Comments on: Durham North West

By: Phillip

Phillip — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:39:42 +0000

I’ve made a rather amateurish attempt at predicting the proposed new seat and added the 2008 election results up in these wards. I’ve ignored candidates not in the 3 main parties (Independents very strong in some wards) and, as the council seats are multi-member, I’ve only counted the votes for the leading candidate for each party. I get:
Con: 8019
Lab: 7649
Liberal: 3628.

No doubt methodolgy is highly flawed, but this seems like a very interesting potential seat and could produce a Tory seat in County Durham. Labour inclined Consett is sandwiched between Conservative South Northumberland and Barnard Castle.

By: Phillip

Phillip — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:51:23 +0000

Joe – I agree. I think the Lib Dem high point in Durham City has been and gone. There is a strong anti Tory sentiment in the North East and the Lib Dems will not be forgiven for joining the coalition. Wherever the boundaries are drawn all 6 seats will be safely Labour.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:22:11 +0000

That would put Labour one seat down,
assuming it’s done on a County basis.
But it would help make the City of Durham completely safe (which it may be already given the 2010 result and subsequent LD>Lab swings).

By: Barnaby Marder

Barnaby Marder — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:05:25 +0000

There is a precedent for that – there wasn’t a Sedgefield constituency between 1974 & 1983 either.

By: Phillip

Phillip — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 14:28:51 +0000

It looks likely that Sedgefield will be dismembered and shared out amongst its neighbours. Durham NW gains a few areas from City of Durham and loses other areas to Durham North.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sun, 29 May 2011 17:38:18 +0000

All Durham Labour MPs aren’t old and have entered the Commons quite recently. So I guess none of them would like to retire. I wonder who will be the one who will get the chop. I guess much could depend from the outcome of boundary review (how the new seats are compared to the previous constituencies)

By: Phillip

Phillip — Sun, 29 May 2011 15:51:29 +0000

It’ll be interesting to see what effect boundary changes have here as Durham will lose 1 seat. Moving the boundaries west to Stanley will make this much safer for Labour. Moving them south to take in some of Teesdale in a possible Durham West seat would probably cause the Conservatives to supplant the Liberals in second place. A third option is to move towards Chopwell in the Blaydon Seat to create a possible Derwent Valley seat. I would be very surprised if the Durham – Northumberland border was crossed.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:00:09 +0000

Labour’s hold seems to be weakening here. But it seems that both the Lib Dems and the Tories are trying to make inroads – surely there is only room for one, if there is to be a serious challenge.

But it could be Labour recovers several points, depending on the political situation over the next few years.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:47:17 +0000

LDs moved up slightly more than Tories though,
although both were significant.

I’m interesetd in your comment Joe,
what sort of trends or changes in the area are afoot ?

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:36:07 +0000

Seats like this are just going to get more like more and more marginal between the tories and labour. C.f. Brighton Kemptown going the other way