.

“…faded resorts correlate with a white working class tradition” describes Withernsea quite well. Is it just a tradition that retirees living in seaside towns are more likely to vote Tory? It certainly doesn’t strike you as affluent, maybe it will be good UKIP territory.

Labour would probably have taken this seat in 2001 if it weren’t for the “Yorkshire Factor” with Hague being the leader.

‘Labour would probably have taken this seat in 2001 if it weren’t for the “Yorkshire Factor” with Hague being the leader’

it would have been close given that cran was so lazy his personal vote would have been negligible

Labour only won dorset south from the tories in 2001, with nearly all their other targets shifting further away from them

I wasn’t aware there was evidence that Hague’s Yorkshire roots helped the Tories perform disproportionately well in Yorkshire in 2001

They failed to win back wealthy Harrogate from the Lib Dems and didn’t come close to retaking Selby or Scarborough, two rural seats, the latter being one of Laboir’s unlikeliest gains in 1997

And Richmond had long been one of the Tories strongest seats way before 2001

Tim- the Tories did manage a 2.8% swing in Yorkshire and North Lincs in 2001 compared with 1.8% in Great Britain generally. The Conservative vote share increased by 2.3% points, the joint second highest vote increase of all the regions.

“it would have been close given that cran was so lazy his personal vote would have been negligible” – Cran was still the candidate in 2001 & didn’t retire until 2005. There’s no conditional about it. His poor constituency record was a factor in the Labour surge but I’d submit a minor one.

Article on Mr Stuart. Does not put him in a good light.

http://conservativewoman.co.uk/david-keighley-climate-change-alarmism-another-obsession-unaccountable-elite/

with no doubt the Tories will keep this seat the majority might be smaller.

Trivia to revive this boring seat… Anthony Trollope stood here as the Liberal candidate.. hating being the candidate and lost to the Tories, who he accused of bribing the locals with beer…

Liberal Democrat candidate- Denis Healy. He previously stood in Kingston upon Hull North in 2005 and 2010-
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Lib-Dems-choose-Denis-Healy-Graham-Stuart/story-25813907-detail/story.html

“Trivia to revive this boring seat… Anthony Trollope stood here as the Liberal candidate.. hating being the candidate and lost to the Tories, who he accused of bribing the locals with beer…”

What has become of the once close relationship between the Tories and the beer brewing industry?

Even as late as the 1980s/1990s, this relationship still had a political impact on certain towns and surrounding areas, Burton-on-Trent being one example.

You mention Burton, HH, but in fact William Bass of the great brewing family was a Liberal rather than a Tory. Some notable brewers have been Tory MPs however, such as Harry Mackeson (Hythe) & Sir Richard Wells (Bedford), who represented the seats in which they brewed, and Esmond Bulmer who represented Kidderminster although the great cider brewery which bears his name is in Hereford. Des Turner who was Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown until 2010 is a very rare Labour brewer – he was briefly a partner in the short-lived Martlet brewery of Eastbourne which existed in the late 70s & early 80s.

Green Party Candidate: Richard Howarth
http://yorkshireandhumber.greenparty.org.uk/candidates/richard-howarth.html

Yorkshire First candidate Lee Walton http://www.yorkshirefirst.org.uk/election-candidates/

Conservative Hold. 9,000 majority. Labour 2nd.

Labour doing better than 1992 here.
But the Tories now not far off 1992 either.
The LD vote – respectable in 1992 – has collapsed.

A useless fact is that Beverley was the 11th most populous town in England in 1377 using the number of taxpayers as a guide to the population:

http://www.sporcle.com/games/jharris3791/Medieval_towns

Lots of academics from Hull University and public sector workers live here.

Labour have traditionally been stronger in Beverly Minster and Holderness South.

The 1983 – 1997 Beverley constituency that was based on Haltenprice (West Hull suburbs) and Beverley Minster and Beverley St Mary’s wards (not including Beverley Rural) could actually be a Labour longshot were it still to exist.

South East Holderness Ward By-election Result:

CON – 917
LAB – 806
UKIP – 390
IND – 173
LIB DEM – 98

CON Hold

My girlfriend is from Withernsea. Quite a working class area the main employer seems to be Withernsea High School, serves Hedon, Patrington and Otringham too. It isn’t the first South East Holderness by election in the last five years. Labour came reasonably close last time as well. Labour came close to winning this seat in 1997. Graham Stuart though seems to be a decent enough MP. The Primary Care Trust and now the Clinical Commissioning Group are obsessed with closing down the minor injuries unit. Graham Stuart has been at the forefront of the campaign and sent everyone involved a thank you letter from Parliament

Ex Cllr Arthur Hodgson (he resigned in June 2016) has been charged with 9 historic offences of child sexual abuse.

