Harrogate and Knaresborough
2010 Results:
Conservative: 24305 (45.74%)
Labour: 3413 (6.42%)
Liberal Democrat: 23266 (43.79%)
BNP: 1094 (2.06%)
UKIP: 1056 (1.99%)
Majority: 1039 (1.95%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 25228 (51.8%)
Conservative: 17417 (35.8%)
Labour: 4461 (9.2%)
Other: 1558 (3.2%)
Majority: 7811 (16.1%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 13684 (31.9%)
Labour: 3627 (8.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 24113 (56.3%)
BNP: 466 (1.1%)
UKIP: 845 (2%)
Other: 123 (0.3%)
Majority: 10429 (24.3%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 14600 (34.6%)
Labour: 3101 (7.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 23445 (55.6%)
UKIP: 761 (1.8%)
Other: 272 (0.6%)
Majority: 8845 (21%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 18322 (38.4%)
Labour: 4159 (8.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 24558 (51.5%)
Other: 614 (1.3%)
Majority: 6236 (13.1%)
Boundary changes: The new seat is greatly expanded in area, the previous boundaries were quite tightly drawn around Harrogate and Knaresborough, the new seat gains the wards of Killinghall, Claro and Boroughbridge from Skipton and Ripon and the dismembered Vale of York constituency, adding a swatge of rural villages stretching out to the east of Harrogate.
Profile: A genteel North Yorkshire town that becaming a thriving spa town for the English elite in the nineteenth century and has more recently specialised as a conference venue, and has hosted several Liberal Democrat party conferences. The seat also includes the historic market town of Knaresborough to the East of Harrogate itself.
Seeped in affluent Victorian splendour and associated with antiques and teashops, historically Harrogate was the safe Conservative seat one might expect, but in 1997 it was lost to the Liberal Democrats by Norman Lamont, who stood in the seat after his own Kingston seat had been abolished as part of the boundary review. He was perceived as a carpetbagger and amongst the nationwide swing against the Tories lost the seat. Since then Phil Willis has built it into one of the Liberal Democrats` safer seats.
Current MP: Andrew Jones (Conservative) . Educated at Bradford Grammar and Leeds University. Marketing consultant. Chairman of the Bow Group from 1999-2000. Contested Harrogate in 2001.
Andrew Jones (Conservative) . Educated at Bradford Grammar and Leeds University. Marketing consultant. Chairman of the Bow Group from 1999-2000. Contested Harrogate in 2001.
Kevin McNerney (Labour) Employment lawyer for the RCN.
Claire Kelley (Liberal Democrat) born 1956, Elgin. Educated at University of Sussex. Casework assistant for Phil Willis. North Yorkshire county councillor 1997-2005 and Harrogate district councillor 1992-2002.
John Upex (UKIP) born Leeds. Businessman, running a manufacturing company. Contested Wakefield 2005 for UKIP, Haltemprice and Howden by-election 2008 as Independent.
Steve Gill (BNP) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 97869
Male: 48.2%
Female: 51.8%
Under 18: 22.5%
Over 60: 23%
Born outside UK: 6.4%
White: 98.2%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.3%
Mixed: 0.7%
Other: 0.6%
Christian: 77.8%
Full time students: 2.4%
Graduates 16-74: 25.2%
No Qualifications 16-74: 21.1%
Owner-Occupied: 77.5%
Social Housing: 9% (Council: 5.7%, Housing Ass.: 3.4%)
Privately Rented: 10.3%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8.3%
Cant see labour getting 20% here, if you forced the LDs here to choose labour or tory, the split would be strongly pro-tory. Disagree the LDs will collapse here. 45 35 10 is about the natural vote here.
I would actually be surprised if the Tory vote didn’t increase here, particularly if the Lib Dem vote falls by a bit.
The Labour vote here really can’t get above 9% as long as the majority for the Tories here is four figures. The natural vote is probably about 14-15% for them but it’s difficult to see how they could do that well- They’d have to rely on a massive Lib Dem collapse, which I don’t think will happen overnight considering the fact they still have councillors locally.
I last went to harrogate 3 years ago and I assumed Andrew Jones was heading for a ~7000 majority in 2015 but the Rossett by election might have upset the applecart here.
http://www.aldc.org/news/comment/3129/2/19/11/2012/Elections_Beating_the_Tories_in_Harrogate
Rossett is the closest Harrogate gets to a bit of a dump. (well along with Bilton).
Id be suprised if both areas didnt vote LD in a GE, the tories can lose there and comfortably win the seat.
I am surprised about that by-election result in Rossett, considering it was a ward that was supposedly safe for the Conservatives. Don’t know what would have caused a 25% swing to the Lib Dems there but I suspect the fact that the Lib Dems have dwindled somewhat in Harrogate in recent years would appear to explain why they’re making a comeback in this ward. The Conservatives’ dominance of the local council can only go so far- They’ve run the council now on their own since 2010, and the Lib Dems haven’t run it by themselves since 2002. So maybe a Lib Dem comeback will happen because they’re no longer running the council. Labour’s best result in the local elections in May came in the Wathvale ward, where they got 24.6% but were in a very distant second to the Conservatives.
