West Lancashire
2010 Results:
Conservative: 17540 (36.19%)
Labour: 21883 (45.14%)
Liberal Democrat: 6573 (13.56%)
UKIP: 1775 (3.66%)
Green: 485 (1%)
Others: 217 (0.45%)
Majority: 4343 (8.95%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 20746 (48.1%)
Conservative: 14662 (34%)
Liberal Democrat: 6059 (14%)
Other: 1688 (3.9%)
Majority: 6084 (14.1%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 14662 (34%)
Labour: 20746 (48.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 6059 (14%)
UKIP: 871 (2%)
Other: 817 (1.9%)
Majority: 6084 (14.1%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 13761 (32%)
Labour: 23404 (54.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 4966 (11.6%)
Other: 840 (2%)
Majority: 9643 (22.4%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 15903 (29.1%)
Labour: 33022 (60.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 3938 (7.2%)
Referendum: 1025 (1.9%)
Other: 841 (1.5%)
Majority: 17119 (31.3%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Rosie Cooper(Labour) born 1950, Liverpool. Educated at Bellerive Convent Grammar School and the University of Liverpool. Former corporate manager for Littlewoods. Liverpool councillor for the Liberal party from 1973-2000. Contested Liverpool Garston for the Liberals in 1983, Knowlsey North by-election for the Liberals in 1986, Knowsley North for the Liberals in 1987 and Liverpool Broad Green in 1992 as a Liberal Democrat. She defected to the Labour party prior to contesting the European Parliament North West Region in 2004 and was elected as Labour MP for West Lancashire in 2005 (more information at They work for you)
Adrian Owens (Conservative) born Wirral. Educated at Cambridge University. Business consultant. West Lancashire District Councillor since 1999. Contested South Ribble 2001. Rosie Cooper(Labour) born 1950, Liverpool. Educated at Bellerive Convent Grammar School and the University of Liverpool. Foremr corporate manager for Littlewoods. Liverpool councillor for the Liberal party from 1973-2000. Contested Liverpool Garston for the Liberals in 1983, Knowlsey North by-election for the Liberals in 1986, Knowsley North for the Liberals in 1987 and Liverpool Broad Green in 1992 as a Liberal Democrat. She defected to the Labour party prior to contested the European Parliament North West Region in 2004 and was elected as Labour MP for West Lancashire in 2005 (more information at They work for you)
John Gibson (Liberal Democrat) Sefton councillor.
Peter Cranie (Green) Works for a parenting support charity. Contested Liverpool Riverside 2005, North West region 2009 European elections.
Damon Noone (UKIP) David Braid (Clause 28 Childrens Protection Christian Democrat)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 93315
Male: 48%
Female: 52%
Under 18: 23.2%
Over 60: 21.3%
Born outside UK: 2.6%
White: 98.5%
Asian: 0.5%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.4%
Christian: 83.5%
Full time students: 5%
Graduates 16-74: 18.2%
No Qualifications 16-74: 29.9%
Owner-Occupied: 72.3%
Social Housing: 19.5% (Council: 17.5%, Housing Ass.: 2%)
Privately Rented: 5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 4.9%
Joe is correct. There were local elections on the same day as the general election in all three wards covering the town of Ormskirk. The Conservatives were 6.5% ahead of Labour in two of the wards (Derby and Knowsley) but Labour were about 12% ahead in Scott, the overall result being that Ormskirk gave a Tory lead of less than 100. A similar situation in the small town of Burscough. Both these would have provided large Tory leads in the days when they were able to win this seat. In contrast those Skelmersdale wards which had elections saw Labour winning by 3 or 4 to 1. The only solid Tory areas now are Aughton and the rural wards.
Turnout in the Skelmersdale wards was still about 10% lower than in the other parts of the seat
Thanks Pete, for the figures.
I wonder why there has been this change though – the Ormskirk area doesn’t seem to be much of a Merseyside seat.
