Brighton Pavilion
2010 Results:
Conservative: 12275 (23.68%)
Labour: 14986 (28.91%)
Liberal Democrat: 7159 (13.81%)
UKIP: 948 (1.83%)
Green: 16238 (31.33%)
Socialist Labour: 148 (0.29%)
Others: 80 (0.15%)
Majority: 1252 (2.42%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 17162 (37.5%)
Conservative: 10639 (23.2%)
Green: 9457 (20.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 7414 (16.2%)
Other: 1115 (2.4%)
Majority: 6523 (14.2%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 10397 (23.9%)
Labour: 15427 (35.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 7171 (16.5%)
Green: 9530 (21.9%)
UKIP: 508 (1.2%)
Other: 506 (1.2%)
Majority: 5030 (11.6%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 10203 (25.1%)
Labour: 19846 (48.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 5348 (13.1%)
UKIP: 361 (0.9%)
Green: 3806 (9.3%)
Other: 1159 (2.8%)
Majority: 9643 (23.7%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 13556 (27.7%)
Labour: 26737 (54.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 4644 (9.5%)
Referendum: 1304 (2.7%)
Other: 2710 (5.5%)
Majority: 13181 (26.9%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Caroline Lucas (Green) born 1960, Malvern. Educated at the University of Exeter. Former communications officer and advisor for Oxfam. Oxfordshire county councillor 1993-1997. Green MEP for South East England since 1999. Principal Speaker for the Green party from 2003-2006, she became the first Leader of the Green Party in 2008.
Charlotte Vere (Conservative) Educated at UCL. Chief executive of Big White Wall.
Nancy Platts (Labour) Born London. Professional campaigner. Former director of the Maternity Alliance, having previously worked for the TSSA and Daycare Trust. 
Bernadette Millam (Liberal Democrat) Caroline Lucas (Green) born 1960, Malvern. Educated at the University of Exeter. Former communications officer and advisor for Oxfam. Oxfordshire county councillor 1993-1997. Green MEP for South East England since 1999. Principal Speaker for the Green party from 2003-2006, she became the first Leader of the Green Party in 2008.
Nigel Carter (UKIP) Born 1950, Chelmsford. Educated at King Edward VI Grammar Chelmsford. Works in market research and marketing.
Ian Fyvie (Socialist Labour) Contested Brighton Pavilion 2005.Soraya Anne Kara (Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality)
Leo Atreides (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 91162
Male: 48.7%
Female: 51.3%
Under 18: 17.2%
Over 60: 17.4%
Born outside UK: 11.1%
White: 94.2%
Black: 0.8%
Asian: 1.8%
Mixed: 2%
Other: 1.2%
Christian: 54.1%
Jewish: 0.8%
Muslim: 1.3%
Full time students: 13.5%
Graduates 16-74: 33.7%
No Qualifications 16-74: 17.8%
Owner-Occupied: 62.8%
Social Housing: 11.2% (Council: 7.1%, Housing Ass.: 4%)
Privately Rented: 22.8%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 11.7%
Andy,
I am sure he didn’t when that party had candidates in all wards in 2007, or else I wouldn’t have reached the same numbers for B&H North just using the 2007 results. And the bigger remaining questions about what to do, come when a party didn’t have candidates in all wards, and that happened more at earlier elections than more recent ones, so using a combination of results that included earlier elections isn’t going to help much. .
Prior to 1997 Brighton Kempton may have had a larger LGB polulation than Brighton Pavilion. Boundary changes in 1997 may have not only have reversed this but reduced the LGB population in Brighton Kempton to a smaller margin than Hove.
The boundary changes this time must make the new Brighton Pavilion & Hove constituency have a much larger LGB electorate than the current Brighton Pavilion and clearly the largest in the UK by a very wide margin.
Does the boundary changes also mean that Lewes & Brighton East and Brighton & Hove North could now have LGB populations smaller than some other constituencies outside Brighton & Hove?
I’ve been having another playa round with possible boundaries in Sussex and Kent. I was aware that east Sussex and West Sussex combined could technically contain 16 whole seats but I had not found a way to do so without splitting wards, the problem being the average electorate is 74,472 which is uncomfortably clsoe to the lower threshold.
I will check my figures again but I do seem to have found a way which has 16 whole seats in Kent (average electorate 77219) and 16 whole seats in Sussex. The BC have proposed a 16.5/15.5 split which allows for more equal electorates but creates an unnecessary and unwieldy cross border seat. There are many adverse effects in Kent as well with the Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham seats all being messed around in such a way that none of them include the whole of their eponymous towns. My plan would solve this.
