Carlisle
2010 Results:
Conservative: 16589 (39.31%)
Labour: 15736 (37.29%)
Liberal Democrat: 6567 (15.56%)
BNP: 1086 (2.57%)
UKIP: 969 (2.3%)
Green: 614 (1.45%)
TUSC: 376 (0.89%)
Others: 263 (0.62%)
Majority: 853 (2.02%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 17517 (45.7%)
Conservative: 13448 (35.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 6180 (16.1%)
Other: 1217 (3.2%)
Majority: 4069 (10.6%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 11324 (32%)
Labour: 17019 (48.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 5916 (16.7%)
UKIP: 792 (2.2%)
Other: 343 (1%)
Majority: 5695 (16.1%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 12154 (34.8%)
Labour: 17856 (51.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 4076 (11.7%)
Other: 823 (2.4%)
Majority: 5702 (16.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 12641 (29%)
Labour: 25031 (57.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 4576 (10.5%)
Referendum: 1233 (2.8%)
Other: 126 (0.3%)
Majority: 12390 (28.4%)
Boundary changes: gains Wetheral and part of Stanwix Urban ward.
Profile: Carlisle is located in the extreme north-west of England, near the Scottish border. The seat covers the city of Carlisle itself and the surrounding rural area to the South and West, including Dalston and the more affluent dormitory village of Wetheral to the East. Carlisle is a compact town, historically its position near the border made it an important strategic stronghold and the castle and city walls remain relatively intact. Local indistries includes Carrs Biscuits and the headquarters of the Eddie Stobart haulage firm.
The city was hit by severe flooding in 2005 and significant redevelopment of the city centre is currently underway. From 2007 the city will be the site of the University of Cumbria, formed from the Cumbria campuses of the University of Central Lancashire.
The seat has been held by Labour since 1964 but is increasingly becoming a Conservative target seat and subsequent boundary reviews add rural wards to the s/p>
Current MP: John Stevenson (Conservative) Solicitor. Carlisle councillor.
John Stevenson (Conservative) Solicitor. Carlisle councillor.
Michael Boaden (Labour) Carlisle councillor. Contested Penrith and the Border 2001, 2005.
Neil Hughes (Liberal Democrat)
John Reardon (Green) Born Carlisle. Teacher. Former Carlisle councillor for the Labour party.
Michael Owen (UKIP) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 80454
Male: 48.2%
Female: 51.8%
Under 18: 21.5%
Over 60: 23%
Born outside UK: 2.6%
White: 99%
Asian: 0.3%
Mixed: 0.3%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 80.3%
Full time students: 3%
Graduates 16-74: 14.1%
No Qualifications 16-74: 32.9%
Owner-Occupied: 69.8%
Social Housing: 19.9% (Council: 17%, Housing Ass.: 2.9%)
Privately Rented: 6.8%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 13.8%
Carlisle boorough has an elctorate just over 80,000 so would be about the right size for a constituency on the new dispensation. The price would be the loss of the Penrith & The Border seat, but the rest of the voters from there would be added to other seats which would assist the Tories. best thing from their point of view would be to unite Whitehaven and Workington in the same seat and recreate something akin to the old Penrith & Cokermouth seat comprising the northern part of Eden district with the rest of Allerdale (ie minus Workington)
If the Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are to redraw the constituencies in time for the next election they need to make a start as soon as possible I would think. Having to wait until next year for example would be making things even more difficult for them than they otherwise would be.
Pete: A constituency based on Carlisle City Council borough boundaries would become a safer conservative seat of four to five thousand+ majority.
“Cumbria is also probably also going to be tricky to divide into 5 neat seats.” Anthony
How about this?
Barrow & Copeland (loses rural Furness, gains rural Copeland)
Carlise & The Border (gains the rural north Carlise council area from Penrith & The Border)
Penrith (loses ‘The Border’ to Carlise, but gains rural parts of Workington and Copeland).
Westmoreland & Furness (gains rural Furness)
Workington & Whitehaven (a new compact urban constituency combining the Workington & Whitehaven conurbation)
Iain, I don’t think there’d be any land link between Barrow and rural Copeland in your solution except the Duddon Sands – not necessarily a problem (cf. Lancaster and Fleetwood) but possibly not auspicious.
How about this?
1) Barrow and Furness: current seat, plus Cartmel wards and Grange over Sands.
2) Carlisle: current seat, plus rest of Carlisle local authority, minus Dalston.
3) Copeland and Workington: current seat, plus Workington town wards, minus Lake District National Park wards (Crummock, Derwent Valley, Keswick).
4) Penrith and Solway (bit of a horror, this one): rest of Workington seat, plus Crummock, Derwent Valley, Keswick (from Copeland), Dalston (from Carlisle), and about half of Eden district (broadly speaking the northern half), including Penrith, Ullswater and Lazonby. Basically it’s made up of Penrith, the northern lakes, and the Solway coast north of Workington.
5) Westmorland and Lonsdale: current seat, plus rest of Eden district, including Appleby, Kirby Stephen and Alston Moor.
Political effects on 2010 results:
1) Barrow and Furness: Lab, slightly reduced majority;
2) Carlisle: Con, increased majority;
3) Copeland and Workington: Lab, much increased majority (on previous Copeland result);
4) Penrith and Solway: Con, much reduced majority (at a guess 6,000 over Labour);
5) Westmorland and Lonsdale: LD, reduced majority.
Postscript: Pete, is what I’ve just written similar to what you had in mind above (27th May)?
Very much so and in another place some time ago I put up some maps showing these changes. Essentially the Barrow seat became coterminous with that part of Cumbria which was historically in Lancashire and Westmorland with Westmorland. Initially I had also detached the rural elements of Copeland also to the Penrith & Cockermouth seat (with Maryport being in Whitehaven & Workington) but was persuaded that this was a geographical monstrosity
If Cumbria ends up with five seats it’s hard to think of many viable alternatives. At one stage I quite liked the idea of a Penrith and Westmorland seat (Eden district plus Kendal and eastern South Lakeland) but the 2010 ward figures suggest that that part of Cumbria is the one where the population is growing fastest, so it would have quickly become too big. Besides, I like the idea of having the northern lakes in one seat (with the A66 as an east-west communication line), the western lakes in another and the southern lakes in a third.