Bosworth
2010 Results:
Conservative: 23132 (42.62%)
Labour: 8674 (15.98%)
Liberal Democrat: 18100 (33.35%)
BNP: 2458 (4.53%)
UKIP: 1098 (2.02%)
English Democrat: 615 (1.13%)
Others: 197 (0.36%)
Majority: 5032 (9.27%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 21614 (41.7%)
Labour: 16984 (32.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 11177 (21.6%)
Other: 2075 (4%)
Majority: 4630 (8.9%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 20212 (42.6%)
Labour: 14893 (31.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 10528 (22.2%)
UKIP: 1866 (3.9%)
Majority: 5319 (11.2%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 20030 (44.4%)
Labour: 17750 (39.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 7326 (16.2%)
Majority: 2280 (5.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 21189 (40.6%)
Labour: 20162 (38.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 9281 (17.8%)
Referendum: 1521 (2.9%)
Majority: 1027 (2%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: David Tredinnick(Conservative) (more information at They work for you)
David Tredinnick(Conservative) (more information at They work for you)
Rory Palmer (Labour) 
Michael Mullaney (Liberal Democrat) Dutch Veldhuizen (UKIP) John Ryde (BNP) James Lampitt (English Democrat)
Michael Brooks (Science) Author, broadcaster and journalist.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 93394
Male: 49.1%
Female: 50.9%
Under 18: 21.5%
Over 60: 21.3%
Born outside UK: 2.8%
White: 98.1%
Asian: 0.9%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 78.7%
Full time students: 2.2%
Graduates 16-74: 15.4%
No Qualifications 16-74: 31.4%
Owner-Occupied: 82%
Social Housing: 11% (Council: 8.5%, Housing Ass.: 2.6%)
Privately Rented: 4.8%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 4.4%
Thanks for these figures,
that’s quite a big gap to win from behind.
I guess this means the Tories could be relatively safe against a split opposition, with Labour recovering but the Lib Dems remaining strong.
Things could change of course – as could the boundaries.
Not sure Ellwood is necessarily a Lib Dem unless it’s double bluff to appear like a frustrated Tory.
I know almost nothing about David Tredinnick.
Perhaps one of these is a sock puppet actually.
Apologies if not.
H Hemmelig’s question remains: why did the Conservatives do badly last year? Their vote share increased by less than 1%. I suggested that it was because Tredinnick’s record is somewhat mixed. Nevertheless H Hemmelig and Shaun Bennett pointed out that Cash for Questions was a long time ago, which is fair enough. I agree with Joe James B about the Tories’ future prospects. If the Lib Dems and Labour polled equally, Tredinnick’s majority would be heading towards 10,000.
PS- I am nothing to do with Ellwood if that is what you were implying- I confined my comments strictly to Cash for Questions, the Expenses Scandal, and Freedom of Information. There is no evidence to suggest that Tredinnick is a lazy MP.
And there’s no conclusive evidence that lazy MPs do worse in elections than their more active colleagues. Most people still vote in terms of who they want to form the national government.
And then there’s a question about what exactly is meant by lazy. Eric Forth, who was MP for the seat next door to where I live, was uniformly regarded as very lazy in terms of constituency work – in fact he never once held a constituency surgery. His response was that he worked very hard in parliament itself, which is undoubtedly true, and that in a constituency as wealthy as Bromley there was no need for him to be pounding the streets soliciting complaints about dogshit. His constituents seemed to agree and re-elected him with pretty good majorities.
Thanks Tory for your very fair response to my points.
Didn’t Eric Forth say that if any constituent had a problem, they could phone him personally at the House of Commons, and if he couldn’t get the problem sorted in 15 minutes he’d arrange a home visit?
I think he’s right anyway. Too many MPs nowadays pay too little attention to the big questions of the day and too much to acting as super-social workers.
H.Hemmelig – I can’t prove this, but I remain convinced that the very constituency-inactive record of my former MP, Sir Anthony Royle (Richmond & Barnes,C) was a major reason for the breakthrough of the Liberals as they then were in the constituency, making it a marginal in 1979 & almost winning in 1983. Indeed I think that if the Tories hadn’t then picked the much younger & more vigorous Jerry Hanley they would have lost that year. Since Hanley’s election the Tories were able to increase their majority in 1987 & 1992 though of course they were heavily defeated in 1997 in the new seat of Richmond Park. When I was in Brighton it was noticeable that the Tory situation didn’t weaken from 1974 to 1983 in real terms in Kemptown, where Andrew Bowden was an outstanding constituency MP, but did in Pavilion where Julian Amery was a poor one.