Aughton is very nice – I think Auton Park had about 81% support in 1999.
Then I stand corrected. I just remembered that two of the three Ormskirk wards remained Tory-which didn’t seem bad to me on the same day as a general election.
One interesting thing to note: In 2005 Labour held the county council seat of Ormskirk West very narrowly. The result then:
Lab 2453 43.6%
Con 2377 42.3%
Grn 496 8.8%
Ind 298 5.3%
That division is comprised the district wards of Knowsley and Scott. The aggregate result in those wards in 2010 (taking the average votes in Scott where there was a double-header):
Lab 2771 46.0%
Con 2547 42.3%
Grn 702 11.7%
So while Labour maintained a very small lead in 2005 whiel holding a slightly larger lead nationally, in 2010 they actually extended their lead while falling some way behind nationally. Clearly the pro-Labour trend has continued beyond 2005 and this is a town which is Labour in an even year.
I personally find it hard to believe that this seat’s proximity to Liverpool has had no effect on its demography. “Scouse” most of it isn’t, but it has close local ties to the city. Other seats within a certain radius of Liverpool have seen a long-term shift in Labour’s favour. There may however be other reasons. It does seem that Labour is perhaps getting its vote out in Skelmersdale rather better than in the past which would help, but as Pete & Joe have said there are other areas where Labour are competitive as well, and have been for some years now.
You can get into Liverpool in half an hour by train,
but it gives the impression of being a rather churchy almost semi rural market town. I’m surprised that any Merseyside effect wasn’t already built into it.
Or perhaps Labour just hung onto more of their extra support here for another reason.
As discussed, this has clearly happened even as turnouts have dropped in the Labour strongholds.
The only problem I have with your analysis of Ormskirk West Pete is that while the Tory vote was identical accross both 2005 and 2010, the Labour vote was slightly up in 2010 entirely as a result of the fourth candidate from 2005 (an independent) not having stood. The (left wing) Green Party also went up in 2010 whilst the Tories remained equal.
This leads me to wonder whether then the real movement from 2005 was actually generally left wing voters who went independent in 2005 moving back to Labour and thew Greens in 2010?
Or else there was a well above average swing from Tory to Labour in that division and then all the 2005 Independent voters went Tory to make up the difference?
It may be that the Independent candidate had taken left -wing votes but even if that is the case then the total left vote at 56.7% is identical in 2005 and 2010 and the Conservative share is identical which given a rise in the Tory vote nationally in 2010 and a significant swing from the left generally, means that the town can be said to have trended against the Conservatives
But how do you know it’s not caused by the candidate(s) rather than changing demographics?
I’m not really arguing that there are changing demographics. That can be one cause of changes in the voting behaviour of different areas over time but it isn’t the only one. I am saying that Ormskirk has been trending against the Conservatives long-term and I don’t necessarily know what the reasons for that are, although I do agree with Barnaby in that I think the ‘Merseyside effect’ is probably not irrelevant.
I did consider whether candidates played a part but while Labour had an incumbent county councillor in 2005 there were no Labour incumbents fighting in 2010 so unless incumbency had a negative effect it seems unlikely to have been a factor in Labour’s favour in 2010.
The swing in 2009, though the Conservatives inevitably gained the seat was also lower than the average for Lancashire as whole and for West Lancashire in particular, though again there was no Labour incumbent on this occasion
Barnaby, I agree. Ormskirk is one of the main destinations viat Merseyrail from Lpool city centre (the others being the Southport and Wirral lines). Many have Scouse accents and there’s a Lpool postcode (unlike Southport and the Wirral). The MP lives in Lpool as do 2 of the other PPCs.
The point is, Ormskirk doesn’t give the impression that it would have changed.
Any Liverpool influence would surely already have been built into the system.
What do you think?
JJB – I know hundreds of Lpool Residents have moved into Sefton Central over the past 10years. Some have moved to Ormskirk but not many.
