Ashford
2010 Results:
Conservative: 29878 (54.14%)
Labour: 9204 (16.68%)
Liberal Democrat: 12581 (22.8%)
UKIP: 2508 (4.54%)
Green: 1014 (1.84%)
Majority: 17297 (31.34%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 24716 (50.5%)
Labour: 13046 (26.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 7854 (16.1%)
Other: 3288 (6.7%)
Majority: 11670 (23.9%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 26651 (51.6%)
Labour: 13353 (25.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 8308 (16.1%)
Green: 1753 (3.4%)
UKIP: 1620 (3.1%)
Majority: 13298 (25.7%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 22739 (47.4%)
Labour: 15380 (32.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 7236 (15.1%)
UKIP: 1229 (2.6%)
Green: 1353 (2.8%)
Majority: 7359 (15.4%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 22899 (41.4%)
Labour: 17544 (31.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 10901 (19.7%)
Referendum: 3201 (5.8%)
Other: 749 (1.4%)
Majority: 5355 (9.7%)
Boundary changes: as the largest seat in Kent there was pressure to reduce the size of Ashford, with provisional proposals to remove three wards. Eventually just one ward, Saxon Shore, was moved to
Profile: Ashford is a large and rapidly growing Kentish town. Originally a market town, in the nineteenth century it became a railway hub and the site of the South Eastern Railway Company`s Railway works. The railway industry has remained important to the town since then – while the railworks finally closed in 1981, the town is now part of the High Speed Rail link to the Channel tunnel and the site of Ashford International Station.
The seat consists of the town of Ashford itself, the town of Tenterden and the small villages surrounding them. While there are areas of Labour strength around Ashford itself, the seat is reliably Conservative. For 24 years it was represented by the veteran journalist Bill Deedes.
Current MP: Damian Green(Conservative) born 1956, Barry. Educated at Reading School and Balliol College, Oxford. Married with 2 daughters. Former journalist and TV presenter prior to working in the Number 10 policy unit under John Major. Contested Brent East in 1992 before being elected to Ashford in 1997.Green is a leading figure on the left of the Conservative party, Chairman of Parliamentary Mainstream, and a Vice-President of the Tory Reform Group. Green served as shadow secretary of state for education under Iain Duncan Smith, but was demoted and resigned under Michael Howard. He was a surprising early backer of David Davis in the 2005 leadership contest and was appointed shadow minister for immigration by David Cameron (more information at They work for you)
Damian Green(Conservative) born 1956, Barry. Educated at Reading School and Balliol College, Oxford. Married with 2 daughters. Former journalist and TV presenter prior to working in the Number 10 policy unit under John Major. Contested Brent East in 1992 before being elected to Ashford in 1997.Green is a leading figure on the left of the Conservative party, Chairman of Parliamentary Mainstream, and a Vice-President of the Tory Reform Group. Green served as shadow secretary of state for education under Iain Duncan Smith, but was demoted and resigned under Michael Howard. He was a surprising early backer of David Davis in the 2005 leadership contest and was appointed shadow minister for immigration by David Cameron (more information at They work for you)
Chris Clark (Labour) Born Maidstone. Educated at Maidstone Grammar and Kings College London. Works in the rail industry.
Chris Took (Liberal Democrat) born 1980, south Wales. Educated at University of Kent. Telesales supervisor. Canterbury councillor from 2003-2007. Contested Ashford in 2005.
Steve Campkin (Green) Born 1977, Ashford. Line runner.
Jeffrey Elenor (UKIP)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 97749
Male: 48.6%
Female: 51.4%
Under 18: 23.8%
Over 60: 21.1%
Born outside UK: 5.6%
White: 97.5%
Black: 0.5%
Asian: 0.7%
Mixed: 0.9%
Other: 0.4%
Christian: 76.4%
Muslim: 0.6%
Full time students: 2.6%
Graduates 16-74: 16.8%
No Qualifications 16-74: 27.6%
Owner-Occupied: 74.1%
Social Housing: 16.2% (Council: 13.1%, Housing Ass.: 3.1%)
Privately Rented: 6.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 4.5%
Personally I think the future of Kent and Sussex as transport hubs will be through improvement and expansion of High-Speed Rail – the area is already connected to the Channel Tunnel and hopefully before long to Heathrow – rather than by expansion of the airport at Lydd…
…which, incidentally, is not in this constituency but in Folkestone & Hythe.
