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.
The political divergence between Carlisle and Berwick on the one hand and Dumfries and Berwickshire on the other is striking.
Rather amazing that being on either side of a national border can make such a difference to socioeconomically similar constituencies.
C vote is 7.2% up on 1997, as far as I can estimate.
This must be the only constituency to vote Labour in 1983 and 1987 but then return a Conservative in 2010.
Crewe was also Labour in the 1980′s and Conservative in 2010.
Comparing 2010 to the two Thatcher landslides…
1st category – Seats NOT won in 1983 or 1987, but WON in 2010:
Carlisle (a notably larger seat in 2010)
Crewe and Nantwich
Montgomeryshire
2nd category – Seats WON in 1983, LOST in 1987, WON again in 2010:
Dewsbury
3rd category – Seats NOT won in 1983, but WON in both 1987 and 2010:
Battersea
Cambridgeshire North East (Liberal in ‘83)
Colne Valley (Liberal in ‘83)
Dewsbury
Ipswich
Isle of Wight (Liberal in ’83) – also won by the Tories in 2001 & 2005
Stockton South (SDP in ‘83)
Thurrock
You could possibly include The Wrekin in the second category, but it has to be said it had significantly different boundaries in the ’80s, crucially including Telford.
Having said that, considering the closeness of the Telford result in 2010 it’s possible that the Tories would have won The Wrekin seat last year even on the old 1980s boundaries.
oops… Dewsbury should only appear in the second category, not the third.
“Having said that, considering the closeness of the Telford result in 2010 it’s possible that the Tories would have won The Wrekin seat last year even on the old 1980s boundaries.”
I think it’s almost certain. It should also be said that (as you hinted at) Carlisle would not be a Conservative seat now if it had been fought on the same boundaries as in 1983. Conversely had it been fought on the current boundaries in 1983 the Tories would have won it then.
Crewe & Nantwich is the opposite in that the boundaries now are significantly more favourable for Labour than they were in 1983
Dewsbury though is on pretty much the same boundaries as 83-92 (although different to the 97-05 ones) and wouldn’t have been won by the Conservatives in 1983 if the sitting Labour MP hadn’t defected to the SNP.
The current Wrekin seat is a very different one from that which formerly covered Telford. Arguably, the current Wrekin seat is misnamed as Shifnal and Albrighton are miles away from Wrekin Hill, which is near Wellington.
Bruce Grocott did well to win Telford in 1987. Conversely, The Wrekin was notoriously flooded with Ashcroft money. With Conservative resources comparable to those that Ashcroft provided, it is very unlikely that Grocott would have won in 1987.
Very few changes seem at all likely in this year’s local election here. The Conservative seats being contested seem, unusually for this year, pretty or very safe. The only seat where a change is perhaps possible is Castle which is a possible Labour gain from LD, but a hard one. Thus NOC NO CHANGE seems almost certain this year unless Labour has a stinker & loses some its own marginals to the Tories, which would be pretty counter-intuitive.
Labour should definately be looking to pick up Castle as a minimum if they are going to be able to claim voters are switching to them from the Lib Dems in great numbers.
I remember that Carlisle started swinging back to Labour in the mid 2000s after above average Tory wins under Hague in 1997-2001. There was a point when I thought the council would be gained by Labour a few years ago, but they didn’t.
Tories have done very well to keep Carlisle balanced. But surely Labour should be regaining overall control next year at the very latest?
That is probably achievable. If Labour do indeed pick up Castle this year, and then repeat the feat next year, they should also gain Morton from the LDs & both Belle Vue & Yewdale from the Tories next year. That would give Labour 28 seats, a majority of 4. But it isn’t a formality to pick up Castle. I don’t think control can be achieved this year for Labour.
I assume a larger Carlisle constituency would include more of the cities rural wards currently in Penrith & The Border and be more Tory?
Also, a combined Whitehaven & Workington urban constituency could be a solid Labour seat.
Yes presumably about 7 northern wards of P & the B will be added and Dalston might be taken out as has been suggested upthread. I imagine those changes could just prevent Labour taking back the seat.
I don’t think you could move ALL of Whitehaven into Workington though could you. In reality it would porbably be at best split between seats…and I don’t think it would have much impact on either.
Best guess for Carlisle local election results in 2011, with change on 2010
Lab 45.2% (+5.2%)
Con 36.7% (-0.4%)
LD 6.3% (-4.4%)
Oth 11.8% (-0.4%)
A small amount of estimation as Burgh ward didn’t vote in 2010 (took the result from 2007) and Wetheral didnt vote in 2011 (took the result from 2010).
Very limited change overall in terms of seats, just a Labour gain in Castle, which was the one ward the Tories didn’t stand in. Interestingly this is the first seat I’ve found where Labour ‘won’ locally in 2010 but lost the same area in the general election on the same day (many where the reverse is true, i.e. Edgbaston, Sheffield Central, Newcastle North, Wirral South, Southampton Itchen, Bolton West to name a few). It could be a result of the LDs not standing in several wards in 2010, with the effect of inflating Labour’s local total and lowering the LDs, though the Tory share was also a little higher in the General vote than the local one.
This seat needs at least 7,500 extra voters to come up to the new quota.
Another example of what you describe here is Brent Central. I agree there are far more examples of the opposite happening
and I also wondered if Stevenage might be a third? Not worked out the results on that one, though I know Labour dominant local elections there so just a hunch!
Labour held a very small lead in Stevenage borough in the local elections but they wouldnt have had in the constituency as a whole. I suspect it may be a case though where they carried the borough in the locals but not in the general, but as far as the wider constituency the Conservatives would have been ahead in both.
The Tories have only ever won Carlise in two elections since WW2 prior to last year (1955 and 1959).
The Guardian gives the new Carlise a notional Conservative majority of 5762.
On these boundaries between 1945 and now its in certain that Labour would only have won in October 1974 and 1997. Even 1945, 1950, 1966, Feb 1974, 2001 and 2005 would have been too close to call.
Tories would certainly have won in 1955, 1959, 1964, 1970, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992 and 2010.