As my plan relates to this area, it involves fairly minimal change. Brighton Kemptown would lose Peacehaven East to Lewes and gain Hanover & Elm Grove (electorate 73,909) . Brighton Pavilion would gain Goldsmid from Hove in compensation (73,337) and Hove would take the four easternmost wards of Adur, covering the community of Southwick which has a seamlessborder with Portslade (73,263)
I guess the partisan impact would be that Kemptown might narrowly be pushed into the Labour column in 2010. Pavilion would be a bit better for both Conservatives and Labour and might be notionally Labour also, while Hove becomes safe for the Tories without moving beyond Labour’s reach
An alternative which would also work numbers wise would be to keep Hanover in Pavilion and instead move Hollingbury & Stanmer into Kemptown. These changes would potentially harm Labour in both seats as Pavilion would be stronger for the Greens and Kemptown would be fofr the Tories (though the impact is not huges in either case). It would not make much sense to do this though as the A270 Lewes road forms a logical boundary between the two seats and was indeed the dividing line from 1950 until 1997
“while Hove becomes safe for the Tories without moving beyond Labour’s reach”
The apparent contradiction contained in that sentence is explained by the fact it contained one of many typos. It should have read ‘Hove becomes safer..’
In fact it is still possible to do this without splitting Peacehaven which is probably preferable
Sounds much better than the BC’s proposals Pete.
Although it may be inevitable if a large town is too big for a single constituency I’ve always disliked this scenario… “Ipswich” and “Poole” – neat and straightforward, then you find Ipswich North and Poole North so I did n’t like Hove North. I also don’t like one ward of a town bearing the name of the town being placed in a different constituency to the others bearing the name of the town eg Fleet.
Fleet North is really Eltham Heath, a fairly independent community, so its inclusion is the lesser of two evils.
The only alternative in Aldershots case would be to divide Yateley that would be the greater of two evils.
Elvetham Heath but I take your point.
Agree that these arwe ideal boundaries for Caroline Lucas. Much less likely to see changes than in other parts of the country. I ought to post on Kemptown, but what on earth is Norman Baker going to do? Both proposed new seats are quite hopeless for him.
I at least will not miss him!
‘Although it may be inevitable if a large town is too big for a single constituency I’ve always disliked this scenario… “Ipswich” and “Poole” – neat and straightforward, then you find Ipswich North and Poole North so I did n’t like Hove North.’
Brighton & Hove North is okay – although the other seat should really be Brighton Pavilion and Hove East or Central (take your pick)
I somewhat agree. Its ok, so long as there is a corresponding other seat- so Ipswich South, Poole South etc
I like referring to Brighton and Hove North however because its not a natural constituency name. Brighton and Hove is an artificial construct created from political expediance when the unitary authorities were created by merging the natural communities of Brighton and Hove.
So Brighton and Hove North implies to me the whole of Brighton and North Hove. Don’t see why it can’t be just Hove or Hove West or Hove Central, or something more natural.
‘So Brighton and Hove North implies to me the whole of Brighton and North Hove’
Northern section of the city of Brighton & Hove – which is how it’s know known
It’s completely artificial
Brighton & Hove are of course two separate towns which happen to be next to each other – and as neither has a cathedral I don’t see what right it has to call itself a city
Contrary to popular belief cathedrals have very little to do with whether a city is a city. Where’s Oxford or Cambridge cathedrals for example. They are created by royal charter, this sometimes leads to the parish church being made a cathedral but not necessarily. St Davids has a cathedral but it doesn’t have city status, nor does the far larger Guildford. Even Chiswick has a cathedral but isn’t a city (that may puzzle many of you………..).
Oxfords cathedral is in Christ Church
I had no idea Chiswick has a cathdral. Is it an Anglican cathedral?
Knew that would occasion some surprise. No Pete it’s Russian Orthodox
Forgot about Christ Church Oxford but my point about Cambridge remains valid.
Sorry, just noticed a mistake on my post of 27th October. I should have said that I DON’T like referring to Brighton and Hove North because its an artificial construct. Hope that didn’t confuse people.
I agree with Tim. Not that the lack of cathedral should have any bearing whatsoever on whether a place can be a city (my native stoke-on-Trent dosn’t have one for example).
But I agree in the Brighton and Hove is completely artificial. Despite its borough boundaries and now city status, it is NOT ‘the community of Brighton and Hove’ it is two seperate towns that happen to run into each other merged together for political purposes. The boundary commission should not be following that convention when there is already a perfectly good tried and tested system of seperate constituency names in the area.
My native Stoke-on-Trent runs into Newcastle-Under-LYme in precisely the same way that Brighton and Hove do. And some people-stupid people on the whole-argue that there should be a single borough covering it.
