Devon South West
2010 Results:
Conservative: 27908 (55.97%)
Labour: 6193 (12.42%)
Liberal Democrat: 12034 (24.14%)
UKIP: 3084 (6.19%)
Green: 641 (1.29%)
Majority: 15874 (31.83%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 20872 (44.5%)
Labour: 11299 (24.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 11184 (23.9%)
Other: 3514 (7.5%)
Majority: 9573 (20.4%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 21906 (44.8%)
Labour: 11545 (23.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 11765 (24.1%)
UKIP: 3669 (7.5%)
Majority: 10141 (20.7%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 21970 (46.8%)
Labour: 14826 (31.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 8616 (18.4%)
UKIP: 1492 (3.2%)
Majority: 7144 (15.2%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 22695 (43%)
Labour: 15262 (28.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 12542 (23.7%)
Referendum: 1668 (3.2%)
Other: 650 (1.2%)
Majority: 7433 (14.1%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Gary Streeter(Conservative) Born 1955, Gosport. Educated at tiverton Grammar and Kings College London. Solicitor. Plymouth councillor 1986-1992, originally elected for the SDP. MP for Plymouth Sutton 1992-1997. MP for South West Devon since 1997 (more information at They work for you)
Gary Streeter(Conservative) Born 1955, Gosport. Educated at tiverton Grammar and Kings College London. Solicitor. Plymouth councillor 1986-1992, originally elected for the SDP. MP for Plymouth Sutton 1992-1997. MP for South West Devon since 1997 (more information at They work for you)
Luke Pollard (Labour) Born 1980, Plymouth. Educated at Exeter University.
Anna Pascoe (Liberal Democrat) Educated at Southampton Univerity. Hotel manager. Former Kerrier councillor.
Vaughan Brean (Green) Hugh Williams (UKIP) Contested Devon South West 2005. 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 86948
Male: 48.6%
Female: 51.4%
Under 18: 22.7%
Over 60: 22.2%
Born outside UK: 3.6%
White: 99.1%
Mixed: 0.4%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 79%
Full time students: 2.5%
Graduates 16-74: 18.4%
No Qualifications 16-74: 22.2%
Owner-Occupied: 83.8%
Social Housing: 6.8% (Council: 3%, Housing Ass.: 3.9%)
Privately Rented: 5.9%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 11.1%
Where did the ‘Other’ Candidate come from if he was not there in the ‘Actual 2005 Results’?
The 2005 results on each seat only list the votes for the three main parties.
“Other” votes are tricky to come up with notional figures for, partly because neighbouring seats don’t normally have the same others, so if just a small part of a ward moves into a new seat you end up with silly notionals like the Greens getting 4 votes in a constituency, and secondly because it’s rare to get councils where a third party has contested all the wards, so it is hard to estimate where an “other” draws most of their support from.
For that reason in the majority of seats “others” are just lumped together, the exceptions being Respect and the BNP in London, and other seats where “other” parties are a strong local presence, such as Health Concern in Wyre Forest and the Greens in Brighton.
The anti-Tory vote here is strong, but split down the middle.
If we get 2 hung parliaments in a row, and the Lib Dems manage to get some form of PR introduced, this is the sort of seat the Tories might be in trouble in.
Devon South West includes Plymstock and Plympton which are eastern suburbs of Plymouth, across the river Plym.
They were in Alan Clarke’s Plymouth Sutton seat.
They tend to vote Conservative and Labour.
The rural section – Devon proper – is more of a battle between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
The Tories are present in both sections. Their share of the vote slipped against the trend in 2005, but given a very likely national swing, it could actually exceed 50%.
These are two very different parts of the seat, so to just crudely expect people to exchange their votes for another party simplifies it even more than in most seats.
Labour did very well in 1997.
JJB
Lib Dems have actually been relatively strong over the years in Plympton – less so in Plymstock.
“If we get 2 hung parliaments in a row, and the Lib Dems manage to get some form of PR introduced, this is the sort of seat the Tories might be in trouble in. ”
The only form of ‘PR’ in which that statement could hold would presumably be AV in single member seats, since under STV or a list system in multi-member seats, this seat wouldn’t exist. AV is of course not remotely a proportional system.
The results in 1997 and 2001, and apparently the notional result for 2005 all had Labour in second place, with the Tories not much below 50%. In that case the Lib Dems would have been eliminated. For Labour to win would require not only that every Lib Dem voter had Labour as their second preference (unlikely enough in itself), but that most UKIP voters had too.
No-one here yet picked up on the powerful Lib Dem performance in gaining Yealmpton and neighbouring Erme Valley on May 3rd? After moving from 3rd to 2nd in the GE of 2005 that shows a trend developing perhaps?
But once again, the problem is that in Devon South West, the Lib Dems seem to be a far and distant prospect. The places where they REALLY needed to win control were in the Totnes constituency, in Torbay, Torridge, West Devon, North Devon and Mid Devon. Unfortunately, where it may have really mattered as a springboard to the general election, the people of Devon gave a huge rasberry to the Lib Dems!
