Chesterfield
2010 Results:
Conservative: 7214 (15.74%)
Labour: 17891 (39.03%)
Liberal Democrat: 17342 (37.83%)
UKIP: 1432 (3.12%)
Green: 600 (1.31%)
English Democrat: 1213 (2.65%)
Independent: 147 (0.32%)
Majority: 549 (1.2%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 21035 (46.6%)
Labour: 18462 (40.9%)
Conservative: 3784 (8.4%)
Other: 1838 (4.1%)
Majority: 2573 (5.7%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 3605 (8.2%)
Labour: 17830 (40.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 20875 (47.3%)
UKIP: 997 (2.3%)
Other: 814 (1.8%)
Majority: 3045 (6.9%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 3613 (8.1%)
Labour: 18663 (42%)
Liberal Democrat: 21249 (47.8%)
Other: 916 (2.1%)
Majority: 2586 (5.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 4752 (9.2%)
Labour: 26105 (50.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 20330 (39.6%)
Other: 202 (0.4%)
Majority: 5775 (11.2%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Toby Perkins (Labour) born 1970. Educated at Silverdale Comprehensive School. Former sales rep and recruitment manager. A qualified rugby coach, he now runs a rugby merchandising and equipment company. Chesterfield councillor.
Carolyn Abbott (Conservative) Contested Sheffield Heeley 2001, Barnsley East and Mexborough 2005.Toby Perkins (Labour) born 1970. Educated at Silverdale Comprehensive School. Former sales rep and recruitment manager. A qualified rugby coach, he now runs a rugby merchandising and equipment company. Chesterfield councillor.
Paul Holmes(Liberal Democrat) born 1957. Educated at Firth park Secondary and York University. Former teacher. Chesterfield councillor 1987-1995, 1999-2003. MP for Chesterfield since 2001. Work and pensions spokesman 2002-2005, chair of Lib Dem Parliamentary party 2005-2006, arts of culture spokesman 2006-2007, housing spokesman until December 2007 (more information at They work for you)Duncan Kerr (Green) David Phillips (UKIP)Ian Jerram (English Democrat)
John Daramy (Independent) Born London. Self employed businessman.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 88747
Male: 48.8%
Female: 51.2%
Under 18: 21.4%
Over 60: 22.9%
Born outside UK: 2.6%
White: 98.1%
Black: 0.4%
Asian: 0.6%
Mixed: 0.7%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 77.9%
Full time students: 2.1%
Graduates 16-74: 14.7%
No Qualifications 16-74: 34.2%
Owner-Occupied: 66.6%
Social Housing: 25.9% (Council: 23.1%, Housing Ass.: 2.9%)
Privately Rented: 5.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 4.2%
Working on basis of adding the votes together of all the candidates of a party and then dividing by number of candidates, I have worked out swing figures for the election this year.
In order of largest swing to smallest:
Holmebrook 29.51%
St Helens 26.41%
Hollingwood & Inkersall 25.24%
Moor 21.50%
Loundsley Green 21.34%
Dunston 17.51%
West 16.52%
Rother 16.41%
Old Whittington 16.29%
Lowgates & Woodthorpe 15.79%
Brimington North15.33%
Brockwell15.15%
Barrow Hill & NW 14.28%
Brimington South 14.12%
Walton 14.04%
Hasland 13.03%
St Leonards 12.28%
Linacre -3.36%
Average 15.09%
I didn’t hear the exact result from the safest Labour ward Middlecroft & Poolsbrook and can’t find it online so haven’t added that to the list.
In answer to Ricjard’s question, it is hard to know what Tories voters will amke of it all, I would guess they might be quite happy with the sell out, I think the Lib Dems main losses have been from Lib Dems not ex Tories to be honest.
This was borne out by the Tory failure to make an impression in Walton and West where far from taking the seat they fell to third place behind Labour in both cases.
The Lib Dem Staveley Town Council (prev 9LD, 8 Lab) is now Lab 17 LD0 !! And the remaining two LD councillors on Brimington Parish Council have gone that is now Lab 10, LD 0.
The next electoral test is scheduled to be in the Derbyshire County Council elections in 2013 when the Lib Dems will be defending five seats in Chesterfield (we hold four).
Congratulations on these results. I also thought it likely that Labour would retake this council, but it did require some very big swings and some of those are amazing.
This is a safe Labour seat now obviously
I had miscalculated the Linacre swing (thought it looked way out of line) although it was still the smallest on the day, the swing from LD to Labour was in Linacre was 3.83% making the overall average LD to LAB swing 15.28%.