An interesting point I just thought I would make RE Robert Banks-
He may have been deselected by the constituency party, but his votes polled between 1983 and 1992 were as follows-
1983- 30, 269 (60.23%, +0.77%)
1987- 31, 167 (55.55%, -4.68%)
1992- 32, 023 (53.85%, -1.7%)
So his vote share in 1992 may well have been 6.38% down on 1983, but the fact remains he achieved the highest number of Tory votes ever here in 1987 and then topped that in 1992- I suspect that wasn’t just because of increasing turnouts, it must have also been because Banks had some name recognition I would have thought.
Banks was only famous for never doing anything for his constituency.
Or for that matter never doing anything at all.
His was a real ‘blue rosette on a donkey’ vote.
Though at least the Harrogate electorate had the excuse of being rich.
I will concede that the 1997 result was probably because of a combination of three things that clicked together- The years of apparent low-profile Tory representation particularly under Banks who appeared to take the seat for granted as being ultra-safe, the imposition of Lamont as the Conservative candidate who had become an unpopular figure nationally and the standing of popular local teacher Phil Willis for the Lib Dems- All three things meant he won on a 15.70% swing- I believe the Lib Dems’ task was made slightly easier that year as the boundaries had been changed slightly?
Another LD gain here last night (seems noteworthy).
LD Valerie Rodgers 623 (46.0; +8.8)
Con 395 (29.2; -16.1)
Lab 208 (15.4; -2.1)
UKIP 127 (9.4; +9.4)
Majority 228
Turnout 31.03%
LD gain from Con.
Percentage change is since May 2011
This is the most down-market area of Harrogate as I said above. Both these gains are in areas that should be LD rather than tory. I think this like a lot of tory seats will have a lot of LD/Con local switchers that will go Con nationally.
Don’t expect the torys to win by less than 10 here nationally.
Joe R you obviously don’t know much about Harrogate. Bilton is a swing seat the Lib Dems were winning it prior to 2005 when they racked up a sizeable majority. They lost it in the two elections prior to the tory win in 2010.
Rossett is not one of the poorest areas of Harrogate it is one of the richest. It was never won by the Lib Dems even in 2005 when they won pretty much everywhere else in Harrogate. Rossett is made up of large detatched and semi detatched houses. Both these results are very worrying for Andrew Jones.
‘This is the most down-market area of Harrogate as I said above. Both these gains are in areas that should be LD rather than tory.’
Whilst I refuse to read too deeply into local election results and don’t know harrogate that well, if the lib dems are making gains from the tories this can only boast their albeit very slim hopes of taking this back at the next election
The Lib Dems only tend to do well in down-market areas when in seats like this one they, rather than labour, are the main challengers to the tories. The fact that the lib dems are winning seats like this from the tories contradicts the universally-accepted theory that natural labour voters who having been tactically voting for lib dems in past elections will be going home to the labour party in 2015
alhough the likeliest explanation is that local factors are behind and that it will count for very little at the general election. Still encouraging for the lib dems though
I think what I was saying is that this a reversion to the norm.
Looking at 2010 when the tories won the parliamentary seat, Bilton ward voted:
LD 54%
Tory 40%
The gap is nearly identical to the by-election. Ok the tories did fantastically well in 2011, but if they were winning Bilton theyd be taking the seat by a minimum of 15% or so and possibly morel.
If we look at the 2012 locals in Harrogate borough:
Tory 63.7%
LD 13.5%
Labour 12.5%
That is some grim results for the liberals. Ok it was largely the rural (very) tory wards, but thats a gap of 8000 votes behind on a low turnout. They’d need to be doing a lot better than 15% ahead in the worst areas of the town to be on course.
I can see a substantial increase in the tory vote here to around 50. A la Macclesfield the rural periphary is very very tory, and the town isnt half bad.
Should be said that some of those wards arent in the seat. General point remains true though
That is quite a good result for the LDs. I don’t think in seats like this they will have much to worry about as they are the main opposition to the Tories. It’s in some of those more gritty urban seats where the Libs have gained seats from Labour that will prove more problematic, both locally and nationally.
“If we look at the 2012 locals in Harrogate borough:
Tory 63.7%
LD 13.5%
Labour 12.5%
That is some grim results for the liberals. Ok it was largely the rural (very) tory wards”
It wasn’t ‘largely’ the rural wards – it was entirely the rural wards and of the 16 wards involved only 3 are in this seat (the three wards added in 2010) and represent about 10% of the total electorate.
Also have to disagree that Bilton is the most downmarket part of Harrogate from what I can tell. I think the old Bilton ward before the ward boundary changes many years ago was one where Labour were relatively strong but the grottier parts of the ward were put into the new Woodfield ward then