Don Valley
2010 Results:
Conservative: 12877 (29.65%)
Labour: 16472 (37.93%)
Liberal Democrat: 7422 (17.09%)
BNP: 2112 (4.86%)
UKIP: 1904 (4.38%)
English Democrat: 1756 (4.04%)
Independent: 887 (2.04%)
Majority: 3595 (8.28%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 19889 (52.1%)
Conservative: 10674 (28%)
Liberal Democrat: 6848 (17.9%)
Other: 763 (2%)
Majority: 9215 (24.1%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 10820 (29.4%)
Labour: 19418 (52.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 6626 (18%)
Majority: 8598 (23.3%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 10489 (28.6%)
Labour: 20009 (54.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 4089 (11.2%)
UKIP: 777 (2.1%)
Other: 1266 (3.5%)
Majority: 9520 (26%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 10717 (24.6%)
Labour: 25376 (58.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 4238 (9.7%)
Referendum: 1379 (3.2%)
Other: 1847 (4.2%)
Majority: 14659 (33.7%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Caroline Flint(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Matthew Stephens (Conservative) Born Yorkshire. Educated at Lancaster University. Runs an employee engagement agency.Caroline Flint(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Edwin Simpson (Liberal Democrat) Contested Don Valley October 1974, 1979 for the Liberal party.William Shaw (UKIP)Erwin Toseland (BNP) Bernadete Aston (English Democrat) William Martin (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 95245
Male: 49.4%
Female: 50.6%
Under 18: 23.2%
Over 60: 21.3%
Born outside UK: 2.5%
White: 98.5%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.5%
Mixed: 0.5%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 81.7%
Full time students: 2%
Graduates 16-74: 12.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 37.7%
Owner-Occupied: 72.8%
Social Housing: 19.5% (Council: 18.2%, Housing Ass.: 1.2%)
Privately Rented: 4.2%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 5.2%
Final nominations of candidates with my projection of the order they will finish in (unless polls take another mad change of direction over the next 2 weeks)
1 Caroline Flint Labour
2 Edwin Simpson Liberal Democrats
3 Matt Stephens Conservative
4 Bernie Aston English Democrats
5 Martin Williams Independent
6 William Shaw UK Indepedence Party
7 Erwin Toseland BNP
Not sure how the above threads put Caroline Flint as a clear winner – I can’t think of any of my friends or family, all of whom were Labour voters of many years, even considering voting for her. Liberals or Conservatives will be getting my vote. We need a change – and Caroline Flint has proven to us that she can’t change. Simple.
Its certainly unpredicable Piners. If the Labour Party stay this low in the polls there will be some surprise casualties – and Flint could be one. She may be saved here by the lack of a clear frontrunner to capitalise. I guessed Lib Dems 2nd on the basis of their rising poll share and having a well known local candidate unlike the Tories, but its not a clear case.
If you let in the Liblabcon nothing will change, just look at Doncaster council dominated by Labour and the Liberals for many years and what a mess they have created!
Ladbrokes have suspended the Betting!!
The only two reasons a bookie would suspend betting are fraud or only one possible winner. I suspect the latter.
Two more probable reasons for suspending the constituency betting (They’ve suspended all 650).
1. They’re shortening the Tories following the polls and the betting suggesting an increasing gap to Lab and LD. They suspended all constituencies following the first leader debate when the polls moved heaviliy towards LD. Perhaps it is time for an adjustment.
2. Their back end system simply suspends these markets at a pre-set time.
Other firms have not suspended betting.
Either way, I expect the markets back tomorrow
LAB HOLD
Labour Hold, with 3,595 Majority
10.6% swing Lab to Conservative. Caroline has held, JUST.
This is now a marginal seat!
The prize goes to Barnaby!
Now will the next election be October?
”Labour Hold, with 3,595 Majority
10.6% swing Lab to Conservative. Caroline has held, JUST.
This is now a marginal seat!”
Wow!! I thought this seat was staunch Labour!!! What on earth happenend here?
