Sheffield, Hallam
2015 Result:
Conservative: 7544 (13.7%)
Labour: 19862 (36%)
Lib Dem: 22215 (40.2%)
Green: 1772 (3.2%)
UKIP: 3575 (6.5%)
Independent: 97 (0.2%)
Others: 167 (0.3%)
MAJORITY: 2353 (4.3%)
Category: Marginal Liberal Democrat seat
Geography: Yorkshire and the Humber, South Yorkshire. Part of the Sheffield council area.
Main population centres: Sheffield, High and Low Bradfield, Dungworth, Worrall.
Profile: A largely rural seat covering the south-west corner of Sheffield. This is an affluent and wealthy seat, one of the richest outside of the south-east and one of the best educated in the country. The western part of the seat is within the Peak District and is largely desolate moorland, stretching up into the pennines. Below that are small villages like like High and Low Bradfield, Dungworth, Worrall and Ringinglow. The seat then covers the westernmost fringes of Sheffield itself, some of the richest and most affluent suburbs of the city like Ecclesall and the more Conservative Totley and Dore.
Politics: A wealthy, middle-class and mostly owner-occupied seat this was a safe Conservative seat between the first world war and the 1990s. However it fell to the Liberal Democrats` Richard Allen in the anti-Conservative landslide of 1997 and he successfully passed it onto the future Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg in 2005. In 2015 some polls suggested that Clegg could lose his seat to Labour, but ultimately he held on.
| Con: | 12040 (24%) |
| Lab: | 8228 (16%) |
| LDem: | 27324 (53%) |
| UKIP: | 1195 (2%) |
| Oth: | 2348 (5%) |
| MAJ: | 15284 (30%) |
| Con: | 12028 (30%) |
| Lab: | 5110 (13%) |
| LDem: | 20710 (51%) |
| GRN: | 1331 (3%) |
| Oth: | 1248 (3%) |
| MAJ: | 8682 (21%) |
| Con: | 11856 (31%) |
| Lab: | 4758 (12%) |
| LDem: | 21203 (55%) |
| UKIP: | 429 (1%) |
| MAJ: | 9347 (24%) |
| Con: | 15074 (33%) |
| Lab: | 6147 (14%) |
| LDem: | 23345 (51%) |
| Oth: | 125 (0%) |
| MAJ: | 8271 (18%) |
*There were boundary changes after 2005
PS in the 1988 leadership contest, Beith was the centrist candidate and Ashdown campaigned from the centre left. Ditto Steel who was well to the left of the SDP and David Owen in particular.
Right. Forgive me but I remember Paddy being rather pompous in tone, kind of what you would expect from an ex military, centre right Tory MP in the shires. Not necessarily a bad thing, overall.
Talking about this seat- Labour have started the process of selecting their candidate for the next election. It will be an all women shortlist.
Also, Ashdown ran for the leadership with a very Left-wing pitch, arguing the Lib Dems should seek to replace Labour as the official opposition to the Conservatives
Whilst I’ll concede that Ashdown did come across as a kind of shire Tory and as leader he was fairly centrist – he opposed the reintroduction of the minimum wage in the 92 manifesto (scarcely seems believable now) – but the Parliamentary party was considerably more social democratic back then and prior to the Lid Dem breakthrough in 97 you just didn’t get centre right Lib Dem MPs like David Laws, Jeremy Browne and Danny Alexander
Aside from supporting the bedroom tax (a really nasty right wing policy) and going along with the hike in tuition fees which went against everything they had said, I thought the Lib Dems played their expected role as moderators to the Tories fairly well and deserved better than the drubbing they always looked likely to receive the moment they established the coalition government
Tbf David Owen wanted to replace Labour on the left