Copeland
2010 Results:
Conservative: 15866 (37.08%)
Labour: 19699 (46.04%)
Liberal Democrat: 4365 (10.2%)
BNP: 1474 (3.44%)
UKIP: 994 (2.32%)
Green: 389 (0.91%)
Majority: 3833 (8.96%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 19218 (49.1%)
Conservative: 12390 (31.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 5145 (13.2%)
Other: 2354 (6%)
Majority: 6828 (17.5%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 10713 (31.7%)
Labour: 17033 (50.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 3880 (11.5%)
UKIP: 735 (2.2%)
Other: 1396 (4.1%)
Majority: 6320 (18.7%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 13027 (37.5%)
Labour: 17991 (51.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 3732 (10.7%)
Majority: 4964 (14.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 12081 (29.2%)
Labour: 24025 (58.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 3814 (9.2%)
Referendum: 1036 (2.5%)
Other: 389 (0.9%)
Majority: 11944 (28.9%)
Boundary changes: Copeland ceases to be coterminus with Copeland council, taking in the wards of Crummock, Dalton, Derwent Valley and Keswick from Allerdale.
Profile: Seat on the remote west coast of Cumbria. The constituency is a mixture of hill farming countryside, impressive Lake District wilderness, including Scafell Pike itself, and somewhat economically depressed former mining or iron working towns. The main town is Whitehaven. Historically a coal mining town and commericial port, mining ceased in the 1980s. The Marchon chemical factory also closed in 2005 leaving the nearby Sellafield nuclear power complex as the most important source of local employment. Keswick, to the north of the constituency, was the first palce to produce graphite pencils and remains the base of Derwent, the manufacturers of fine art pencils. Other towns include Cleator Moor, Egremont and Millom.
Copeland is the first area to fully switchover to digital television. Analogue television signals in the area will cease between October and November 2007.
Current MP: Jamie Reed(Labour) born 1973, Whitehaven. Educated at Whitehaven school and Manchester University. Former press officer for Sellafield and Copeland councillor. First elected as MP for Copeland in 2005. PPS to Tony McNulty. (more information at They work for you)
Chris Whiteside (Conservative) . Educated at St Albans school and the University of Bristol. Economist, working for BT Global Services. Currently a St Albans councillor, standing down in May 2007 having re-located to Cumbria. Contested Copeland in 2005.Jamie Reed(Labour) born 1973, Whitehaven. Educated at Whitehaven school and Manchester University. Former press officer for Sellafield and Copeland councillor. First elected as MP for Copeland in 2005. PPS to Tony McNulty. (more information at They work for you)
Frank Hollowell (Liberal Democrat) born 1959, London. Educated at Spencefield Secondary. Mental health nurse.
Jill Perry (Green) Jam maker and former teacher.
Ted Caley-Knowles (UKIP) 
Clive Jefferson (BNP)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 79416
Male: 49.7%
Female: 50.3%
Under 18: 21.8%
Over 60: 23%
Born outside UK: 2%
White: 99.3%
Asian: 0.2%
Mixed: 0.3%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 85.4%
Full time students: 1.5%
Graduates 16-74: 16.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 32.9%
Owner-Occupied: 68.2%
Social Housing: 21.8% (Council: 12.5%, Housing Ass.: 9.4%)
Privately Rented: 6.1%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8.7%
Except of course that Rutland no longer counts as a county authority but rather as a unitary. This means that there is nothing at all unusual about it being paired with the county for constituency puposes.
Indeed, my own unitary authority in Stoke is also paired with Staffs county.
By that logic, Shropshire, Wiltshire, Northumberland and County Durham are no longer counties.
I think technically you’re right, they’re not counties anymore. Isn’t that the case with Berkshire ?
No I dont think that is the case. Berkshire is still a ceremonial county as are durham, Shropshire and Wiltshire. Rutland ceased to be a county in 1973 when it was annexed to Leicestershire. Though it became a seperate unitary authority subsequently it did not recover the status of a county.
Well Berkshire is slightly different in that it doesn’t really exist anymore-all its constituenct parts having been granted unitary authority status.
I think that what the boundary commission do is to take all the unitary authorities making up the former Berkshire county as a single review area.
And of course in the case of Durham, Northumberland and Cornwall, the commission will continue to review the area together because they are now single unitary authorities covering all of the former counties.
Oh I don’t know, could be fun trying to reduce the number of MPs by X% necessitating the combining of Cornwall with Devon
The districts of Berkshire were granted unitary status but NOT county status. Berkshire remains a county.