I think that highspeed railway stations such as Ashford International should be considered all over the country. Obviously this would be very expensive, however some projects would make more sense than others. Cross-rail is a good example. I live on the Sussex borders and have used the service from Ashford to visit family in Belgium since 2002. Then in 2007 the service was reduced, but locals and others in Kent have persued Eurostar and early this year the service was returned. I was surprised that the Channel Tunnel rail services were returned to normal.
So why not extend the Crossrail, we decided to spend Billions on all this new train technology, but not an extra £100m or so connecting it all up!!!
The new Ashford seat already had 80,397 voters at the end of 2008, more than 10,000 above the quota used in the last boundary review.
Electoral Calculus currently predicts the following for this seat:-
C 57.86%
Lab 18.34%
LibDem 13.15%
Other 10.65%
Thus this is a one of a number of seats where we may see the Tories romping home, with nobody else getting past 20%. Next door Canterbury is another example.
In this seat there is not even a serious contest for second place between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Labour has put up a candidate with railway connections, in a seat which still has railway workshops (indeed there is an extra one for the domestic high-speed trains), and I would anticipate this will keep together their core vote.
In fact, as Labour and the LibDems appear to be a “busted flush” here, the real opposition may well be from the Greens, and perhaps UKIP. These two parties were running alongside, even above, the “two Ls” in the European election last year. Traditionally, we have seen voter from such parties revert to to the three main parties come the General Election, but there now seems to be more potential for the Greens and UKIP to make progress in seats like this than for Labour and the LibDems to do so.
But I wonder how many voters will appreciate this.
Incidentally, the Green candidate is described as a “Line Runner”. I’m ignorant: what do line runners do?
I think Damien Green will get extra votes because there is lasting sympathy for the way he was treated by the police.
I wonder whether privatisation of the High Speed Line will be an issue here. It surpirses me that there is not more comment that Labour, with their Scottish Prime Minister and Scottish Chancellor, is picking on Kent by proposing to sell off the Dartford Crossing – on which Kentish people (other than those living in Dartford) have to pay tolls – as well as HST1 when the Scots cross bridges free and are getting public money for a replacement Forth Bridge.
Also, the domestic services to St. Pancras are limited to ten per hour in peak times by Government fiat, and many of these paths are used for services to North Kent or even just to Ebbsfleet, where they only justify a fraction of the investment in HST1. It is clear that the major success of HST1 is commuter traffic to Ashford, and two peak hour services an hour is not going to be anything like sufficient. I think that any good parliamentary candidate here would be using the opportunity of the General Election to secure a shuttle service every fifteen minutes from St. Pancras to Ashford, just as th rilway company has used the opportunity of reduced services between Charing Cross and Ashford to introduce a 15 minute shuttle service between London and Tunbridge Wells. 15 minutes is a crucially important frequency, because it means passengers can just turn up and not worry about the timetable.
P.S. Giving the railway company two extra timetable paths an hour wouldn’t cost the Government anything, although the company might need to invest in extra trains and might need to be enabled to do so.
Vote share 2009 CC elections
Con 55% LibDem 23% Lab 11% Green 10% UKIP 1%
Easy Conservative hold Labour probably just 2nd over LibDems Greens may save their deposit .
Mark, how many seats did UKIP contest? 1% seems a low vote share.
“Also, the domestic services to St. Pancras are limited to ten per hour in peak times by Government fiat, and many of these paths are used for services to North Kent or even just to Ebbsfleet, where they only justify a fraction of the investment in HST1. It is clear that the major success of HST1 is commuter traffic to Ashford, and two peak hour services an hour is not going to be anything like sufficient. I think that any good parliamentary candidate here would be using the opportunity of the General Election to secure a shuttle service every fifteen minutes from St. Pancras to Ashford, just as th rilway company has used the opportunity of reduced services between Charing Cross and Ashford to introduce a 15 minute shuttle service between London and Tunbridge Wells. 15 minutes is a crucially important frequency, because it means passengers can just turn up and not worry about the timetable”
Errrrrrrr………………….
