Barrow and Furness
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 17505 (45.1%)
Conservative: 12669 (32.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 6907 (17.8%)
Other: 1721 (4.4%)
Majority: 4836 (12.5%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 11323 (31%)
Labour: 17360 (47.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 6130 (16.8%)
UKIP: 758 (2.1%)
Other: 922 (2.5%)
Majority: 6037 (16.5%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 11835 (30.3%)
Labour: 21724 (55.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 4750 (12.2%)
UKIP: 711 (1.8%)
Majority: 9889 (25.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 13133 (27.2%)
Labour: 27630 (57.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 4264 (8.8%)
Referendum: 1208 (2.5%)
Other: 1995 (4.1%)
Majority: 14497 (30.1%)
Boundary changes: gains Brougton and part of the Crake Valley from Westmorland & Lonsdale.
Profile:
Current MP: John Hutton(Labour) born 1955, London. Educated at Westcliffe High School and Oxford University. Former university lecturer. Contested Penrith and the Border 1987, Cumbria and North Lancashire in the European elections 1989. First elected as MP for Barrow and Furness in 1992. Junior minister in the Department of Health 1998-1999, Minister of state for health 1999-2005, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 2005, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 2005-2007. Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise 2007-2008, Secretary of State for Defence 2008-2009. Will stand down at the next election (more information at They work for you)
Candidates: 
John Gough (Conservative) 
Jonathan Woodcock (Labour) Advisor to Gordon Brown, former Special Advisor to John Hutton.
Barry Rabone (Liberal Democrat) born 1947, Croydon. Educated at Falmouth Grammar and Cardiff College of Educatation. Schoolteacher. Contested Barrow and Furness 2005 and 2001.
Chris Loynes (Green)
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 91694
Male: 48.8%
Female: 51.2%
Under 18: 22.8%
Over 60: 23%
Born outside UK: 2.3%
White: 99.2%
Asian: 0.2%
Mixed: 0.3%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 80.8%
Full time students: 1.8%
Graduates 16-74: 15.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 31.1%
Owner-Occupied: 77%
Social Housing: 11.7% (Council: 9.8%, Housing Ass.: 1.9%)
Privately Rented: 8.2%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 23.6%
More unrest at Labour’s selection procedure here;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/11/labour-selection-parachute-candidates-row
The story keeps on running;
http://www.labourhome.org/?p=7875
Jonathan Woodcock has won the Labour selection, by a massive margin:
102 Jonathan Woodcock
22 Mark MacDonald
5 – Saj Malik
3 – Cat Smith
54 votes were cast by post…
I’m slightly confused about how much of swing is needed here for the Tories to win – Electoral Calculus clearly thinks this is a lot more marginal.
Why the difference?
Does anyone know if the Socialist Pople’s Party are standing again?
Ladbrokes:
Conservatives 8/13
Labour 6/5
Liberal Democrats 100/1
Tam – I think EC uses a bizarre set of maths based on a national uniform swing.
There could be two reasons for the difference – one is the projected boundary changes, I’d have to check but they may have the majority lower than here
The second, as Doktorb says, is that EC uses “proportional” national swing, rather than “uniform”, as used here (essentially EC projects that if Labour are on 27% cf 36% last time, they will lose roughly a quarter of their support in every seat – UNS says they’ll fall by 9% in every seat). The proportional model was responsible for Ming’s Lib Dems being projected zero seats on EC when they were polling at 11% as they lost more than half their support across the board
Chris Loynes is Green Party Candidate
Paul – Thanks for that.
So which is more accurate (sorry Anthony)?
EC’s model has a tendency to wildly distort large swings while being not too different from a standard model on small swings. I would trust the standard model–with the caveat that UNS models are always highly fallible.
Anyway, did the People’s Party stand here last time? I don’t think they did. If they stand this time, that could cause serious trouble for Labour, who are already in trouble here to begin with.
I don’t know about EC but I didn’t think the figure above was based on any kind of swing, it’s a calculation of what the result would have been had this seat been fought on these boundaries in 2005.
It’s quite an interesting to look at the wards transferred into the seat. This is a L/C marginal and the Westmoorland is a LD/C marginal. The two wards have lots of C and LD voters and v few L.
It will therefore be interesting to see what the LD supporters do when faced with the new experience of a C/L marginal – I’d have though it would be v difficult to model.
Do many of the Royal Navy sailors, submariners and Marines register to vote here or at home?