Comments on: Dover

By: Frederic Stansfield

Frederic Stansfield — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:03:05 +0000

This seat is losing Sandwich to the proposed Margate and Ramsgate seat. This is quite sensible as Sandwich, whilst in the ares of Dover Council, is next door to Ramsgate, of which it is in effect a rich suburb, not that the yachtsmen and golfers go to Ramsgate much. Ramsgate was the main source of workers for Pfizer: they are all losing their jobs in the near future.

In exchange Dover gets a couple of wards from Folkestone constituency.

Charles Elphicke’s majority is calculated by Anthony to go up to a notional 7449, considerably more than the 4991 projected for Margate and Ramsgate and (which is being little noticed so far in East Kent) more than the 6795 Conservative majority over the Liberal Democrats projected in the redrawn Canterbury seat. The Conservative majority over LibDems in Folkestone and Hythe is 7927.

This seat will be an uphill struggle for Labour.

Charles Elphicke seems to be doing a pretty good job, for an MP who had to gain his seat, of navigating the Westminster political sea. He might be around for a considerable time.

By: Shaun Bennett

Shaun Bennett — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:08:13 +0000

I disagree with Pete on this one. The 1983 Plymouth Sutton that didn’t include the Sutton ward always seemed an anomoly-one of those anomolies we are usually very quick to slate the commission for producing.

Certainly, I think the commission did the right thing this time around. The only improvement I would have liked to see would be for Devon South West to regain its Plymouth prefix and become Plymouth Plymstock

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:00:16 +0000

They had done the same in 1983 when they moved Sutton ward from Plymouth Sutton to Plymouth Drake but they got round the problem by retaining the name Plymouth Sutton even though it no longer included the eponymous ward. I think they should have done the same thing this time

By: Tim Jones

Tim Jones — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:53:45 +0000

you can blame the boundary commision for that

there must have been a better way for them to have realigned the plymouth boundaries then by taking the one ward which happened to be the name of a seat which had existed since 1832 and transferred it to the cities other seat – which itself has existed since 1918

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:21:16 +0000

You are misunderstanding what occurred in the latest set of boundary changes Tim. It was not a case of the old Devonport being joined by half of Sutton – rather it was the case of the whole of the old Plymouth Sutton (itself the old Plymouth Drake) being joined by one ward (Devonport) from the Devonport seat which was thus renamed as Moor View. The situation is little more complicated because of ward boundary changes, but in essence Sutton & Devonport is the old (1997-2010) Plymouth Sutton, which was always likely to be something of a belweather seat

By: Tim Jones

Tim Jones — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:41:27 +0000

Exeter is a city seat and Labour continue to perform well in such seats but another major reason for their survival there is that the city also has a large public sector and public sector workers are a demographic that has become increasingly pro-Labour over the past few decades. Throw in linger memories of Adrian Rogers’ despicable behaviour’.

I think that’s right

I think most voters would have forgotten about the evangelical adrian rogers by now so the public sector vote is probably what saved it for labour as i\d assume its significantly more middle class seat than sutton & devonpart

‘Once again Tim, I’d remind you that neither Plymouth Sutton & Devonport nor any of its equivalent seats past & present has ever been safe for Labour.’

the sutton area of plymouth has never been reliably labour but i thought devonport was their best part of the city. I accept that pairing it with half (I assume) of wards from sutton would make the new seat more marginal but you’d still expect labour to be trimphant in an ‘even’ year

By: Barnaby Marder

Barnaby Marder — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:55:01 +0000

Once again Tim, I’d remind you that neither Plymouth Sutton & Devonport nor any of its equivalent seats past & present has ever been safe for Labour. This may be the services influence, but the fact remains. Labour has still only ever won the seat (in the incarnation at that time of Plymouth Sutton) on one solitary occasion when the party didn’t form a government, in 1970 when David Owen narrowly held on, so it’s not entirely fair to suggest it should be a safe seat rather than a marginal as it actually is.

By: akmd

akmd — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:52:09 +0000

By: Tim Jones

Tim Jones — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:10:29 +0000

‘That description does not really fit Brighton IMO. It may have been that way 20 years ago but the city is now quite a nice area and I’m sure has a better economy than back in the 1980s. Tories were lucky to get seats as the area is becoming more like other progressive cities like Oxford, Cambridge and Norwich with its voting habits.’

Quite right – as a resident i’m well aware that brighton is one of the boom coastal towns (or should that be city) that’s avoided the problems associated with the other seaside towns i mentioned

what it shares with them though is a tory vote in sharp decline – despite the party’s relative success vin hove and kemptown

‘Don’t forget that the seat Labour lost in Plymouth, Tim, has no real resemblance to the Plymouth Devonport seat won easily by the party until 2010.’

i’m well aware of that but ever since the comfortable surburban communities to the east of plymouth were moved into devon south west in 97, the two remainig urban seats ought to be reliably labour – although after the hammering they got in 2010 there weren’t many southern seats which fitted that definition

the big surprise for me was holding exeter

By: Barnaby JL Marder

Barnaby JL Marder — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:51:36 +0000

Indeed I did – “I understand that there have been several defections from LD to Labour in the city today. Good publicity for Labour but I still incline very slightly towards CON GAIN.” I wrote in May 2010.
Isn’t it odd how off-topic the contributions under Dover have become! Apologies…