Bexhill and Battle
2010 Results:
Conservative: 28147 (51.56%)
Labour: 6524 (11.95%)
Liberal Democrat: 15267 (27.97%)
BNP: 1950 (3.57%)
Others: 2699 (4.94%)
Majority: 12880 (23.59%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 27110 (53.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 11358 (22.6%)
Labour: 8958 (17.8%)
Other: 2919 (5.8%)
Majority: 15753 (31.3%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 24629 (52.6%)
Labour: 8457 (18.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 11180 (23.9%)
UKIP: 2568 (5.5%)
Majority: 13449 (28.7%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 21555 (48.1%)
Labour: 8702 (19.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 11052 (24.7%)
UKIP: 3474 (7.8%)
Majority: 10503 (23.5%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 23570 (48.1%)
Labour: 8866 (18.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 12470 (25.5%)
Referendum: 3302 (6.7%)
Other: 786 (1.6%)
Majority: 11100 (22.7%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Gregory Barker(Conservative) (more information at They work for you)
Gregory Barker(Conservative) (more information at They work for you)James Royston (Labour) Mary Varrall (Liberal Democrat) born Evesham. Garden designer. Contested Bexhill and Battle in 2005.Neil Jackson (BNP)
Stuart Wheeler (Trust) Born 1935. Educated at Eton and Oxford University. Spread betting millionaire and former donor to the Conservative party. Expelled from the Conservative party in 2009 for backing UKIP.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 94150
Male: 46.8%
Female: 53.2%
Under 18: 19.9%
Over 60: 33%
Born outside UK: 5.8%
White: 98.1%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.5%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.6%
Christian: 77.1%
Muslim: 0.6%
Full time students: 2.3%
Graduates 16-74: 17.9%
No Qualifications 16-74: 27%
Owner-Occupied: 80%
Social Housing: 9.2% (Council: 2.5%, Housing Ass.: 6.7%)
Privately Rented: 7.7%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 6%
I asked Pete W this upthread, and he said Bexhill’s boundary history was:
Rye 1885-1950
Eastbourne 1950-55
Rye 1955-83,
Bexhill and Battle since 1983.
thanks should have scrolled upwards.
As Bexhill is quite a sizable stretch of coast away from Eastbourne, the Eastbourne constituency must have been rather sprawling when Bexhill was part of it
Conservativehome reporting a launch of a new party – Trust Party. Stuart Wheeler (donated £5m to tory party in 2001, recently backed UKIP) will stand against Gregory Barker in this seat. New party to be launched 29 March. Manifesto list on Con Home. Also reported in Today’s Mail on Sunday.
Interesting – that means he will be standing against UKIP as well
Trust is a very important word in politics today, so a party named accordingly may attract support. There must be a suspicion, though, that this yet another gang of Euro-bashers – and there are plenty of those already.
I wouldn’t mind betting that the Conservatives hold this seat comfortably.
I don’t honestly understand what Mr Wheeler thinks he is going to achieve-or is trying to achieve. If he is anti-Conservative at the moment, why doesn’t he just continue to donate to and stand for UKIP?
It seems he’s only fielding three candidates anyway, so he’s obviously not seriously expecting to make a great impact electorally.
But has he not already seen what happened when Sir James Goldsmith did a similar thing in 1997? At least Sir James was after achieving something very clear and he was prepared to invest in the task even though his party came to nought (and he was actually successful in securing a referendum promise on the Euro).
By contrast, Mr Wheeler is talking about very wishy-washy, subjective stuff as ‘trust’, and he isn’t prepared to go the whole hog in fielding many candidates.
Seems to me this is just a pretty cheap vehicle to promote the name of Stuart Wheeler. I also think he will be regarded as a bit of a joke by the Tory Party leadership, and with utter disgust now by UKIP.
Atr the end of the day, his candidature will be devastating for UKIP (who desperately wanted to benefit from his financial support) and irrelevant to the Tories (who will regard UKIP as a much more solid and established threat than a three candidate party formed a few weeks before polling day).
Shaun,
What is happening? I find myself agreeing with you. Wheeler setting up his own party must be seriously bad news for UKIP.
