Devizes
2010 Results:
Conservative: 25519 (55.07%)
Labour: 4711 (10.17%)
Liberal Democrat: 12514 (27%)
UKIP: 2076 (4.48%)
Green: 813 (1.75%)
Independent: 566 (1.22%)
Others: 141 (0.3%)
Majority: 13005 (28.07%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 22017 (49.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 11035 (24.7%)
Labour: 9637 (21.6%)
Other: 1972 (4.4%)
Majority: 10982 (24.6%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 27253 (48.5%)
Labour: 12519 (22.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 14059 (25%)
UKIP: 2315 (4.1%)
Majority: 13194 (23.5%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 25159 (47.2%)
Labour: 13263 (24.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 11756 (22.1%)
UKIP: 1521 (2.9%)
Other: 1550 (2.9%)
Majority: 11896 (22.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 25710 (42.8%)
Labour: 14551 (24.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 15928 (26.5%)
Referendum: 3021 (5%)
Other: 826 (1.4%)
Majority: 9782 (16.3%)
Boundary changes: major changes. Around a third of the old oversized Devizes constituency moves into Wiltshire North and the new Chippenham seat, including Calne and Melksham. Devizes gains Durrington and Bulford from Salisbury.
Profile: A safe Conservative seat with the opposition split between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Devizes is largely made up of rural countryside, dotted with historic market towns. Main population centres include Devizes itself, home to Wadworth`s brewery, and Marlborough, with its famous public school. The seat has important military associations; to the South the constituency extends over part of Salisbury Plain and includes the Royal School of Artillery at Larkhill, Bulford Camp (12 Mechanised Brigade) and Tidworth (1st Infantry Brigade (Guards)).
Current MP: Claire Perry (Conservative) Educated at Nailsea Comprehensive and Oxford University. Former banker, now a policy advisor to George Osborne.
Claire Perry (Conservative) Educated at Nailsea Comprehensive and Oxford University. Former banker, now a policy advisor to George Osborne.
Junab Ali (Labour) Fiona Hornby (Liberal Democrat)Mark Fletcher (Green)Pat Bryant (UKIP) Nic Coome (Libertarian)Martin Houlden (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 87573
Male: 50.9%
Female: 49.1%
Under 18: 23.6%
Over 60: 19.1%
Born outside UK: 7%
White: 98.6%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.3%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.4%
Christian: 78.4%
Full time students: 1.7%
Graduates 16-74: 19.3%
No Qualifications 16-74: 22.4%
Owner-Occupied: 63.2%
Social Housing: 18.3% (Council: 2.7%, Housing Ass.: 15.6%)
Privately Rented: 7.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 4.7%
well it was an interesting afternoon…
General Jackson was amazing…
Claire Perry got it as the most local candidate but was a little lucky as the two men – Quin and Zahadi split the vote
She is good but clearly a banker and policy light – in truth no one candidate stood out – hence why there had to be several votes to get a winner.
Of more concern is the fact she was inactive in politics / not a conservative until 2006 when she was 43 – one asks why anyone would join a party, and fight previous elections [as both men had done] now that long term commitment to a cause is deemed such a dirty word? She is Osborne’s protege
Both men had more cabinet material about them, although claire is obviously not stupid
I have to say the comments re Z Zaidi are wrong – she was knocked out first with next to no votes, gave a terrible hectoring speech [ most notable was her "the country needs me comment"] and was more arrogant / in love with herself than anyone I have ever met..
The new Lib Dem candidate is Fiona Hornby who stood here in 2005
The Libertarian Party website seems to have stopped at Nic Coombe’s candidature. Wonder if the party are much of a going concern anymore?
Cons Hold= 13,000 maj
A raft of good candidates. UKIP and Libs may make it a three horse race here.
Labour org site has Junab Ali as Labour PPC for Devizes. (Same also on BBC GE2010 site.) Not sure what happened to Sharon Charity. Change has occurred in last two months.
Andrew Neil’s interview with the leader of the Libertarian Party on Daily Politics was an absolute disgrace.
Con Hold
Maj 12 700
Con maj 14,000
CON HOLD
A good Conservative vote share here, comparing with past decades (of course there’ve been boundary changes over the years).
In fact I think 55% is the largest share the Tories have got in a seat called Devizes, post WW2.
Conversely, 10% is the worst share Labour have got post ’45.
The Third Party has hit 26-28% several times over the past few decades, but I don’t think they’ve ever hit 30% in the post-war era.
This remains the safest Tory seat in Wiltshire.
By the by, the former MP Michael Ancram (who of course holds a hereditary peerage as 13th Marquess of Lothian) now sits in the House of Lords, having been given a life peerage, with the title of Baron Kerr of Monteviot, of Monteviot in Roxburghshire.
Pewsey Man’s comments were proven today. Perry was on the BBC’s Daily Politics. She’s craven re the Euro bailouts and constantly interrupts others. Andrew Neil said she was making him angry!
There are a couple of those in this Parliament ‘m afraid. Claire Perry is by no means the only one. Louise Mensch is another example.
I was listening to Mark Harper yesterday opposing a referendum on Lords reform and I found myself shouting that Mark Harper takes his opinion as whatever Cameron tells him it is. If cameron changes his mind, so will he.
Its much the same with people like Perry and Mensch. So desperate are they to get promotion, they are almost demeaning themselves.
The sad thing is that Perry will more than likely succeed given that she at least has a safe seat.