Thanks, Mark.
I think people should also look at the European election results, on the same day as the County Council ones, in seats such as this. Specifically, there is potentially a considerable UKIP vote here, not reflected in the council voting. Also, the Greens did well in the Euroelections.
The Greens should be disappointed if they do onto save their deposit, although a 10% county council election share does not suggest that this is a seat in which they are going to make a spectacular break through.
It will be interesting to see how the Greens treat the railway issue in this seat in relation to environmental concerns, whilst the Labour candidate will presumably point to his employment links with this issue, which is traditionally significant here.
Cogload, it is possible to be an “anorak” about railway timetables as well as election results! But hopefully “anoraks” can sometimes point out things that will make people’s lives better in relation to a specific topic.
“it is possible to be an “anorak” about railway timetables as well as election results!”
But surely for one person to be both is a bit much!
Actually no it isn’t.
I’ve done work in the transport sector at various times, and I think you have someone here who is exactly that.
I’m quite an aspiring anorak on the subject of the London Underground but not really on normal train services.
I thinkt here are quite alot of trainspotters on this site judging by the turn a number of threads have taken (trains arent my thing, but i’m all in favour of drifting off topic)
Hi Frederic,
I run lines. Is the short answer.
In a factory you have ‘lines’, worked on by ‘line-workers’, and the person in charge of keeping the line running is the ‘Line-Runner’. It’s factory jargon, basically. You get the components at one end and a pallet full of finished products at the other. Bored yet? It’s slightly more interesting than trains.
Cons Hold= 15,000 maj
CON 16,500
C hold maj 18000
Con Hold
Maj 16200
Steven, a belated comment. I think trains are interesting, so if your job is more interesting you are lucky. Perhaps you would find being an MP more interesting still if the voters give you the chance.
As many contributors on this site know I have contributed posts frequently. Unfortunately, I will be more or less signing off now until the election. I have got a doubtless boring call centre type job in this seat ginging people up for the opinion polls until the election. No psephological knowledge required. I would rather go on commenting, but I need the money even it is only just above the minum wage!
As I have two degrees in psychology, one with 1st. Class Honours, this is an instance of the underemployment, as well as unemployement, which so many people are currently suffering and which colours so many of the situations on which we comment on this site.
P.S.It has come to my attention , in relation to an letter of mine published in “Kent on Saturday”/”Kent on Sunday”, that this seat was won by the Liberals in1929 on an anti-tithes campaign, and held by them until 1931. I think that this is the last time the Liberals held a seat in what is now Kent (Orpingtom now being greater London). One for the anoraks?!
That is definitely correct Frederic.
Don’t sign off mate! We enjoy your contributions here.
Con maj 17,000
Damian Green is a well respected local MP and well thought of in the Ashford are. Conservative to hold with a bigger majority. The fact that he has done much to raise concerns about Labour’s increasing grasp of the big brother state in all avenues of our lives from home snoopers to dog poopers well says it all really means this is safe tory territory.
Ashford is a growth town, formerly a railway town, that has quadrupled in size and is now twice the size of Canterbury. Increasingly seen as a good commuter town thanks to HS1 it will remain tory
I’d vote for anyone who made the trains run on time!
Vote Benito Mussolini, David!
Thanks, Barnaby.
The Editor of KoS kindly published a correction letter from me because I had originally written that Sevenloaks was the last seat in Kent to be Liberal. I hope he will forgive me as I know Editors hate corrections! To be honest, I thought Ashford, in the 1920s, was so unlikely a seat to go Liberal that I didn’t check.
After 8 hours work I’m simply not going to want to comment much until after the election. In any case, there are so many people commenting that my points won’t have as much impact as they did before the election.
I think that after the election there are going to be many new issues to raise, and depending on what I’m up to I’ll be able to start afresh. Actually, I think there is going to be a need for people to start doing things who have not been greatly involved in political campaigning during this election.