Pleasing for us to note that the swings were biggest where they needed to be biggest so a pretty satisfactory campaign all round.
Congrats Toby.
It occurs to me that without byelections the LibDems would hold fewer seats than they do now.
If MPs were replaced by appointment (at least until the next May election) then the LibDems might never have won:
Bermondsey
Brecon
Berwick
Portsmouth S
Sutton
and of course the LibDem support here would never have come about without a byelection.
Amazing result. Is this the largest swing against the Lib Dems in the Country?
Thanks ETTG, sorry for tardiness of my reply, haven’t been on for a bit! Anecdotally, I believe that the gain of 23 seats was the biggest anywhere in the country although I know that there were also big gains in Gedling, Ellesmere Port and Telford. Many other authorities had big swings to Labour but elect in thirds so wouldnt have been so many gains.
The swing from LD to Labour of 15.28% is the biggest I am aware of but would be interested to know how it compares with Sheffield particularly, where I understand that the Lib Dems were also surprised by the scale of their defeat.
One for you Statto’s out there- were there any swings bigger than 15.28% or any authorities where Labour made more than 23 gains?
The swing in Sheffield from 2007 was a relatively modest 10.55%
In Manchester it was 15.75% and 13 seats were gained (relative to 2007) which given only a third of seats were up would equate to 39.
The swing in Knowsley was 19.1% and in Liverpool 24.4%
I can easily see a Labour majority here of about 12-14,000 with the Conservatives about 2,000 ahead of the Lib Dems.
“The swing in Sheffield from 2007 was a relatively modest 10.55%
In Manchester it was 15.75% and 13 seats were gained (relative to 2007) which given only a third of seats were up would equate to 39.
The swing in Knowsley was 19.1% and in Liverpool 24.4%”
Which-as with Chesterfield-just reinforces why Labour MPs shouldn’t get too excited by their performance in the local elections. The biggest swings from Labour were generally from the lib Dems in areas where Labour already holds all the constituencies or where they can only make one or two gains overall.
But what happened in the areas that will decide the next general election? A very poor performance I’m afraid. Worse that the Tories did under Hague in the corresponding local elections in 1999.
I just thank goodness that Labour MPs remain happy to keep Ed Miliband in place. Its going to be like the last parliament under Gordon Brown-where it became increasingly clear he was going to lose them the election but Labour allowed him to get on with it.
Will they never learn?
Sorry, reading that back, I meant the biggest swings TO Labour were generally from the Lib Dems.
I know its fairly obvious, but I just thought I’d make thay clear.
While Shaun’s judgement about the outcome of elections is often sound, I think he should be wary of being triumphalist this early in the parliament. At first people didn’t take to David Cameron either but he still became PM. You could be right Shaun, but it’s much too early to be as certain as you are. And complacency doesn’t pay in politics.
You’re right of course. One thing I could never be accused of is complacency-I ALWAYS tend to err on the side of caution, as you know. Things can change.
But neither is there any point in not enjoying the moment we have at the moment-a fairly useless Labour Leader who is not seen as a Prime Ministerial figure, and Tory GAINS at local elections a year into government (something which I still think is almost unprecedented).
Nobody warmed to David Cameron in opposition (in my view mainly because he failed to articulate a unique platform for the party distinct from the ‘left’) but he was almost always ahead in voting intentions by enough to win a general election and people caould imagine him as Prime Minister even if they didn’t like him.
Ed Miliband by contrast is bobbing along with a bare minimum poll lead and is widel;y regarded as someone people can’t see as a Prime Minister. That is still very very important in determining how people will vote come a general election. We Tories know of what we speak-we were refusing to believe similar sorts of reaction to William Hague, IDS and Michael Howard. And Labour rightly laughed all the way to their next election victory.
So now the tables are turned. It is Labour with a failing leader and a party completely unwilling to believe it. Labour MPs and members desperately want to talk up generally poor polling and local election results as evidence that they are on course for power.
Been there, done that. I’m glad that Labour members are happy.
Oh no I’m not talking anything up (though I don’t think you’re specifically referring to me). Labour will clearly have to improve on the 2011 local election results to be on course for power. But there are reasons to believe it’s quite possible that the political situation will get worse for the Tories than it is now, just as it did for Labour during the last parliament; for quite a while it looked likely that Labour would recover enough to stay in power, but it didn’t happen in the end. There’s everything to play for; it’s not a done deal that Ed Miliband will be defeated, or will win.