I think I won the prize actually with my prediction of a 4,500 majority I was closer than any of the others. The movement of this seat towards marginality is not a surprise and has been well discussed on this thread.
I’m not surprised either. The oddity is why Labour did so much better in Bassetlaw (a neighbouring & hitherto similar seat) than here. The East of this seat has some good Tory areas and in a bad Labour year it’s not surprising if it becomes less than safe. Indeed we were expecting to do a lot worse than we actually did in 2005 when Flint’s majority hardly dropped at all.
I’m still unclear,
why did this happen (despite large swings nearby)?
Although it’s more an odds and sods swing.
JJB:
I’m lead to believe from people who know the constituency far better than me that there are big issues with Caroline Flint’s popularity.
I don’t know whether that is the case, but it’s noteworthy that the biggest swing in South Yorkshire, in Barnsley East, also seemed to be driven by issues with the candidate (parachuted in replacing a popular local MP).
As the lost Labour support sprayed around everywhere it must be a problem with them, rather than a strong opposition.
“I’m lead to believe from people who know the constituency far better than me that there are big issues with Caroline Flint’s popularity.”
I’ve always liked Caroline Flint, unlike many parachuted in MPs she has made a genuine effort to settle in the area. She’s certainly more impressive than her predecessor.
She didn’t have expenses issues unlike Rosie Winterton either.
But then I seriously underestimated the popularity of John Mann in Bassetlaw so perhaps I’m wrong about Flint as well.
Of course there are certain politicians who impress people who wouldn’t vote for them more than they do their own supporters. And vice cersa.
Speaking from knowledge and experience of the area I understand that the Conservative candidate was actually a decent candidate for once.
I think issues around the labour group in the area (including the Council) goes to show that Labour are losing hold of what would never be considered anything other than a Labour seat.
Conservatives, if they continue to put good candidates up, could see this seat swing.
Let’s be clear about this. The Tory vote barely rose at all. It has hovered in the mid 20s for a long, long time. Labour’s vote share went, primarily, to the BNP, UKIP and EDs (a surpirsingly good result for the EDs here, the presence of which may have denied the BNP a return of their deposit). Dissatisfied Labour voters seem, as they seem to have done in many Northern seats that weren’t marginal, gone to the nationalists. Now that this seat is marginal, they may “come home” to Labour at the next election to stop the Tories taking the seat.
Then again, maybe they won’t, in which case it’d be a massive coup for the Conservatives…
That’s quite right, and they may just increase their majority again.
But surely there was a Tory threat this year, certainly nationally,
so it’s rather poor they didn’t turn out better.
“Dissatisfied Labour voters seem, as they seem to have done in many Northern seats that weren’t marginal, gone to the nationalists. Now that this seat is marginal, they may “come home” to Labour at the next election to stop the Tories taking the seat.”
They wont.
These voters are gone for good from Labour.
Although many of the UKIP and EDP votes would have been from previous Conservative voters in any case who were unimpressed by the Cameron brand of Conservatism.
Labour’s loss of private sector WWC votes is a mirror image of the Conservative loss of support among urban public sector professionals.
It’s been a long term trend and all the economic and political issues suggest it is going to continue.
Whether the Conservatives can actually get the ‘rightist’ voters to support them is another issue.
The Labour vote is 8% down compared to 1983 here. This could become Labour’s equilivent to Hove, in the future.
No way.
The big movement was from Lab to BNP, UKIP and Eng Dem (together 13% of the vote). Tories rose by a measly 1% and still under 30% of the vote.
If those voters couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Cameron despite his pre-election dog whistling to the right, they definitely won’t do so since he’s watered down most of it to go into coalition with the Lib Dems.
Labour are safe here at least for now.
“If those voters couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Cameron despite his pre-election dog whistling to the right, they definitely won’t do so since he’s watered down most of it to go into coalition with the Lib Dems.”
What dog whistling was that?