But I wouldn’t then expect the boundary commission to wade in and dutifully rename Newcastle constituency something like ‘Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle West’! There has to be some form of commonsense.
Sunderland is another example of a city without a cathedral. St Davids, though Barnaby, is indeed a city.
It also surprises many that Cambridge didn’t gain city status until the 1950s.
I agree. It would have been akin to the boundary commission renaming the old Hammersmith and Fulham constituencies as Hammersmith & Fulham North and Hammersmith & Fulham South respectively
Is that not as silly as ‘Paisley & Renfrewshire North’ and ‘Paisley & Renfrewshire South’.
They read like each constituency includes the whole of Paisley. ‘Renfrewshire North’ and ‘Renfrewshire South’ would have made more sense, or create a donut so that there was a ‘Paisley’ constituency and a ‘Renfrewshire’ constituency.
Renfrewshire could perhaps have been called Renfrewshire Mid to avoid confusion with East Renfrewshire and Inverclyde (the Western part of Renfrewshire).
I think that English places should be cities if and only if they have Cathedrals (or possibly Westminster Abbey – what about Windsor. And we might count King’s College Chapel Cambridge too).
Running competitions to make places cities has become a cheap gimmick by politicians who cannot do anything better because they have ruined the country economically. Sadly, many electors seems to get taken in by this.
Messing about with the clocks is a similar disgrace. The sun is overhead at Greenwich, i.e. London, at 12 noon Greenwich Mean Time. So we ought to have permanent GMT. If you want more daylight time in either the morning or the evening, change what times factories, schools, offices, shops etc. open at. Don’t make a nonsense of the clocks. But again, remarkably few people seem to take in that changing the clock does not actually change the way the sun goes round the earth.
“So we ought to have permanent GMT”
GMT does not change. It is permanent.
Each nation sets its local time to GMT+/- x hours x minutes.
Therefore the government is proposing that our time in winter would be GMT+1 rather than GMT as now.
Consequenrtly BST would be GMT+2.
Peter, the official names of the two Paisley/Renfrewshire seats are: ‘Paisley North and North Renfrewshire’ and ‘Paisley South and South Renfrewshire’. (Or maybe it’s ‘North Renfrewshire and Paisley North’ and ‘South Renfrewshire and Paisley South’ – but you get my drift.) ‘Paisley and Renfrewshire North’ (or South) was coined by, I think, the Press Association, on the grounds that the official names were a mouthful.
I don’t know why they went for a sandwich approach to Paisley rather than a doughnut. Possibly they felt that Renfrew had to be included in a Paisley seat, as most of its main lines of communication go southwards towards Paisley rather than westwards – though that didn’t stop them including Renfrew in a non-Paisley seat in the Scottish parliament boundary review.
I’m sorry but I lived there for a while and Brighton & Hove definitely are one city, with the old boundary between them invisible.
See also Poole & Bournemouth, Warwick & Leamington etc. We could do with a lot more cities properly reflecting the built up urban area. Nottingham is particularly bad.
I looked at the maps for South East region and ‘Brighton Pavilion & Hove’ is tiny, much smaller than even the current ‘Portsmouth South’.
In fact, it appears even smaller than most constituencies in Greater London, and much more dense.
Why are the proposals for Brighton & Hove so radical?
No argument about Lewes & Brighton East (only the name) but why create ‘Brighton & Hove North’ and ‘Brighton Pavilion & Hove’ when the current ‘Brighton Pavilion’ and ‘Hove’ could have been retained.
Looking at the proposed maps why not keep….
Brunswick & Adelaide
Goldmid
Hove Central
…in Hove and have……
Hollingdean & Stanmer
Patcham
Withdean
…….in Brighton Pavilion?
This would be much more logical and I though the boundary commission were expected to retain existing constituencies as much as possible unless unavoidable.
The clear historical Brighton and Hove destinctions would be retained, unless the current BC thinking is to disregard this on the notion that the two old boroughs are now effectively a single city.
Also, maintaining the current urban / suburban mix keeps both constituencies at an adequate geographical size.
Why are the boundary changes in Brighton & Hove so radical for no reason.
As a Sussex coast resident of 25 years standing I can confirm that Brighton and Hove (that is, Georgian and Victorian Hove) are indeed one single contiguous settlement.
The anomaly is actually Hove itself. It’s utterly schizophrenic. The western half (Aldrington, Fishersgate, Portslade) is Edwardian and (primarily) 20th century, less affluent and more industrial than “core” Hove, and merges imperceptibly into Southwick, Shoreham, and Lancing.