Been looking at the main party’s counter proposals for the boundaries in this area. The Lib Dems are proposing a Chesterfield seat almost identical to that I outlined on this site some time ago.
Their proposed seat would include the following wards:
From Chesterfield Borough: Brockwell, Dunston, Hasland, Holmebrook, Linacre, Loundsley Green, Moor, Old Whittington, Rother, St Leonards, St Helens, Walton, West and Barrow Hill & New Whittington.
From NE Derbyshire District: Dronfield N, Dronfield S, Dronfield Woodhouse, Unstone, Gosforth Valley, Barlow & Holmesfield and Brampton & Walton.
The only difference between the Lib Dem proposals and mine is that I did not include Old Whittington and Barrow Hill and New Whittington in the Chesterfield seat, instead including Wingerworth.
The justification the Lib Dems give for splitting Chesterfield Borough in this way is identical to the one I gave; that NE Derbyshire is an entirely artificial grouping including disparate communities to the north and south of Chesterfield linked together by a swathe of rural Derbyshire to the west of Chesterfield.
It is not really that surprising that the Lib Dems have proposed boundaries if this kind. I mentioned to Mark Senior ages ago on this thread that my plan was very kind to the Lib Dems. Probably their best chance of drawing up a Derbyshire seat that is winnable from their point of view is to have one linking the western half of Chesterfield with Dronfield, albeit that the seat would in all likelihood be a three way marginal.
The rest of the Lib Dem proposals for Derbyshire are utterly bonkers. Mention has been made on the Derby N thread of their proposal for a redrawn Mid Derbyshire extending to not far from Derby city centre. Further north they propose an “Amber Valley” seat covering a thin strip of territory stretching from Shirebrook down to Ripley & Marehay ward. They also bizarrely propose putting Clay Cross in Derbyshire Dales constituency.
The Local Government Boundary Commission last month published their initial proposals for the redrawing of the County Division boundaries in Derbyshire. At least as far as Chesterfield is concerned they appear to have gone with the proposals put forward by the County Council’s ruling Tory group. They involve a revival of the Walton & West county division held by the Tories up until a by election in 1995.
It will include the most Tory parts of the current Ashgate and Hipper divisions, and there is a good chance that had Walton & West existed at the last county elections it would have gone
If John Boult (the Tory candidate who finished second in Ashgate in 2009) decides to stand in Walton & West next year I reckon he will have a good chance of winning, thus becoming the first Tory to win any kind of election in Chesterfield since 1991.
As I said above there is no point pretending that the 2011 locals here were anything other than a disappointment for my party. The boundary changes look as though they will present something of an opportunity to put that right. The hope will be that having finished second in the major part of the division four years ago the Lib Dem “two horse race” campaigning line will have less of an impact than has been the case in recent years among voters worried about ending up with a Labour councillor.
Dont recall the Lib Dems ever claiming that it was a 2 horse Lib Dem/ Tory race, thought strategy had always been to cast the Tories as an irrelevence.
However it is true that the proposal suggested by the County Council and initially supported by the BC would give the Tories a tailor made seat- basically if they didnt win that seat they’d never win anything.
Of the other seats Boythorpe & Brampton South and Newbold & loundsley Green both look to be tight marginals on the basis of current polls/ 2010 BC elections.
Sadly after the recent death of Cllr Trevor Reynolds, there will presumably be a BC by election in St Helens ward at some point after next week’s funeral.
” Dont recall the Lib Dems ever claiming that it was a 2 horse Lib Dem/ Tory race, thought strategy had always been to cast the Tories as an irrelevence”.
That’s actuality what I meant; that would be harder for the Lib Dems to portray the Tories as an irrelevance given the result in Ashgate last time. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
I also missed a word out of my second paragraph. It should have read “…there is a good chance that had Walton & West existed at the last county elections it would have gone Tory”. Posting via a phone can be awkward.
John Boult does seem to have built something of a personal vote in the Ashgate area. At the last borough elections he finished comfortably ahead of the other two Tory candidates in West Ward, and was the only Conservative anywhere in Chesterfield to finish ahead of a Labour candidate, beating two out of the three Labour candidates in West.
I have heard that someone called Keith Lomas may be the UKIP candidate in the forthcoming by election in Moor Ward. I do not yet know whether it is the same Keith Lomas who used to represent neighbouring St Helens Ward for the Lib Dems who lost his seat to Labour last year. If it is the same person it will be an interesting defection.
The by election is of course in St Helens ward not Moor as per my last post.
UKIP have not managed to field a candidate in local elections in Chesterfield since the 2005 county elections. It remains to be seen whether they can actually get their act together to put one up in the forthcoming by election.