My irony, I am afraid.
“No-one here yet picked up on the powerful Lib Dem performance in gaining Yealmpton and neighbouring Erme Valley on May 3rd? After moving from 3rd to 2nd in the GE of 2005 that shows a trend developing perhaps?”
Not really a powerful performance given that the successful candidate in Yealmpton has been angling for it for literally years and is a former county councillor. Additionally, whilst they may have done well in Yealmpton and Erme, the ward immediately next door- Brixton and Wembury- saw their vote halve on 2003, and they didn’t do very well in Bickleigh and Shaugh either. They’re going up across the district, but it’s very slow and they’ve benefited from Labour’s collapse. No trend as yet
Further to my above comment, I’ve had a quick look at the figures. On average, in 2007, the Lib Dems in the South Hams part of the constituency polled 39.7%. They did not contest all wards. The Conservatives polled, on average, 57.9%. They contested all the wards in the South Hams part of the constituency. I’d suggest that if the Lib Dems had contested all the seats, they’d have a lower vote share. In the Plymouth part of the constituency, the Lib Dems polled 17.1% on average, and whilst the contested all the seats up for grabs this year, they lost vote share compared to 2006. The Conservatives polled 57.2% on average in the Plymouth part of the constituency, and their vote share went up compared to 2006.
This does not look like a trend developing, especially as something like 65% of the voters are in the Plymothian wards, I can’t see the Lib Dems getting anywhere, and we may even see Labour coming back into second, unless the LDs can run a local campaign like last time- they’ll do well to find such a well known figure.
Easy Con hold- at least until the new town fully comes on stream, in which case it could become more marginal: I’d expect the Lib Dems to target here very heavily.
The District Councillor for Yealmpton, of course, also a previous PPC. Thanks for your informed comment and number crunching, Neil.
what is this about a new town ?
A new town of somewhere around 5000 homes is being built smack bang in the middle of the constituency where Plympton/Plymstock abut the South Hams.
http://www.southhams.gov.uk/index/sherford.htm
The Lib Dems have selected Anna Pascoe here
Was this one of the highest ukip shares? I saw in another place that ukip are targeting to get an mp in Plymouth. Is it this seat? I can’t see it being a 4way marginal for say 10years.
On Thursday the LDs gained Ivybridge Filham ward from the Conservatives.
UKIP in all reality have 1 target for this election, and that is Buckingham.
Cons Hold= 14,000 maj
Matt, UKIP may have only had one target 7 days ago, but today I think the mood of the country is for a sea change. And I think many more seats will get hit by the cross-fire. Maybe Cons will hold, but who will come second?
I was going to register, but see no point, how can you talk about Politics and a general election, without showing which party you favour ?. I will just say I have voted Labour and LIb Dems, in the past , I don’t trust any of the three main parties, so my vote will be going to UKIP.
Con Hold
Maj 14 200
Con maj 11,000
Vaughan Brean is standing as Green candidate here according to greensarecomingDOTorgDOTuk
Doesn’t seem any point in voting this time, as Cons appears again to be clear leader. Need some strong opposition candidates in SW Devon.
Obviously a Con Hold.. majority will depend on whetehr there is a strong Lab to LD switch. UKIP to progress
Con 23K
LD 12.5K
oh pressed Submit beofre i meant to
Lab 6K
Ukip 5K
CON HOLD
Good result for the Tories here.
Vote total up to 27,908 (56%), with a collapse in the Labour vote… the Lib Dems only up fractionally.
The majority is now 15,874 (31.8%).
This is now the safest seat in the South West for any party, just managing to pip Christchurch by around half a percent.
But it’s second to Christchurch in terms of seat with largest share of the vote in the South West for any party.
Straight swing of 12% from Labour to Conservative with the LDs flatlining.
I think this seat is the wealthiest in Devon.
following on from andy j’s comment, this is a fairly wealthy area of the Southwest and many of the people hold conservative views. This has always been the case in Plymouth, and is one of the main reasons the affluent suburbs of Plympton and Plymstock is included in the Devon south west constituency, opposed to the large working class populations that live in inter-city Plymouth as well as its estates.
Oh, I forgot to correct myself…
In one of the above posts I said this seat is “second to Christchurch in terms of seat with largest share of the vote in the South West for any party”.
In fact Bath (just) takes the top spot in the SW in terms of highest vote share for the winning party – though the majority in that seat is not as large as either here or Christchurch.
Comparing the 2010 result with the notional 1992 result (as calculated following the pre-’97 boundary review)…
the Conservatives are around 2% lower than in those notional ’92 figures
the Liberal Democrats are roughly 1% lower
Labour is more or less 3% lower
UKIP’s taken most of the lost vote share
The Tory % majority is now almost exactly the same as in the notional ’92 figures.