I’m not sure Sir Anthony Royle was much to do with the Liberal increases in Richmond from 1973 onwards, although he could have been.
Sometimes you can be out campaigned even with a good record, but from what I’ve heard, he didn’t sound all that good.
The evidence is very patchy around the country, as we’ve discussed.
Sometimes people also might think someone is more active than they are.
I suspect the Tories will be secretly pleased when Tredinnick decides to step down. I can’t recall him speaking much in the Commons – on the few occasions I can he was talking about esoteric topics that I suspect are of little concern to most people in his constituency,
Alternative medicine is his particular hobby horse and this is usually what he speaks about. But fairly harmless – I prefer it to listening to obsessive Euronuts.
‘His response was that he worked very hard in parliament itself, which is undoubtedly true, and that in a constituency as wealthy as Bromley there was no need for him to be pounding the streets soliciting complaints about dogshit. His constituents seemed to agree and re-elected him with pretty good majorities.’
Forth is of course right but I think his high majorities had more to do with the fact that he was representing a very strong Tory area – than anything to do with how his constituents regarded him as an MP
His predecessor – Sir John Hunt – a very different type of Tory – enjoyed similarly colosall majorities
“I think his high majorities had more to do with the fact that he was representing a very strong Tory area – than anything to do with how his constituents regarded him as an MP”
Yes that’s true. Nevertheless he increased those already high majorities in the difficult years of 2001 and 2005 deespite his perceived “laziness”, which was my point.
One small pedantic point – Eric Forth’s seat was mostly the successor to Chislehurst (Roger Sims) rather than Sir John Hunt (Ravensbourne). Sims was also a very different Tory from Forth. Both Sims and Hunt were good constituency MPs.
‘Eric Forth’s seat was mostly the successor to Chislehurst’
Which of course had been a Labour seat on at least a couple of occassions since the war
Sir John’s old seat was of course bizarrely named Ravensbourne and I remember it being very undersized
“‘Eric Forth’s seat was mostly the successor to Chislehurst’
Which of course had been a Labour seat on at least a couple of occassions since the war”
Except that it was the successor to the 1974-97 version of Chislehurst which was rather different to the pre-1974 version which was won by Labour on two occasions (1945 and 1966). HH is quite correct that B&C in 1997 was the successor to the previous Chislehurst rather than Ravensbourne. But in terms of the previous (ie pre-1974) constituencies, it took in the whole of the then Bromley seat (of John Hunt and Macmillan before him) and only a minority of the Chislehurst seat (which notwithstanding the inclusion of Mottingham, was not the most Labour part thereof). In other words Bromley & Chislehurst would never have elected a Labour MP
Prediction for 2015-
Treddinick (Tory)- 23, 245 (43.8%, +1.2%)
Labour- 17, 124 (32.3%, +16.3%)
Lib Dem- 8, 785 (16.5%, -16.8%)
Others- 3, 849 (7.2%, -0.8%)
Con hold.
Turnout- 53, 003.
Majority- 6, 121 (11.5%)
Tories will do better than that and labour worse. Looking at the results here the lds must have picked up lab and con votes and it seems likely a ld collapse will return a lot of Tory votes to their natural home. Tories doing worse than 2001 if you predict the ld vote collapsing that badly is unlikely. The 42 you predict is possible but requires the lds to do better than you suggest.
Con 46
Lab 26
Ld 21
Other 7
16% rise in the Labour vote will not happen because there are only 2 Lab cllrs here, I actually think the LDs will narrowly hang to 2nd.
Sorry, Joe but a few points to make here-
1. I predicted 43.8%, not 42%.
2. The Labour vote will benefit more than the Tory vote from a Lib Dem collapse.
3. You seem to be forgetting that Tredinnick is not widely seen as being a particularly effective MP- Therefore any suggestion that the Conservative vote could get as high as 46% here is decidedly risky. Even riskier is any talk of the Tories getting a 20% lead- That would mean a five-figure majority- Something not seen since 1992- Quite how Treddinick could get 46% is beyond me quite frankly.
I’m not sure the Lib Dems will collapse here – I think they actually held the council in 2011 which is significant,
which was a real hammering overall.
But Labour’s result was so below par in 2010 it could surge back.