The local Conservative politician has been charged with sexually assaulting 7 children aged under 14 in the 1970s.

Fuck me

What is it about politicians, local and national, and child abuse

If this were as widespread among the general population as it seems to be among councillors especially, what a debauched country we would live in. Short of murder there are few worse crimes than scarring an innocent child for life IMO

Indeed.

Sadly the police and CPS are merely playing catch up – as most of these prosecutions relate to offences carried out by Cllrs in the ’70s.

I don’t want to think how many current Cllrs are still at it.

“What is it about politicians, local and national, and child abuse”

A lot of sexual abuse is about exerting power over someone else.

Now can you think of a group of people who like to exert power over others ?

There is also the issue that people in power are often protected by other people in power.

Yes, priests/teachers/social workers/Cllrs/etc being ‘trusted’ and ‘getting away with it’ were highlighted in several reports from N Wales and Rotherham to the film Spotlight [which I can recommend if you haven’t seen it yet].

Re nationally and MPs – which still has yet to be revealed and may never fully be – I suspect because it goes on in all Parties, no Party HQ reveals even those they’ve heard about in other Parties. ie both Govt & Opposition Whips had/have their black books.

The Libs/LDs are a special case in that they had so few MPs that all knew about Cyril Smith.

Richard – although as HH has rightly pointed out previously, some of those recently convicted (eg one was an ex RC priest & Tory Assoc dep chair & candidate in Lpool) are mere council candidates or backbench cllrs with no power.

It may just be that local politics attracts a disproportionate amount of egotists and oddballs?

Derek Hatton said he preferred being, “a big fish in a small pond…” when asked why he never sought to be an MP like Terry Fields in the ’80s.

I’ve only attended half a dozen local Counts in 3 council areas in the NW, so it isn’t representative, but there were a fair number of just odd people there. Of course some may just be eccentric or suffer from Asperger’s rather than be secret abusers, but I do wonder if local govt just attracts a disproportionate number of those who couldn’t ‘make it’ in their professions? (if they had one). It isn’t just a recent phenomenon either (recent selections could be blamed on small ward Parties), as most current cllrs were first selected decades ago.

I’ve been to a count every year since 2010 maybe I’m a bit odd. From my experience the odd people in the party don’t tend to go to the count. Though I’ve met a few that do.

I think some people just aren’t that interested. Certainly neither of my parents weren’t interested in anything more than the county council. Perhaps they are a bit odd. Mum did run for member of parliament but that was only because she’d been asked and there wasn’t much likelihood of winning.

I find most people in local politics aren’t interested in the work it requires to be an MP. As a councillor you can get by with case load along with your main disposable income. MP is a full time job which requires more time spent on case work. Plus it might be my own personal views coming through but being an MP takes you away from home and not everyone wants to spend their days and nights in Westminster

I particularly agree with Matt’s last point re some wanting to be councillors but not necessarily MP’s, its a personal ambition of mine to perhaps one day become a local councillor but I’m not really bothered about becoming MP, too many drawbacks, plus I doubt I’d survive the vetting process, even for a Corbynista I’ve said some pretty controversial things that for the record I still stand by.

@Rivers like what have he said? If people who’ve done the things Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbot can become MPs then you have nothing to worry about. Plus at least based on your comments on here you seem fairly measured and reasonable unlike the above three…

Bless you Rivers. You aren’t anywhere near as controversial as you aspire to be lol.

Pepps/Tristan
Perhaps your right but I was almost suspended from uni in my second year cos I tried to start a campaign informing the cities homeless on what I perceived to be the high value of a uni library card, £3.50 for the year for which they get a warm and secure place to sleep since the campus libraries are open 24 hours, semi adequate bathroom and washing facilities, access to free water from the fountains and free fruit which my uni library gave out, computer access for job searches and emails etc not to mention access to the books. The idea was to accept donations to pay for cards or accept valid but not required cards from students who were deferring and such.

Suffice to say it all ended before it really began when my personal tutor found out what I was planning and told me outright that if I proceeded I’d almost certainly be suspended, apparently the university “isn’t a shelter” 🙁

Only Lpool Uni students are allowed in the Sydney Jones Library aren’t they?

Hence the turnstiles and cards, presumably.

ie it’s not even as if it’s open to students of JMU or Hope never mind random non-students.

Yes, it’d be a security nightmare. Some activists had the same idea for derelict office buildings though.

Lancs
Correct but the staff never check, if you have a valid card to scan you get past the turnstiles hence the idea to use still valid but not required cards.

Also as i mentioned, at the yime for £3.50 you could get a year long vistors pass that offered the same accessibikity to members of the public. No idea what such passes cost now though

Time rather

Also “acessability” typing on my phone so…