Lol. Even I am forced to talk sense when its staring us all in the face, Ben!
Independent candidates, including very small party candidates, standing against the incompetence or misbehaviour of a major party usually only win if they have very strong local roots. Witness for instance Blaenau Gwent and Wyre Forest. Martin Bell in Tatton may appear to be the exception, but may recollection is that there was a very strong movement within the constituency for an independent candidate, and only they did they themselves decide to look outside for a charismatic candidate.
Rich or famous candidates tend to underestimate, seriously , the extent to which their wealth and renown can compensate for local roots and organisation. And they also tend to underestimate the importance of loyalty for encouraging for support. It doesn’t work to move from one party to another and then to Independent.
In the case of Stuart Wheeler, he can hardly stand as a Trust candidate in his home constituency of Ashford, where Damien Green is fireproof after the police invasion of his Commons offices. And he is not likely to stand against Julian Brazier in next door Canterbury, whose views are not very different from Stuart Wheeler’s (by the way, the Canterbury thread is desperately short of comments). So, like Shaun Bennett, with most of whose points in his recent post for this seat I agree, I do not think that Stuart Wheeler will achieve what he hopes.
Do you “trust” a bookie?
I think the one thing Stuart Wheeler wants and craves is publicity to satisfy his ego
I do actually think that Stuart Wheeler wants to free the UK from what he sees as the undemocratic imposition of EU government, and also to improve standards at Westminster. He is far from gaining financially by his current political activity, and I think he sincerely wants to use some of his wealth to improve people’s wellbeing through his political campaigning. But ready availability of money for a campaign cannot substitute for levels of political discipline and campaigning expertise that the Trust Party does not appear to have acquired yet. And not least, the Trust Party should have started to plan much sooner after 2005.
So why in the space of a year or two has he gone from Conservative donor, to UKIP donor, to setting up his own party a la Kilroy Silk. It could be that in return for his donations, he wanted some influence over UKIP, which they were not prepared to give (same as Kilroy Silk), so he set up his own party.
Cons Hold= 18,000 maj
Matt is surely right. It is amazing that such an uncharismatic and insipid person has such an ego.
While we’re about it Shaun is right too, of course.
Lol. I thought you were talking about me then Barnaby
Andrew Lawson standing as an Ind here
Plaid cymru should stand here i think take bexhill by storm all you tories need a change dot you
Massive Tory Majority here very likely, would not surprise me if it is 20,000 plus.
I have recently been to the area, when you go to these really safe Tory seats what strikes me is the entreprenerial activity and the work ethic of people. Seriously if the whole of the UK was like that we would be an amasingly dymnamic market economy. People in this seat i have spoken to have 3/4/5 part time jobs and it is the amazing entreprise ethic in so many people campared to Labour areas.
Yes Matt, wanting influence in return for donations, rather than taking time to win a democratic argument within the party, is part of what I mean by lack of party discipline.
C hold maj 22000
From my knowledge of the area, I would say that the reason people have 3/4/5 jobs is because pay in the area is so low. It’s also why there is a very large private rented sector – salaries too low to support mortgages.
This seat has poor communications with London, compared to other places a similar distance from the capital, and in consequence has difficulty attracting major employers. Although neighbouring Hastings probably suffers more from these problems than this seat.
..not least since such a large part of the population are happily past the age where they need to worry about sources of employment
Con Hold
Maj 21300
Con maj 16,500
Con Maj 15000 – maybe suppressed by a rise in UKIP vote
CON HOLD
Since 1885 which seats have included Burwash, Bodiam, Robertsbridge, Herstmonceux, Northiam, Pevensey, Pevensey Bay, and Warbleton?
Stuart Wheeler lost his deposit with 4.9%. 31 votes more would have put him over 5%.
Assorted candidate issues over the years have left the Conservatives only 3.5% higher than the 1997 nadir. They really should be knocking on the door of 60% here.
Having said that, East Sussex was not a triumph in general for the blues this time.
Poor Tory result here and the majority is half what some were predicting. Was this simply down to Greg Barker?
Did Stuart Wheeler ask for a recount? He could have afforded it.