Perhaps you think ‘vote blue go green’ and ‘hug a hoodie’ is dog whistling to the disgruntled white working class? Or making a big thing of increasing overseas aid but to doing nothing about immigration?
Promising to increase the inheritance tax threshold might be a dog whistle in Beckenham but it means sod all in areas where houses cost under £100K.
It’s also wrong to suggest that the UKIP and EDP vote came exclusively from Labour here. Many of them would have been previous Conservative voters.
In the USA the regional effect of a Presidential candidate is often talked about. I wonder what would have happened if Davis (or Hague) had been the Conservative leader?
Well Evan Harris would still be the Oxford West MP but I suspect that the Conservatives would have won several more seats in the north and in particular Yorkshire.
“Tories rose by a measly 1% and still under 30% of the vote.”
To be fair, on the ‘official’ figures (ie Thrasher & rallings) their share rose by more like 3% – the boundary changes were distinctly unhelpful to the Tories here and on those notionals added nearly 3,000 to the notional Labour majority for 2005. That said the Tory increase was still far less than it could have been in a seat like this and this is because, as you say, that many such voters opted instead for other parties with a more avowedly right wing stance. This was not in spite of any ‘dog whistling’ that you imagine took place but because just as described by Richard, the whistling was of a different pitch and aimed fruitlessly at an entirely different breed of dog.
Are houses as cheap as that here?
The Tory share looks as though it’s struggling to increase substantially, even if Labour’s vote has fragmented badly.
It tends to suggest the ball is in Labour’s court to get some of their own people back,
but the long term trend is probably slowly against them.
Joe
Properties currently for sale on RightMove for under £100K:
Doncaster 488
Mexborough 94
Rotherham 507
Barnsley 1065
Sheffield 1100+
Worksop 178
Retford 74
Pontefract 80
Castleford 226
Normanton 77
Knottingley 57
Goole 92
Brigg 17
Scunthorpe 394
Barton 63
Immingham 42
Cleethorpes 141
Grimsby 603
Gainsborough 271
You can easily buy a 3 bed semi in a respectable area for £100K or a 4 bed detached in a top area (in a Conservative ward) for £200K.
Prices in South Yorkshire / South Humberside are approximately 20% of those in Twickenham.
Gainsborough is astonishingly cheap with terraced houses on sale for under £40K – and you get Edward Leigh as your MP too!
On a political point I sometimes think that the Conservative leadership regards West London as too representative of the country as a whole.
Richard I was referring to Cameron’s pledge to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands, and the fact that it has now been kicked into the long grass by the Lib Dems in government.
Houses in Beckenham, as in the rest of SE London, are cheap compared to the London average (probably half the price of Twickenham).
I do think you overdo this faux class war stuff. Why don’t you leave that to John Prescott, who is far less intelligent than you.
HH
The immigration pledge was meaningless as it didn’t relate to that from Eastern European which is the type that affects constituencies like this.
The nett 50,000 non-EU a year was almost as worthless as it would still have allowed 250,000 mostly third world immigrants every year.
Not what I would call a dog whistle policy to the right.
As to the class war stuff its only what I hear every day. Stewart Jackson, Peterborough’s Conservative MP, put it well in an article on ConHome:
“With our maternity services creaking under the strain; our levels of youth unemployment and NEETs amongst the highest in England; people trafficking and the sex trade increasing; school results stalling as the number of pupils whose first language is not English rises; and the proliferation of whole neighbourhoods of houses in multiple occupation with poor EU migrants exploited by Rachman-like landlords, I am disinclined to shoot Ed Balls the messenger when his message is actually true.
The impact of EU migration on the less well educated, less skilled and less mobile indigenous workforce has been profound and damaging.
Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that it has all been negative – but we must acknowledge that it has imposed economic and social costs too on a number of communities across the UK.