Con maj 13800
CON HOLD
A strong result for Damian Green – in fact the percentage majority is slightly bigger than in the 1992 notionals (the numeric majority is about 60 votes smaller).
The Tory share of the vote is less than half a percent below what it was in the ’92 notionals.
Damian Green is now Immigration Minister.
When you say the ’1992 notionals’, do you mean the notional result in 1992 had the seat been fought on these boundaries? If so i would have thought that the numerical majority is also higher since the actual majority was 17,359 but about 4,000 voters were removed to Folkestone & Hythe for this election which would have accounted for a few hundred of the Conservative majority then.
Sorry Pete, I’m not clever, knowledgeable or motivated enough to work out the notional ’92 results on the 2010 boundaries…
I’m simply referring to the official ’92 notionals on the 1997 boundaries (so I’m comparing the projected 17,359 majority directly with the 17,297 majority).
I accept that this is not in fact fully comparable – and should have said so in my above post.
There were no boundary changes in 1997 – this constituency was coterminous with the local authority of the same name from 1974 until 2010, so no need to talk of notional results on the 1997 boundaries. the ‘projected’ majority you refer to was the actual majority in 1992.
I havent worked out any detailed notional result on the 2010 boundaries, but the Saxon Shore ward which was moved to F&H contans as I say about 4000 voters and is strongly Tory so it is a reasonable assumption that the Conservative lead there would have been greater than 64 (and therefore the notional majority lower than 17,297)
It would be interesting to know how many seats today have precisely the same boundaries as they had during the period (a) 1983-97, (b) 1974-83, (c) 1970.
(Obviously the island seats like Orkney&Shetland, Western Isles, Yns Mon and Isle of Wight would fall into these categories).
There must be very few now because ward boundary changes in London and the Metroplitan boroughs have resulted in minor changes even in seats which appear to be effectively the same (eg the seats in Merton and Sutton in London and Sutton Coldfield). I think thererfore you can rule out any seats in those areas with the exception of Southport which I think has had unchanged boundaries going back to the 1950s or earlier.
Other than that you would need to look at seats which are coterminous with a local authority, as this one was, but as these were all reorganised in the early 70s its unlikely you would go further back than that. Pendle is one seat which since 1983 has been cotermonous with the local authority and Burnley is another. Blyth Valley also. But these only go back to 1983.
Now I think of it Grimsby has had the same boundaries since I think 1950
“There were no boundary changes in 1997…”
Ah, so all I had to say was
“…the percentage majority is slightly bigger than in 1992 (the numeric majority is about 60 votes smaller).”
Of course that still ignores the effect of the 2010 boundary changes.
The 2010 boundary changes were not great. Demographic changes in the constituency generally, from the considerable amount of house building and increased commuting to London, are arguably a greater consideration than the boundary change when comparing the 2010 result with that from previous elections.
With regard to John D’s comment immediately after the election, the result was not particularly strong for the Conservatives by Kent standards. And in common with neighbouring Canterbury, though not to the same extent. the LibDems did well (presumably they would fall back if results at a future election were in line with current opinion polls). In quite a few seats in the South East the parties’ relative standings has gone back not just to 1992 levels but those of the 1980s, reflecting increasing geographical polarisation in party supprt.
The local paper reports that there is going to be a full slate of Independent candidates at the May elections here, campaigning against housing developments and mainly targetting the Tories.
While I am here, can I comment that whilst other East Kent MPs, Julian Brazier and Charlie Elphicke, have joined Thanet South MP Laura Sandys in addressing the Pfizer closure at Sandwich, Damien Green of course cannot campaign overtly in the same way as he is a minister.
Ashford has its own economic troubles. The Channel Tunnel has not perhaps brought as much business as hoped, not least because Eurostar are loath to stop London to Paris trains here. In addition, there have recently been further workshops closures in a town which was practically created for its railway works. And there is an ongoing situation that Ashford has a huge office block, Charter House, dominating the town which is almost empty. It was built for an insurance company which specialised in mining insurance and which therefore dwindled almost to nothing as the coal industry collapse. Ashofrd also lacks research and university facilities not least becuase Imperial College closed itse site at Wye.