…be interesting to see her flip-flop though if a rightwinger became Tory leader.
Politics needs arse-licking careerists as well as independent minds.
If all MPs were like Douglas Carswell or Bill Cash, forming an effective government would be impossible.
Mark Harper came across very well on Newsnight yesterday, even if I personally am unsure about Lords reform. Clare Perry does have an irritating nannyish manner about her – a bit like Virginia Bottomley.
‘If all MPs were like Douglas Carswell or Bill Cash, forming an effective government would be impossible.’
Whilst the likes of Cash, Carswell and Dorries are far more interesting to listen to that careerist politicians like Perry, Harper and Mensch, leadership material they ain’t
I don’t have a tremendous amount of time for Mensch, but the Tories need people like Perry in their party to show that they are a broad church
For what it’s worth I think Perry is a genuine left-of-centre Tory who understands that the Tories will find it hard get a majority at the next election by solely appealing to voters on the Right
And yes – Harper did come across very well on last night’s Newsnight
She was at Brasenose at the same time intrestingly enough…, (I wasnt there until a good 20 years later!)
It would be interesting to note how far up a list of “most disliked Tory MPs amongst MPs of other parties/his/her own side” Claire Perry would come. She does rather remind me of the types I knew at Cambridge University who were desperate to ascend up the greasy pole of the Union Society – most of those have never been seen in politics subsequently, but one of them is now a prominent Tory MP. Perhaps “desperate” wouldn’t be entirely fair in his case though. (Will name him for a consideration.)
“She was at Brasenose at the same time intrestingly enough”
Is it Brasenose or Brownose?
Tim – you’re assuming she’s a Tory. She didn’t join the Party til she was 46. I’ve met and interviewed many politicians (admittedly mainly Cllrs & Mayors) and some struck me that they’d be in any Party, depending who was going to be in power. In fact, two went on to defect when the wind changed. She could be a ‘wet’ though apart from being affluent, I’m unsure how to classify them post-Thatcher. A Cameroon?
Barnaby – should we guess?
I guess ANdrew Mitchell
Given that I presume BM wasnt a union-type, more likely to be someone from Kings. If I remember right about 50. Jeremy Lefroy
What have been the boundary changes to this constituency since 1918?
Back in the 1960s this was a Tory – Labour marginal – indeed I recall some surprise when Labour failed to take the seat at the May 1964 by election. What are the reasons for Labour’s collapse here?
Very belatedly I’d like to answer Joe – no it wasn’t Jeremy Lefroy who wasn’t involved in the Union at all, and I actually like him as it happens. I might be thinking of the Hon Member for Harwich & North Essex perhaps.
Regarding Graham, I hadn’t noticed that this had been a marginal – certainly Labour were nowhere near taking it even in 1945. There clearly has been a weakening of the Labour vote especially after the Alliance gained second place in 1983, after which they actually flattered to deceive for a while, though Labour has periodically won a ward in Devizes itself & had sporadic success elsewhere. Most of Labour’s better areas in the seat as it used to be drawn have since been put into other constituencies, apart from the eponymous town itself, though Labour’s failure to compete wouldn’t be unique given the all-white & small-town nature of this seat.
I was surprised to see that Devizes was a marginal during the 1950s. The Conservative majorities being:
1945 17.2%
1950 3.1%
1951 4.0%
1955 5.4%
1959 9.5%
1964 8.7%
1966 5.4%
1970 14.6%
1974 15.6%
1974 12.0%
1979 25.3%
Clearly there must have been pro-Labour boundary changes in 1950 and pro-Conservative changes in 1974.
There does seem to have been a drift to the Conservatives during the 1960s though.
Possible explanations:
Collapse in Labour farmworkers vote?
Middle class commuter developments?
There were no boundary changes in 1974 – what happened was that the LIberal vote increased substantially and this increase came more at the expense of Labour than the Tories. This is more or less the reverse of what occurred in 1950 when the sizeable 1945 Liberal vote collapsed with Labour being the main beneficiaries. There were however boundary changes in 1950 which brought in the area around Highworth, where Labour are quite strong. This part of Devizes which later became part of the Thamesdown/Swindon local authority area remained int he seat until 1997 and by then it included a substantial part of Swindon itself and including some good Labour areas like Stratton St Margaret, though I don’t know to what extent this area was developed in the 1950s. Quite possibly number of councile estates were developed in the area during the 1950s which would account for Labour retaining a decent level of support then. By the time this area was removed in 1997, no fewer than 40,000 of the nearly 90,000 voters in Devizes were within the Swindon borough with most of these then becoming part of Swindon North
Another minor factor may be the army vote in places like Tidworth. There is evidence that this may have been more Labour inclined in the 1950s than in later decades, probably partly because we still had National Service then so the ranks would have reppresented a fairly typical cross section of the working class population whereas regular soldiers would tend more to the right and probably turned more against Labour following the major defence cuts in the 1960s
I thought the growth of Swindon would be involved somehow.
The majority being the same size in 1955 and 1964 brough Brierly Hill and Belper to mind.
But wouldn’t many National Service soldiers have been ineligible to vote as the age limit was 21 at that time?
Yes quite true – I didn;t think of that. There would have been a small number who deffered until after university, but they would have tended to be more Conservative. So forget the national service bit, but the point about the military vote probably still holds as a minor factor. The Swindon overspill is the main factor I guess
Peter,
Thanks for your explanation of what has changed here.