Some of my colleagues in the south of England might make mention of the skinny organic latte they can pick up in a chi chi Polish deli – and certainly world cities like London and Manchester can both absorb and attract a variety of bright and skilled people, like pharmacists, IT specialists, engineers and doctors – many of whom will leave a demonstrable economic footprint and some might indeed choose to make a long term commitment to the UK – and good for them.
What of us in Peterborough – the centre of food processing and packaging and agriculture in the Eastern region? Our situation is very different. Low wage and low skill EU workers will leave no such enduring economic legacy when and if they return to their home nations, but in the meantime have pushed some youngsters out of the jobs market and kept them dependent on a lax welfare benefits system with all its socially corrosive effects. Whilst the Treasury reap the tax revenues and big agricultural concerns healthy profits, it has fallen to my local taxpayers to pick up the financial bill in areas like community policing, primary care and social housing.”
And in the Apr-Jun period employment of UK national rose by 43,000 while those of non-UK nationals increased by 147,000 of whom 54,000 were from Eastern Europe.
It would be devastating for the Conservatives if they became regarded as the party of big business and property developers on the one hand and urban trendies on the other.
But that’s what they’re risking doing.
And in my view it would be even more devastating for the government to pull us out of the EU, which would be the only way to end immigration from Eastern Europe.
But this is at least an honest debate and I respect the point of view you hold.
I totally agree with you that on many occasions Cameron has appeared to intimate he would do something about Eastern European immigration which, as you point out, was completely meaningless given that he is committed to our EU membership.
Richard –
It would be devastating for the Conservatives if they became regarded as the party of big business and property developers……..
But surely that’s how they’re already perceived amongst many people.
HH
I’m not saying there’s an easy solution to this but the government needs to find one somehow.
We’re in a situation where we’re expecting public sector job losses, who will mostly be British people, and hoping that private sector job creation will find them work afterwards.
But it wont if 3 out of 4 new jobs instead go to new immigrants.
There was last quarter over 550,000 Eastern Europeans working in this country.That’s over 50,000 more than there was BEFORE the recession.
Who knows how high they’re number can go – 1 million? 2 million?
But if immigration continues at this level there will be a political backlash.
“But surely that’s how they’re already perceived amongst many people.”
Indeed.
But Labour are perceived to be as well by many people, some of whom also think the label applies to the Conservatives.
It’s not a label that any party should want sole custody of.
What most worries me is WHY employers prefer to hire Eastern Europeans to native Brits.
The fact that they are prepared to work for less is not the only reason, and indeed the difference between wages in Poland and the UK has narrowed due to the development of Poland and the decline of the pound.
On average Eastern Europeans are harder working , have a better standard of general education, a better attitude to work and a better grasp of foreign languages.
It comes back to the fact that their education system is more based on the 3Rs and traditional respect and discipline, as is the case with upbringing of children in general.
Of the many Polish people I have encountered in London the most common thing I hear from them is “I cannot believe how disrespectful children are here and how soft their parents are with them”.
Personally I hope we can tackle the problem from this end – but my hopes aren’t high.
It’s all about expectations IMO. Most Poles would probably regard it as a step up in life to work in Britain, even in a job which isn’t particularly attractive. But most British people expect and hope to be doing something better, so if they end up doing a low paid job they’re not going to be as enthusiastic and motivated as Eastern Europeans at it. So employers prefer to hire the more motivated workers.
That might not be a politically correct point to make but I think it’s true nonetheless.
Yes I agree.
It’s particularly important in the work Stewart Jackson’s speech mentions above, such as back-breaking agricultural jobs.
It can sometimes be the other way round: for example some British people are happy to do low-paid jobs for a short time in places like Australia, Canada or the US. The reason they’re motivated to do those jobs is because they’re pleased to have the opportunity to be living in a foreign country they’ve always wanted to visit.
We need people from Eastern Europe to install some back-bone back into the British way of life.
HH is largely correct.
I do understand it’s very tough on people, but we have to adapt to it.
Many thanks Richard, for the housing figures.
