On its creation in 1918 this constituency was defined as: ‘The rural districts of Chard, Langport, and Yeovil, the municipal boroughs of Chard and Yeovil, and the urban districts of Crewkerne and Ilminster.’

I’m not sure.
The Somerset results are interesting, but a little hard to compare because of boundary changes.

UKIP took an LD seat in Yeovil.
It looks like the County is diverging somewhat away from lots of marginal divisions and wards (although there continue to be many) towards
centres of fairly serious Tory weakness in the mini metropolises of Yeovil/Frome/Taunton
(although no doubt partly disguised by poor turnout/anti Government vote/UKIP)

and relatively good results in the countryside for C.

Whether this means they can win back some Parliamentary seats in the County that failed to happen in 2010 remains to be seen – I suspect it’ll be a tight battle in all of them as before (except here).

UKIP took Yeovil Central from the LDs by 17 votes.

Ah, the Land Of Ashdown…

Not particularly surprised that UKIP have done well here though- There has always been the potential for a high Eurosceptic vote in this part of Somerset- The Referendum Party did very well here in the parliamentary seat in 1997.

I am very relieved about Somerset.
UKIP inroads made it tough in some of the resilient Lib Dem /C marginals but we did it.
It appears to have done some damage to C, some to the LDs in different seats though.

Funny that at parliamentary level Somerset is split in terms of Conservative and Lib Dem MPs.

The Lib Dems seem for a long time to have dominated in the South at general elections whereas the Tories have been much more resilient in the Western parts and until recently North i.e. Wells.

At a local level it’s clearly a different story nowadays though.

Wikipedia has the totals, although they’ve included both votes for the two-member division in Glastonbury & Street:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_County_Council_election,_2013

Votes (including only the top candidates in Glastonbury & Street):

Con: 49,516
LD: 36,743
UKIP: 28,026
Lab: 16,993
Green: 5,648
Ind: 4,333
ED: 42

Total: 141,301

Percentages:

Con: 35.04%
LD: 26.00%
UKIP: 19.83%
Lab: 12.03%
Green: 4.00%
Ind: 3.07%
ED: 0.03%

A significant part of the Lib Dem vote in the SW counties has always been a generalised ‘anti-establishment’ (or less charitably, anti-everything) vote – which explains the apparent paradox of votes shifting between Lib Dem and UKIP.

How these votes shift at the next GE will be intriguing to watch – I personally think the Lib Dems will really struggle to get them back.

I would agree about Yeovil I think – the Lib Dems are still solid favourites there at next GE given the starting position and their local organisation. But the UKIP wins in Chard and Yeovil central and their strong performances elsewhere should make them wary I think.

UKIP is a threat to the Tories for obvious reasons.

But given much of the erstwhile LD vote is not a positive vote for LD policies, and can shift to UKIP,
whereas anti Government swing votes Labour should have taken are also now in the UKIP column, at least for the moment,
must make both those parties somewhat uneasy aswell.

The LDs will be hard to shift in Yeovil
but it is just possible.

Hamilton (UKIP) 17,933
* Laws (LD) 17,877
Cash (C) 16,611
Butler (Lab) 7,192
Deadwood (Grn) 1,997
McGuinness (SF) 56

UKIP gain from LD
UKIP majority 56

Dawn Butler? lol

Votes cast in local elections in Yeovil constituency:

LD: 10,654 (34.99%)
Con: 8,496 (27.90%)
UKIP: 7,818 (25.67%)
Lab: 2,262 (7.43%)
Green: 1,182 (3.88%)
Others: 42 (0.14%)

I think the Lib Dems will lose Bristol West before they lose Devon North, Cornwall North or Torbay.

Maybe Bristol West will end up as a Labour seat with the Tories gradually chipping away at the more affluent – sometimes very affluent – bits.
For the moment though, the LD majority may be enough for them to survive in 2015.

But the whole thing could be altered by boundary changes. If the Clifton area gets put in Bristol NW, maybe they’ll actually get a safe seat one day.

I can’t see the LDs losing Thornbury & Yate.

Marcus Fysh selected for the Conservatives by open primary:

https://twitter.com/SomersetMatters/status/362312936275976194

Just thought I would quickly give mention to the incredible result that first got Ashdown to Westminster in 1983- He took nearly all of the above the national average collapse in the Labour vote, and went up by 20%. The unsuccessful Tory candidate was one David Martin, whose vote only dropped by 3.9%.

Precise changes in 1983:

Alliance: +19.94%
Con: -3.84%
Lab: -16.10%

A big swing then, though what the Alliance should really have expected in a lot of seats given the favourable national circumstances for them.

If the Tory vote had stayed the same in 1983 Ashdown’s majority would have been about 1,400 votes.

Funnily enough in the elections that followed Ashdown’s vote share stayed rather still, and in 1997 when he got his biggest ever majority is vote actually fell both in numerical and percentage terms.

‘The unsuccessful Tory candidate was one David Martin’ Would that be the same David Martin who defeated Mike Hancock four years later to start a 10-year spell as MP for Portsmouth South?

Yes Harry that is correct.

Has Chard always been in this seat (since 1918)?