I have just posted on the Thanet South thread about government intiatives to address the Pfizer closure and also about difficultites that arise because economic development policies target differences between regions, whilst differences within regions are increasingly the problem.
Ashford risks getting left behind if government initiatives to address the Pfizer closure are too tightly focusses on Sandwich and Thanet, whilst Ashford’s own recent difficulties are overlooked. This could result in a differential result at the next election, wioth the Conservatives doing less well in Ashford than in Thanet and Dover,
One final, slightly separate point, I have also pointed out on the Thanet thread that the Tory idea of bringing British time into line with that on the continent would be bad for East Kent. For Ashford in particular, having our time behind that on the continent is attractive for French and Belgian day shoppers, because it makes them feel that get here nice and early (people don’t mind as much getting home late!). Day trippers are not interested in long daylight evenings, as they are travelling home by then. The same applies to business people coming over for the day. Double Summer Time was introduced by the Tories in the 1970s, and proved so unpopular it was abolished. It will be even more a political own goal now.
There has recently been considerable discussion on the Sittingbourne and Sheerness thread about high-speed rail transport. There have also been posts on this thread, by myself and others, in the past about rail transport.
But how much electoral impact do changes to rail services actually have? Ashford has been badly affected by rail transport changes just recently. There have been cuts in railway engineering jobs here, now a vestige of what they were in a town which would hardly exist if it ws not for nineteenth century rail works. And in addition, as has previously been pointed out, the Eurostar service here has been desperately cut back. But frankly. these disasters, from a community point of view, seem to have little political effect.
Perhaps the positive change of a “local” service linking East Kent with Calais and Lille, would have more effect. It should certainly be of more eocnomic benefit.
I have a nasty feeling that, over much of England, there are so few opportunities for real political input that people just don’t think it will do any good to exert pressure through democratic structures on tehing like transport policy. Which could in the longer term have worrying implications.
The major political impact of faster train services here plus European connections may actually be to bring in more overseas residents, mainly from Europe, who do not vote in Westminster elections. Whilst on the one hand there are large housing developments,one thing that does generate controversy, on the other had more houses are occupied by non-voters. We have seen in parts of London how when boundary changes come some seats have surprisingly low electorates for these reasons. This has not happened here yet, but it might.
But I suspect my own answer to my question about the political impact of improved rail services may be “not much”.
Perhaps a correction of my previous post.
The “Kentish Express” has highlighted the effects of train fare increases in the last couple of issues (including publication of a letter from me – thank you, Editor). This does appear to be a major concern in Ashford.
But as another letter to the “Express”, by Adma Colton, said today: -
“The people of Ashford and Shepway voted for cuts to rail funding when they ticked Conservative.”
The question is how many years of inflation plus three per cent (doubtless for Ashford plus extra each year because civil servants will think they can milk HST1) it will take before train fares do become a vote shifting issue, as opposed to one which just makes Conservative voters grumble. In terms of electoral statistics any such shift will perhaps be seen in retrospect as describable numerically, if at all, in terms of mathematical catastrophe theory. The trouble is that we do not have statistical means of predicting in advance where there might be a numerical cliff for Tory votes to fall over.
In general, not just for this seat, we need to think more about statistically catastrophic changes in political views, not least because it has relevance to understanding the events in England earlier this month.
There is a by-election today in the Beaver ward which is Labour held:
htttp://www.ashford.gov.uk/pdf/Beaver_(Ashford).pdf
and Labour will probably be reasonably pleased with the result. The LDs’ return to the fray has hurt the Tories more than Labour.
Lab 336 (37.5; -1.2)
Con 249 (27.8; -8.6)
LD 173 (19.3; +19.3)
Ashford Independent 111 (12.4; -12.4)
Green 26 (2.9; +2.9)
Majority 87
Turnout 20.5%
Lab hold
Percentage change is since May 2011.
Well done to Labour here. It’s a strong result. Well done to the LD’s as well.