The St Helens by election will be on July 5th.
It is ex Lib Dem councillor Keith Lomas who is to stand for UKIP in the St Helens by election. Defecting from the very pro EU Lib Dems to UKIP is a pretty big leap. Surely it’s not a particularly trodden path.
It’s by no means unprecedented. My acquaintance Ed Rosenthal was a Lib Dem councillor in Kingston-upon-Thames & was some time after his defeat selected as UKIP parliamentary candidate for the Kingston & Surbiton seat, though he later withdrew. There are other examples too.
In the SW there are also quite a lot of sometime or even regular Lib Dem voters who have UKIP tendencies. This tends to be people of a ‘to hell with all of them’ mindset, who have been attracted by the Lib Dems’ supposed anti-(political) establishment credentials. It will be interesting to see if this phenomenon persists or fades now the Lib Dems are in government.
Two former Lib Dem Councillors standing in the St Helens by election on Chesterfield Boro Council; Tony Rogers the former PPC who stood against Tony Benn three times between 1987 & 1997 and lost his Moor seat last year; and Keith Lomas their previous Councillor in St Helens who has defected to UKIP.
Tom Murphy is Labour’s candidate, and there were rumours of a Green candidate but not confirmed yet, dont believe the Conservatives will be standing, but again unconfirmed.
The 2011 election result in St Helens was:
Everitt, Angela Jean – Labour ELECTED 852 votes
Lomas, Keith – Liberal Democrat 541 votes
Pastoll, Roy Zane – Liberal Democrat 442 votes
Reynolds, William Trevor – Labour ELECTED 784 votes
Thanks for the information. I wish other MPs would take the same interest in this site as you do.
Declared candidates for the St Helens by election show that (contrary to what I indicated above) the Conservatives are standing so the voters of St Helens will have a veritable panoply of choice with final runners and riders being;
Kate Barker (Green Party)
Shelley Dale (Conservative Party)
Keith Lomas (UKIP)
Tom Murphy (Labour Party)
Tony Rogers (Lib Dem)
Election day is Thursday 5th July
Incidentally Labour’s Tom Murphy is the father of new UCATT General secretary Steve Murphy.
Decent performance by UKIP in yesterday’s St Helen’s ward by election. The result with changes from May 2011 was:
Labour 579 45.5% (-17.1%)
Lib Dem 412 32.5% (-5%)
UKIP 205 16.1% (+16.1%)
Green 54 4.2% (+4.2%)
Conservative 23 .8% (+1.8%)
Clearly UKIP must have benefited from having a high profile ex Lib Dem councillor as their candidate.
I would have thought in the context of the national picture Labour would be a tad disappointed with their performance, seeing their vote decline by more than that of the Lib Dems. If I had to come up with an explanation for the decline in the Labour vote I would suggest that a series of recent errors by the Labour controlled council might have made some difference.
Recent changes to the system for recycling household waste have not proved popular. The new system provides greatly reduced space for residents to dispose of paper and card compared with the old system. Also lids of the bins are very light with the consequence that in windy weather they can blow open resulting in debris being scattered all over the place.
There has also been some disquiet at new signing erected by the council that initially omitted any image of the town’s iconic crooked spire.
I dont think that we were too disappointed with the result to be honest. As you will see from the table above we had a 26% swing from the Lib Dems in 2011 in St Helens, the second largest in the town.
Now we have seen a 6% swing back in an election when the Lib Dems were fielding a former (three time) PPC and UKIP also had a popular local candidate, that still leaves a swing from 2007 to 2012 of around 20% which is still pretty sensational.
Notwithstanding that, the quantity and vitriolic nature of the Lib Dem literature coupled with an ‘attractive’ third alternative clearly did result in a reduction in the Labour vote and we wont be complacent about that.
23 votes for the Conservative? That’s Monster Raving Loony territory!
As a follow on to the St Helens by election update that was detailed above. It was interesting to note that on polling day several ex Lib Dem Councillors including the two Cllr Stone’s (who left the LD’s to become Independant) were assisting the campaign of the UKIP candidate.
I dont know whether this was a one off or not but if it means that a fairly significant number of the ex Lib Dem Councillors are now UKIP it could herald further changes in the political make up of Chesterfield elections.
There was some discussion above about how ‘natural’ a move the LD to UKIP one was and I would suspect that for some of the LD’s from lower demographic areas it might be less of a political journey that you would imagine.
“I would suspect that for some of the LD’s from lower demographic areas it might be less of a political journey that you would imagine.”