Yes and since 1885 really as South Somerset was to all intents and purposes the same seat

Paddy Ashdown’s electoral record in Yeovil-
1. 1979- 19, 939 (30.5%, +1.5%)
2. 1983- 26, 608 (50.5%, +20.0%, 3, 406 (6.3%) majority)
3. 1987- 28, 841 (51.4%, +0.9%, 5, 700 (10.1%) majority)
4. 1992- 30, 958 (51.7%, +0.3%, 8, 833 (14.7%) majority)
5. 1997- 26, 349 (48.7%, -3.0%, 11, 403 (21.0%) majority)

Liberal/Liberal Democrat results in Yeovil since the Second World War before Paddy Ashdown-
1. James D Bateman (1945, 11, 057, 24.84%, -8.28%)
2. L MacLaren (1950, 8, 990, 18.10%, -6.74%)
3. M.L. Winsor (1951, 6, 118, 12.09%, -6.01%)
4. Col. Geoffrey F. Taylor (1955, 6, 089, 12.19%, +0.1%)
5. Col. Geoffrey F. Taylor (1959, 9, 484, 18.64%, +6.45%)
6. Col. Geoffrey F. Taylor (1964, 12, 426, 24.12%, +5.48%)
7. D.E. Evans (1966, 9, 248, 17.62%, -6.5%)
8. D.E. Evans (1970, 7, 418, 13.31%, -4.31%)
9. Col. Geoffrey F. Taylor (February 1974, 18, 465, 29.54%, +16.23%)
10. Col. Geoffrey F. Taylor (October 1974, 17, 298, 29.0%, -0.54%)

Three video links containing the declarations of Paddy Ashdown’s results in Yeovil from 1987 to 1997-

1. 1987- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCzAwj6S6wM (Starts at 8:37 minutes in)
2. 1992- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwtTHsn_GBQ (Starts at 9:11 minutes in)
3. 1997- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFwlLYpD2_w (Starts at 6:17 minutes in)

2015 forecast for Yeovil

LD 40%
Con 34%
UKIP 12%
Lab 11%
Others 3%

That much of a fall in Laws’s vote? 16%?

Maybe if it had been in the immediate aftermath of his abrupt resignation but I suspect that will be a distant memory by 2015 and that he’ll win by a much more comfortable margin than 6%

@John D – it is extremely plausible/likely that David Laws will proportionately lose approximately 28.5% of his 2010 vote.

Very strange that you have predicted ukip doing worse here than in surrey sw.

LD 44
Con 31
Ukip 14
Lab 11

My prediction here would be-
Lib Dem- 48%
Conservative- 30%
UKIP- 10%
Labour- 9%
Others- 3%

I think Laws’ margin of victory will be much narrower here, then what others are suggesting.

I lived and worked in Yeovil for 4 years between 1994-98, I even voted Lib Dem in 97! Despite only 12 months later joining the Conservatives.

I would hazard a guess of:

Lib Dem 43%

Conservative 35%

Labour 11%

UKIP 9%

Oth 2%

Laws to hold on by about 4000 on a slightly higher turnout

Laws remains popular here – I’d say Lib dem majority of about 8,000

LD HOLD
LD 39
CON 28
LAB 14
UKIP 13
GRN 6

UKIP CC councillor goes Ind.. Chard North

http://www.chardandilminsternews.co.uk/news/10995723.Chard_north_county_councillor_leaves_UKIP/?ref=var_0

At worst David Laws’ majority will probably fall to 2005 levels. Yeovil is the party’s most reliable seat in Somerset. A UKIP surge might eat into some LD vote but no where near enough to cause damage.

In Wells they’re toast, Somerton and Frome is at risk and Taunton Deane seems like a hold.

Will there be a halo effect here because of the Somserset Levels flooding issue? And how much of the vote will UKIP get?

I suspect that Neil is right, the LibDems will hang on. But it may be a tight squeeze for them.

I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t be pleased to see Laws lose, not least because he seems to be one of the more right-wing LibDem MPs who as a Treasury minister could have done more to move the Coalition to the left, if he had wished. But my comment above has tried to uphold this site’s political neutrality.

County Cllr Nigel Pearson has defected to Ind from UKIP here. He represents Chard North.

the usual internecine squabbles

Even in their worst hour the lib dem very rarely falls below 5%, as it is an area really that seems to well off for a labour vote yet not quite posh enough for the tories,

prediction for 2015-

Lib- 47%
con- 28%
UKIP- 13%
lab- 11%
BNP- 1%

I struggle to see labour in third as the results has predicted. The only time labour gets very near 15% here is years when they win by landslides.

There won’t be anyone winning 2015 by a landslide like both Tories and socialists have hoped.

Otherwise a clear liberal hold.

I now think that the Lib Dems will only win up to 6 or 7 seats in the South West next year. In fact, I only see 4 seats that are strongly leaning Lib Dem in the South West at the minute,

I can see them holding:

Bath
Cheltenham
Thornbury and Yate
Yeovil

And 2 or 3 out of:

Bristol West
North Cornwall
North Devon
St Ives
Torbay

I think the LDs will hold all those, plus St Austell.
I also wouldn’t give up on Taunton, despite Browne’s standing down

I disagree with both of you. I do think that the LDs will hold all the seats listed by 111, but incline slightly towards a Conservative gain in St Austell. And I think Browne’s retirement ends any serious LD hope of hanging on. Remember, he was already 4% behind in the polls, and this will inevitably make it worse; Browne had the benefit of first-time incumbency in 2010, and his departure will therefore hit the defending party a fraction more than otherwise.

Yes can’t argue with any of that Barnaby. Browne’s departure will also mean the Lib Dems lose the seat as well as him at Taunton Deane now, unless the new Lib Dem candidate can hold on to enough of the vote share to narrowly cling on. I’ve just posted an early prediction over there for May BTW.