Legal county status is generally taken to mean ceremonial counties. These are defined in law (most recently the Leuitenancies Act 1997) independently of the arrangements for local government.
But most importantly, counties are a form of identity with deep roots in tradition and public consciousness – regardless of laws or boundary changes through time a county exists and has given
boundaries if enough people believe and accept that it does. Hence the continued existence of Huntingdonshire, Rutland, Middlesex, Westmoreland and any number of other counties, divisions and traditional boundaries in common usage regardless what offiial sources
might say.
Bring back the Hundred of Amounderness, I say!
No, er, I think this really shows the consequences of having an unwritten constitution and governments of all colours who, when bored, decide to go for some sporadic reshuffling of local government.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way
Is the rise of the BNP here recent? I spotted that they polled 10-15% in the locals.
Lancs Observer – don’t want to repeat what’s already been debated in great detail up thread: if you look at pages 6 to 9 there is quite a lot of detail about how the BNP went from failing to get the ten signatures to stand in the 2007 council elections to the performance you describe.
There are now six declared candidates, four of whom (myself, Jamie Reed, Frank Hollowell for the Lib/Dems and Edward Caley-Knowles for UKIP) also contested the previous Copeland seat in 2005. The other two candidates are Jill Perry (Green) and Clive Jefferson (BNP)
jill perry is the green party candiate in copeland.
The figures are definitely wrong here. It looks like the Keswick ward has been added but not the 3 rural Tory wards. Is it possible this can be corrected and moved to where it ought to be on the list of target seats? If my maths is correct it should be around about 125 – quite a massive difference from 167!
This is a very strange seat. It’s very politically divided in that there are rock solid “Labour” areas and rock solid “Tory” areas but relatively few wards have changed hands in recent years (Bransty, Hillcrest, Millom; Moresby has swung back and forth) compared to other parts of the country where some constituencies have seen their councillor count go from 100% Labour to 100% Tory.
The BNP are the main challengers to Labour in several Labour wards but this’ll probably be the only seat in the country where I can see the Greens taking votes off the Tories. Proposals to build 3 nuclear power stations in the constituency are extremely unpopular in the rural (ie. Tory) parts of the constituency and it’s a massive issue locally.
…and I can’t see that those who were ideologically opposed to nuclear power in 2005 would have voted for a nuclear spin doctor!
I understand that Keswick is a 3 way marginal in terms of GE voting patterns. The 3 rural wards are a gift to the Tories (minus the anti-nuclear Green effect).
That’s interesting WCV. Anthony is there any truth in what he says?
Chris Whiteside has made this point in some detail. Thrasher & Rallings agree and give a notional Labour majority here of 5,157 ( 13.2%)
I would also add that due to the politically divided nature of this constituency it’s impossible to get a sense of what’s happening here. It entirely depends where you are and who you talk to.
I was in one of the more “down at heal” parts of Copeland with a friend at the weekend who said “this is Toxteth in the shadow of the Lake District”. That gives you some indication of the social extremes this constituency contains.
I also treat “marginals polls” with some suspiscion when applied here since a significant proportion of both the Labour and Tory vote here is their “core vote”.
If there’s evidence that Labour and/or the Tories are piling up votes in their “heartlands” then there’s a strong argument to be made that they are piling up votes in their wards here in Copeland. eg. if Labour are piling up votes in (say) South Shields then the chances are they’re also piling up votes in Cleator Moor. Does that make sense?
In short, it’s a “battle of the turnouts”.
Yes, some marginals have a lot of typical middle ground voters, others are extremely polarised. This is one of the latter, although there are middle-ground areas like Keswick & Millom at opposite ends ot the new constituency.
Yes that’s right and some seats which look safe on paper may not be because of the size of the middle-ground or swing voters – I would suggest the Southampton seats as an example. The old Kensington seat pre-1997 was the best example of the other kind of marginal being extremely polarised between a wealthy and solidly Tory south and a relatively impoverished and solidly Labour north. There were not many swing voters there and as such it didn’t swing very much (though Labour would certainly have won that seat in 1997)
Lab Hold= 4,000 maj
Lab Hold
Maj 2800
Lab maj 1,000
despite national policy lib dems here are not anti nuclear
mep chris davies as long been at odds with his party on this and the general election candidate has said he is in support of one more generation of nuclear power stations.
in a constituency with many nuclear workers it will be interesting if to see if greens pick up all anti nuclear vote or if some still goes to lib dems
LAB HOLD
Con Gain now
no Pete for once I was right & you were wrong
…..first-time incumbency has been generally a good factor for Labour in 2010. There are exceptions but not too many.