The Tory share – whether it’s down or up a bit is more likely to depend on the national situation, which is open.
JJB, are you the same as the poster called Joe or were you just passing comment?
I am a different Joe, and always post as Joe James B.
I think Joe and Joe R may be different people aswell.
They make interesting posts.
Apologies for the error but I maintain my position. Lab will not go up 16
Apologies for posting under Joe and Joe r. Both are me.
It doesn’t look like quite the kind of territory where they would but the huge Lab>LD swing in 2010 does make a strong case for some unravelling.
Thanks for clarifying – so to be clear to all – there are 2 Joe’s.
Not 1 and not 3.
I think you may be right that the lds could maintain 2nd. It’s pretty clear that this area has a lot of Tory/ld flippers and as such with a weak Tory incumbent there will be a robust ld vote.
Labour getting 33 is, in my view, extremely optimistic though of course the results may be correct and me wrong. I’d love to hear others predictions as this seat has given 3 different predictions
JJB and Joe R, thanks both for clarifying.
From now on I would suspect to avoid confusion we should refer to Joe as Joe R so nobody has to ask if Joe James Broughton is the same Joe.
I’ll try to remember to post as Joe r
Incidentally, Joe R, who made the third prediction?
Jib said that the lds would beat lab whereas I think lab will marginally beat ld while you thought lab would double the ld vote.
Thank you, Joe R.
If we take a look at how Tredinnick has fared ever since he was first elected, it makes for rather interesting reading-
1987- 34, 145 (54.44%, -0.96%)
1992- 36, 618 (54.2%, -0.2%)
1997- 21, 189 (40.6%, -13.6%)
2001- 20, 030 (44.4%, +3.8%)
2005- 20, 212 (42.6%, -1.8%)
2010- 23, 132 (42.6%, +0.0%)
So Tredinnick has only been able to successfully increase his party’s share of the vote once- Ironically in 2001, perhaps the Tories’ second worst election after 1997. It is safe to say that his personal level of activeness in the constituency is borne out by his electoral performances.
I don’t know whether there is any kind of Liberal left (interchangeable LD/Lab) vote here who find Leicester a bit too vibrant even for them,
that has been steadily increasing,
perhaps like Broxtowe,
but I would have thought this was a pretty average slab of muddle (sorry Middle) England.
If there hasn’t been much change, the results suggest a slump in Tory support that went to Labour and then to the Liberal Democrats.
This seat proves that if you are an incumbent Tory whose centre-left opposition is split, then you’re pretty much safe- Canterbury and St Albans are other examples.
Joe,
Why should Labour getting 33 be so optimistic given that they managed 39 as recently as 2001?
I agree with Graham.
I think that considering Labour still got over 30% here in 2005, there is a real precedent for the natural Labour vote to return to something like I’ve predicted- The Lib Dems are not going to hold on to second place here- Something which A Cairns and Joe R seem to agree on.
The unpredictable thing here is to what extent the Lib Dems will collapse- I would imagine that considering they had less than 20% of the vote in 1997 and 2001 it is not inconceivable that they may fall back to just above their level of support in 2001 here.
Finally, Tredinnick can probably hope for a modest increase in his share of the vote I would imagine- The Tories have underperformed here in recent times; only helped by the fact that the Lib Dems couldn’t really run Tredinnick much closer than Labour were able to has allowed him to hold on here- The very fact that his vote share is below 2001 really is striking- I would therefore expect the Conservative vote share here to go up by at least 1%.
What I meant to say was that A Cairns and Joe R seem to be convinced that the Lib Dems will be able to hold on to second place- It is I and maybe JJB who have picked up on the fact that this one may see a strong case of tactical unwind in favour of Labour from the Lib Dems.
I’d have thought Labour second,
but the LDs not completely out of the picture in third.
To change the subject a little, can anyone explain why Labour are so weak in Hinckley. It isn’t a particularly rich or up market town, although pleasnat enough.
It’s sort of industrial, but heavily owner-occupied and quite prosperous. I suspect Labour would have had a very slight lead in the town in 1997 and perhaps 2001, but as you say it’s normally not good territory. And, as a medium-sized Midlands town which is heavily white & not very deprived, Labour may well be slower to recover here than the national average. I think Labour’s strongest area in the constituency is Earl Shilton nowadays.
Thanks Barnaby. I tend to think of Hinckley as very similar to nearby Nuneaton, which is white and not particularly deprived as well, but has a very different political history.