Eastbourne
2015 Result:
Conservative: 20934 (39.6%)
Labour: 4143 (7.8%)
Lib Dem: 20201 (38.2%)
Green: 1351 (2.6%)
UKIP: 6139 (11.6%)
Independent: 139 (0.3%)
MAJORITY: 733 (1.4%)
Category: Ultra-marginal Conservative seat
Geography: South East, East Sussex. Contains the whole of the Eastbourne council area and one ward from the Wealden council area.
Main population centres: Eastbourne, Willingdon.
Profile: The constituency consists almost entirely of the Victorian seaside town of Eastbourne, and it has all the typical attributes of a southern seaside resort. A reliance on tourism for the economy, bolstered by language courses for overseas students and conferencing, higher unemployment than the southern average and a higher than average proportion of the elderly in the population as people retire to the coast. South of Eastbourne is Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain and a notorious suicide spot.
Politics: Eastbourne has been a Parliamentary constituency since the nineteenth century and for most of that time has been a safe Conservative seat. This changed in 1990 following the by-election caused by the murder of Ian Gow which was won by David Bellotti for the Liberal Democrats. While Bellotti held the seat for only two years, the seat became a closely fought marginal between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and was again held by the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015..
| Con: | 21223 (41%) |
| Lab: | 2497 (5%) |
| LDem: | 24658 (47%) |
| UKIP: | 1305 (3%) |
| Oth: | 2441 (5%) |
| MAJ: | 3435 (7%) |
| Con: | 21033 (43%) |
| Lab: | 5268 (11%) |
| LDem: | 19909 (41%) |
| UKIP: | 1233 (3%) |
| Oth: | 949 (2%) |
| MAJ: | 1124 (2%) |
| Con: | 19738 (44%) |
| Lab: | 5967 (13%) |
| LDem: | 17584 (39%) |
| UKIP: | 907 (2%) |
| Oth: | 574 (1%) |
| MAJ: | 2154 (5%) |
| Con: | 22183 (42%) |
| Lab: | 6576 (12%) |
| LDem: | 20189 (38%) |
| Oth: | 995 (2%) |
| MAJ: | 1994 (4%) |
*There were boundary changes after 2005
I believe much of the film Angus Thongs & Perfect Snogging was filmed in Eastbourne despite being set in Brighton. So i imagine it’s a passable as Brighton to nobody whose ever been there
Stephen Lloyd is a bit of a local media whore. There’s hardly an edition of the south east local news that he doesn’t manage to wangle himself into. A good old fashioned “winning here” Lib Dem. By contrast the Tory MP who briefly replaced him in 2015 quickly became pretty unpopular locally, partly because of some kind of low-level scandal. I think these things largely explain his surprise re-election rather than anything about Eastbourne per se, a town I know quite well. The town does seem to have improved a bit over the past few years, especially since the burnt out pier was repaired.
I generally disdain Lloyd and his pointing-at-potholes approach to being an MP but I really do admire him for the stand he has taken on this – very courageous and will go down well in his constituency.
I was gonna say soubds like typical lib demery