This result is a genuine personal triumph for Jamie Reed.
The Tory vote did enjoy a significant numerical increase, but the Labour vote also increased numerically. The Tories worked this seat hard – and there was evidence locally of significant money being spent – but they were up against a popular MP with a strong track record on local issues. Attempts by his political opponents – of every colour – to undermine his credibility obviously didn’t work.
Jamie Reed has worked this seat extremely hard for five years – something the Copeland electorate weren’t used to because his predecessor, Jack Cunningham, was hardly in the constituency for much of the 35 years he was the MP – particularly during his many years on Labour’s front bench.
If you look at the local election results – even 12 months ago when Labour still held onto 7 of the 12 County Council wards – this seat has the potential to be much safer for Labour than it has been in recent decades – provided it continues to be “worked” with the same energy as Jamie Reed has put in over the past 5 years.
In other news…..
* The local BNP campaign backfired horridly when a leading light in the local party, Simon Nicholson, left and had a full page expose in the Mirror the sunday before the election. The BNP candidate, Clive Jefferson made a complete hash of his campaign, failing to show up at hustings he was invited to and an online webchat. There were also rumours that he had problems with his leaflets – having them printed off but failing to put his name or constituency on it. Spending most of the campaign in Barking helping Nick Griffin also wouldn’t have helped his campaign – but it left the door open for Labour to capitalise on his absence in their traditional heartlands.
*Jamie Reed spent a week of the campaign in hospital, being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. People wondered whether this might have resulted in a “sympathy vote”. I’m not sure. Any sympathy vote would have been cancelled out by his inability to be on the doorstep or attend hustings during the second half of the campaign. Significantly, he wasn’t able to do anything meaningful in Keswick where he isn’t really known and hasn’t been able to build up a reputation – beyond what he was able to there during last November’s devastating floods (in his capacity as Deputy Regional Minister). Ministerial visits (notably Ed Miliband) had to be cancelled – though, given the unpopularity of the national party, this may have actually helped the local campaign.
Like Barrow, the Lib Dem vote was squeezed. This may have been the reverse psychology of Cleggmania – ie. it made the Lib Dems enough of a threat for the main parties to have to remind voters that they were anti-nuclear new build. Also, Keswick’s Lib Dems who could have previously voted Lib Dem safely in the knowledge they were in a safe Labour seat, found themself in a marginal and consequently may have changed their voting behaviour.
Interesting analysis WCV, but the collection of factors mentioned “In other news” don’t so much suggest that Jamie Reed is “destined for greatness” as you suggest on the Tooting thread today, as suggest the Conservatives did quite well in the circumstances to increase their vote and cut JR’s majority (OK, I also read your bit about R and Thrasher’s notional being different etc., but even so)
By way of clarification, I was merely responding to the suggestion that because Sadiq Khan had kept the swing to the Tories down to a mere 3.5%, he was destined for greatness. On that basis, having kept the Tory swing down to a mere 2.1% (in a WWC constituency) then it would logically follow that Jamie Reed is destined for greatness too.
If you read back through this thread, you will note that there has been much debate on UKPR’s figures – including contributions from the Tory PPC, Chris Whiteside. Railings & Thrasher put the notional majority at 13.24%. Incidentally Electoral Calculus had even narrower notionals but these were based on local election results which I was confident were inaccurate, mainly due to uncontested Tory wards.
It was on the basis of Railings & Thrasher’s 13.24% that Copeland was considered a key marginal by both the Labour and Tory parties, requiring a 6.62% swing – less than the 6.9% the Tories required for an overall majority. Indeed, the Tory PPC went on record repeatedly to say that he had a more than 50% chance of taking the seat.
As for the “in other news”
This was the first time the BNP fought the parliamentary seat: their presence made the seat MORE vulnerable than the 13.24% indicated. They had got over 3000 votes at the Euro/local elections 12 months ago.
Jamie Reed was ill for the second half of the campaign – and therefore was not on the campaign trail or the doorstep.
I can assure you that from the reaction of both Jamie Reed and Chris Whiteside to the declaration that neither of them was expecting it to be such a comfortable “Labour hold”.
The Boundary Commission are looking to expand Copeland to include Windermere as part of their Boundary Review. I’m putting forward a counter-proposal that will see the merging of the Copeland and Workington constituencies, meaning that this one will likely to remain Labour.
http://www.rickseymour.com/posts/1068/whitehaven-and-workington-constituency/
It has been agreed in principle by Jamie Reed (via Twitter)