I haven’t tried juggling the figures to see if it makes sense in terms of the BC parameters, but in terms of how the place feels a “natural” split of the Sussex coast to the west of Eastbourne would have seats for Chichester, Bognor & Littlehampton (both seats much as currently defined), Worthing (effectively the current West Worthing), Shoreham (covering Lancing to Aldrington), Brighton & Hove South (the coastal and central strip based on the A259 from King Alfreds to St Dunstans), Brighton & Hove North (the inland strip based on the A27 from Holmbush to Falmer/Woodingdean), and Newhaven (Rottingdean to Seaford).
Just interested to know if anyone had any insight into how the Green council has performed so far?
I don’t really mean it to be a partisan query – more just to get a feel for how their principled positions (and whilst I don’t agree with them, I genuinely don’t mean that sarcastically) have fared once they’ve actually found themselves in power?
Not sure, I think the minority Green council has been defeated on a few occasions.
Having said that I can still envisage Caroline Lucas retaining this:
2015 most likely
Green 35.8 (+4.5)
Lab 32.4 (+3.5)
LD 5.7 (-6.2)
Con 22.4 (-1.2)
Others 3.7
Swing = 0.5% Lab to Grn
I’m inclined to trust Tim Jones and Mark Senior on this one, as they live in the local area.
Both are expecting Caroline Lucas to be defeated.
Hmm, some of MS’s predictions have been outlandish. I think she will be relected with an increased majority.
“some of MS’s predictions have been outlandish”
You could say that for all of us.
I prefer to trust local opinion where possible. I can’t see how you or I can have a more soundly based opinion on this than Mark or Tim given that we both live a long way away whilst they live in the vicinity and know the seat extremely well .
I’m a former voter in this constituency. However, I can’t say I visit as often as I’d like (although I am seriously considering retiring here when the time comes). I’d be rather surprised if Lucas loses, though it’s certainly possible.
I know someone who is a Labour activist in Brighton who expects Caroline Lucas to be ” hard to shift “.
I won’t say more, as that would be unfair.
Is Caroline Lucas definitely going to be the Green candidate at the next election? I ask because with the new Green Leader being Natalie Bennett, wouldn’t she be given the seat that they’re most likely to win. After all isn’t that what happened in the run up to 2010 with Caroline Lucas being the candidate instead of Keith Taylor, who did really well in 2005. I also ask because the Green Party seem to have “quirkier” rules compared to the other parties
i don’t think lucas is doomed by any means – and with boundary changes looking unlikely i’d say she has more than a fighting chance in 2005
i’m unaware of the candidates for any of the three parties – and that’s assuming they’ve been picked – and lucas high profile as the Greens only MP can only help here, especially if labour go for some dull council beurocrat type
it will certainly be a seat guaranteed to see of a lot of attention at the next election night
I think some Tories will vote for Lucas to stop Labour even though doing so doesn’t necessarily make sense using the left/right political spectrum.
A drop in the Lib Dem vote here in 2015 could benefit the Greens more than any other party.
Green: 22287
Conservative: 12843
Labour: 10877
Liberal Democrat: 3766
UKIP: 1877
Majority: 9444
No way will the Tories take second place from Labour. This is now their worst prospect in all of Sussex and I can only see them continue to decline here. I also highly doubt that the Green majority will increase to those levels. If Ms. Lucas does see an increase in majority, it’s more likely to go up to something more modest like 3,000. You’ve not thought this one through.
I wouldnt be suprised to see a 6-8000 majority, but I concur there isnt a cat in hells chance of the tories beating labour.
Maybe
Green 45
Lab 28
Con 13
Lucas is the favourite but I think AKMD is most likely right. I think that Peter’s prediction is wild, not for the first time.
As a local, I’d be flabbergasted is Lucas lost the seat. As well as a split opposition, she has the two inestimable advantages of (a) public visibility, and (b) incumbency.
Do you think she could increase her share of the vote substantially, to more than 40% for example?
@Andy JS
Not sure if you’re asking me, but I doubt it. 36-37% is more likely.
But 40% is far from impossible: she’s on 31% now, and it would only take 3% of the 14% LD vote (anti-Tories looking for best bet), plus 6% of the 29% Lab (ditto) to make it up to 40%.
Steve: yes I was, thanks for the reply.
I expect to see the remaining Liberal Democrat subside over a tuition fees (Brighton has a large student population). Close two-horse race decided by former Liberal Democrats:
Lab 34.4 (+5.5)
Green 33.9 (+2.6)
LD 3.7 (-8.2)
Con 20.6 (-3.0)
Others 5.6
Swing = 1.5% Grn to Lab