Indeed, on crime, immigration and energy/environment/transport let alone the EU UKIP might have policies more in tune with them than the LibDems.
But for the 1984 byelection the LibDems would never have established themselves in Chesterfield.
Yes.
And surely they sustained themselves in the 80s and 90s by the fact that many people in a seat like Chesterfield despised hard-left upper class intellectuals like Tony Benn just as they despised Thatcherism, leaving a big market for the Liberals in the middle.
Once the Liberals took a clear second place, I’m sure many Tories started to vote tactically for them as their best chance of getting rid of Benn (ironically achieving this only after he retired).
Clearly the habit of many Tories voting Lib Dem has become very entrenched here over the past 25 years and it’s not likely to unwind all in one go (however clearly the process started in 2010).
Certainly though the more Labour-leaning element in the Lib Dem vote here will have collapsed due to national issues, and the fact that the current Labour MP is both local and moderate.
I would expect a five figure Labour majority here in 2015.
Max Payne was a strong candidate who helped establish the Lib Dems in Chesterfield. It was that most magic of tools- Yes, a by-election that did this, which is why in 1987 Tony Benn’s majority was lower than Eric Varley’s had been in 1983. Tony Rogers was the next man to strengthen the party’s fortunes in the area, standing at three general elections, reducing Benn’s majority each time. It just goes to show what can be done when local election success can be translated into the constituency as a whole, which was why when Benn retired in 2001 new candidate Paul Holmes was able to win this so easily. Now it has gone back to Labour though it may never be lost again.
‘I can easily see a Labour majority here of about 12-14,000 with the Conservatives about 2,000 ahead of the Lib Dems.’
Just about feasible in Rochdale but the LDs will retain 2nd here and toby’s majority probably won’t exceed 8000.
Could be 10000 I guess but I don’t want to do down the LDs for the sake of it.
Prediction for 2015-
Perkins (Labour)- 21, 436 (48.1%, +9.1%)
Lib Dem- 12, 763 (28.6%, -9.2%)
Tory- 7, 367 (16.5%, +0.8%)
Others- 2, 933 (6.5%, -0.8%)
Lab hold.
Turnout- 44, 499.
Majority- 8, 673 (19.4%)
Swing- +9.15% From Lib Dem to Lab.
The Lib Dem collapse here has been spectacular, in no small part due to the efforts of Toby Perkins who seems to have revitalised Labour in Chesterfield.
I suspect less than 50% of the vote may privately disappoint Labour.
Julia Cambridge selected as LD PPC
According to the LD website:
“She first became interested in politics during the miners’ strikes in the 1970′s. As a young girl she was afraid of the dark; in her speech to local party members she explained: ‘The strikes meant that we had no heat or light.
One night, when my sister had been burnt by a candle and my mum was at her wits end, I asked why it was dark, from one parent I got the answer, “the government”, from the other “the unions”, which puts me where I am now fighting for, and helping the whole community. The united community which serves all sections of society was a feature of Liberal Democrat tradition long before David Cameron came up with his vacuous phrase “Big Society” or Ed Miliband dreamed up a similar phrase with little meaning “One Nation” ‘
Right, so during the miners’ strike she wouldn’t have had a clue which side to support.
I’m a LibDem and my grandfather went down the mine at 14 and retired at 65
You must have had a very old grandfather to say you are only 20something.
Very very few miners worked past the age of 60 after the end of the 1970s, given the large number of pit closures. Younger miners were moved from the closed pits to work elsewhere, and the oldies were pensioned off en-masse.
Indeed Barnaby. A classic piece of Lib Dem fence sitting. But it does encapsulate the Lib Dem’s problem in this seat. Holmes lost because the party lost the support of its right leaning voters to the Tories, and you would expect them to be vulnerable to losing left leaning support next time. They are caught between trying to protect their left flank and tacking right in an attempt to regain some of the Tory inclined vote they lost last time.
You would think given the inevitable coalition induced loss of some disgruntled lefties and a first time Perkins incumbency bonus they have no chance. They’ve probably only select this early because it is their only remotely viable target in the whole of the East Midlands.
They’re probably more viable in Bosworth than they are here now. However, that still will be a Con hold.
Never fear. The LDs will win all the seats in the East Midlands as this graph shows.
htttp://eastmidslibdems.org.uk/en/article/2012/644638/why-the-ukip-surge-is-good-for-liberal-democrats
Pretty desperate stuff when the best news is how well other parties are doing.
So it’s a case of stupendous momentum thanks to UKIP then.