One would expect the Conservative percentage of the vote here to have been comparatively better here in 1997 than in subsequent elections because of various types of right-wing intervention.
East Sussex is a difficult area geographically and economically because of its poor communications to London (the South Downs form a barrier to a direct route). And my impression is that this seat contains quite a lot of “Outer Hastings” – suburban estates etc. – rather than attractive out of London commuter belt. (although of course parts of this seat are very attractive). Furthermore, Labour did take notice of the area, notably in relation to transport, to try to keepnext door Hastings. And there is some LibDem tradition in East Sussex e.g. in relation to Eastbourne.
It is, however, remarkable that the Conservatives did much better in nearby Kent, where some of the issues are similar. One can’t help feeling that the comparative effectiveness on the ground of the different party organisations and tactics in the two counties had a considerable effect.
Stuart Wheeler to win here next time on a 30% swing following widespread disenchantment with politics in general and Westminster/Brussels specifically!
Stuart Wheeler puzzles me, I read Wheeler, voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats at the 1997 election. What a eurosceptic! Those Lib Dems must really be just pretending to be the most euro-entusistic party in politics. When they had joining the Euro in 1997 in their manifesto they must have been kidding!:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1318793/5m-man-could-double-Tory-gift.html
I really do wonder with eurosceptic fringe parties whether the Labour/Lib Dems channel donations to them to help Pro-EU Labour/LD candidates win.
I don’t have a very high regard for wheeler or many eurosceptic fringe candidates as they are just doing labour/ld’s work for them.
What is it with BT and his ’30% swing’. I’ve just seen exactly the same swing suggested on Bleanau Gwent.
I understand that BT is taking the MIck, but I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the point he is (presumably) making with all these nonsense predictions. Can somebody please explain the joke to me before he goes on to make 30% swing predictions in every seat?
Shaun
Apologies that my vain attempt to liven up these (at times) stiflingly boring threads signally failed to trigger yoru sense of humour or excite you.
Your turn now!
PS I don’t promise not to do it again when bored.
Oh ok. So long as there is no wider point that I’m missing, I’m very pleased to support your attempts to liven things up.
Shaun
I find that sometimes its hard to understand what people really mean by their written words even when they use the
My attempts to liven things up by making some silly or mischievous comments have sometimes fallen foul such as when I said that the best Labour MPs are the quiet ones and was subsequently rounded on by a very angry Barnaby.
Surely the best way to liven things up is to have full and free discussions about subjects that go beyond mere psephology-such as that which has been taking up the Cannock Chase thread for the past couple of weeks. But I understand that such matters are entirely banned under the letter of the site comments policy.
Perhaps Anthony should consider branching out and opening a general discussion thread for people to ‘liven things up’ and keep the constituency pages for comment about the constituency?
Of course, the danger is then that between elections when most of these constituency pages DO risk becomming pretty boring and pointless discussions with nothing new to discuss until an MP does something worthy of partisan comment, any general discussion thread might well become the main talking point on the site. And thats not really what the site is for is it…
It’s not difficult to liven things up without annoying other people, honestly – by all means have some alcoholic fortification first if it helps!
Out of 373 Labour target seats at the next election, Bexhill & Battle is at number 250 requiring a swing of 19.81% from Con to Lab, (overtaking the LDs).
I find that slightly surprising: at one time it would have been far nearer the bottom than that.
The safety of very safe Conservative seats like this is wholly dependent on where the anti-Conservative and nihilist votes happen to go. In Bexhill like most of the South East the Liberals are in a clear second place, but there is a UKIP history here which may depress the Conservative vote (a previous Conservative MP defected).
It is also worth remembering that Bexhill is urban. It is therefore not quite as Conservative as Wealden, despite being in the top 10 for older voters,
Bexhill & Battle was more Tory than Wealden in 1983 and 1987.
The Tories must have been hitting 75/80% in some parts of the constituency at that time, since they were polling 66/67% oveall.
Heathfield has only been in this constituency since 2010, it was in Wealden from 1983 and Rye from 1955
Interesting (well to me anyway) that I came here after looking at the Milton Keynes N page – majority here is only 7 points higher than MKN yet this has been Tory for ages and the other was a gain in 2010.