I was thinking of looking at that site, but noticed recently they’d revamped it in a particularly foolish way, removing the virtual map which made it very easy to scan lots of information from different areas.
(Of course, there’s lots and lots of backbone still here already,
but Eastern Europe augments it).
I may have sounded too loaded.
Joe
The problem is that the people who suffer from increased immigration are not those at the bottom but those two or three rungs up ie people who want to work but have limited skills and abilities.
It is these people who refuse to be welfare addicted layabouts and are trying to do the right thing by working hard that are being undercut by immigrants with a higher skill level and are able to work for less money.
Who gains from ever increasing immigration – big business and property developers as wages are held down and rents held up. And the Polly Toynbees who can talk about their cheap Polish plumbers and hardworking Lithuanian nannies at their posh dinner parties.
The advantages and disadvantages need to be shared out more equally.
That is a fair point, actually Richard. I acknowledge.
It can hit the wrong target (like the Poll Tax which hit the working poor whilst the freeloaders and layabouts get social security or don’t register anyway).
But I don’t know what alternative policy I can offer as I accept free movement within the EU (despite being Euro sceptic on most other areas).
I think the fact that I could go and work in Poland or Germany and set up a business – not saying I would – but I like the idea that I would be free to do so.
in the over-sized Don Valley in 1979, Labour piled up 39,000+ and the Tories had 22,000+.
I think the Tories could carry one or two villages then.
Did anybody else see the snippet in “The Independent” for 5th. January about Caroline Flint in connection with the “Rear of the Year” contest?
I shall try to forbear views on the morality and taste of this contest. I would imagine Caroline Flint might in principle disapprove in terms of PC, but perhaps find the publicity not unhelpful.
Anyway, in view of the comparative lack of elections elsewhere at the moment (other than in Oldham, of course) are there any purely psephological matters of interest in relation to the “Rear of the Year” contest?
Not sure Frederic, though a fair few could be candidates for the not-dissimilar “a***hole of the year award” I suppose
I’ve been a bit baffled by this apparent large drop in the Labour share in 2010.
I think it could be related partly to there being hardly any drop in 2005, being added on top in the 2010 swing.
The Tories haven’t improved much,
but I guess it could just be within their grasp should they make a clear net gain in LD defections vs what Labour is likely to pick up.
Or it could become a safer Labour seat again.
Yes I was thinking about this too. But perhaps there will be some recovery in the labour vote – up to 10% say as perhaps Labour must be recovering somewhere as working class voters might have something to vote against.
Labour certainly did pretty badly in its safe Yorkshire seats at the election (maybe they were just worried about saving Ed Balls seat).
Joe
The low swing in 2005 was itself a factor of the high Hague influenced swing in 2001.
“Labour certainly did pretty badly in its safe Yorkshire seats at the election (maybe they were just worried about saving Ed Balls seat).”
The swing in Morley was similar to the other Yorkshire mining areas and for the same reasons – recession, immigration and demographic change.
“The Tories haven’t improved much”
Well lets face it, if the Tories HAD improved much in 2010 its very possible that Caroline Flint may well now be an ex MP and Doncaster may well now have its first Tory memeber since 1964!
How unlikely would THAT have been?!
“But then I seriously underestimated the popularity of John Mann in Bassetlaw so perhaps I’m wrong about Flint as well.”
As it’s silly season (and I discovered that Tribune put all its archive online)….John Mann applied for selection here but wasn’t shortlisted by NEC. Yvette Cooper was also another applicant not shortlisted here
Pete has created better proposals for Yorkshire constituencies at another place.
One thing I would take issue with is that his new ‘Mexborough’ constituency would be better named ‘Don Valley’ while his ‘Don Valley’, which contains 4/7 wards of the current seat, should be named Bawtry or Finningley.
Thanks Richard – I didn’t receieve alot of rave reviews for my proposals in the other place. I did particulalry wonder what you might think of my Don Valley seat (the one you want renamed) – I think IIRC that would have been close to being a Tory seat in 2010. Do you live in that constituency?