West Lancs council currently has a Conservative majority of 8. It could be pretty close as to whether the Tories can maintain this. There are 4 wards where Labour has any chance of gaining seats from the Tories, Derby, Knowsley, Scott & Wrightington. Since this is quite a polarised area, there are some very safe Conservative wards and some almost monolithically Labour ones too (all I think in & around Skelmersdale). Derby & Knowsley aren’t easy gains for Labour at all, but I think I’m right in saying that there’s also going to be a simultaneous by-election in Derby ward in a seat originally contested in 2008 or 2010. If Labour wins this, and all the 4 wards mentioned above, this would give a composition of Lab 27 C 26 Others 1. But a Conservative loss of control is by no means guaranteed.
Barnaby there is no chance at all of Labour taking either Knowley which they have never done or Derby which they only took in the 1990s on very different boundaries.
Labour may well take Scott which is very much a weaver vane seat but Wrightington moves very much to its own beat so I would put your chances there at less than evens.
Will be watching closely – one of us is going to look silly perhaps, though could we both look silly if results go in a certain way?
There are 3 LD candidates in W Lancs. I think its the first time they’ve stood here in 15 or 20 years.
The 2 wards you mention Galloglass were lost only narrowly by Labour last year. You may be right but I think I could be forgiven for thinking that given the substantial swing to Labour that has occurred since then we might at least have a chance.
But Barnaby, that was with the general election on the same day! Labour have the advantage of oppositon now but will not be pulling out their voters to a general election turnout.
Labour will make big big gains this year, but if they failed to win wards last year, they probably won’t turn them around this year in most cases.
Yes obviously there will be a difference in turnout, but it would be extremely surprising if Labour failed to gain a plurality of the vote in this year’s elections in the country as a whole, and that would necessarily mean the party winning quite numerous wards which voted against Labour last year. The Tories will have problems getting their own vote out too, since in some areas Labour voters will be more motivated to go out than their Tory & LD counterparts.
Yes thats true. Although I do notice that Labour actually won more local council seats than the Tories did last year.
Of course, these seats were mostly last up in 2007, so we will see a lot of gains from then, but if we compare this years results to last years in the wards where that is possible, we probably won’t see anything like the same sort of difference.
Labour will be leading in votes and seats. But in terms of votes it will probably only be a 5% difference or so, and in terms of seats it will not be too different from last year (of course with a lot more councils in England actually up).
Well let’s assume that Labour has a lead of only 2% over the Tories – that’s still a swing of 5.5% or so since last year. That would clearly net a lot of seats not won last year, even if one allows for the possibility of a certain degree of ticket-splitting (such ticket-splitting of course would have hurt Labour in the local elections in some areas, e.g. Birmingham Edgbaston where I think I’m right in saying that the Tories were winning a plurality of the local election vote even as Gisela Stuart held the parliamentary seat). Of course the swing could be uneven, but one has to suspect that Labour would tend to do better this year in West Lancashire than in Dover for example. I don’t have great local knowledge it’s true, but endless people claimed I didn’t know a constituency in the general election last year then found afterwards I had been more accurate in my predictions than they had (and you Shaun, since your predictions tended to be very similar to my own). This particularly applies to certain LD supporters although Galloglass is generally exempt from this. I think that a ward won by the Tories over Labour last year with a majority of 201 on a large turnout is bound to be a Labour target this year, although some such wards will clearly be harder targets than others.
I can’t disagree with your logic Barnaby…I just don’t rate very highly the national percentage/local performace corrolation. I remember when the Tories in opposition were winning huge numbers of seats in some areas that were not expected, doing very very poorly (far worse than the national swing would indicate) in a lot of others and all on a relatively small lead over Labour of 7 or 8%.
I can imagine Labour doing better than a 5% lead nationally; I can imagine them winning scores of seats locally that look a lot like the picture of 2010′s results. But I can also imagine a situation where national swing is a nonsense (as it has increasingly become in local elections).
Time will tell of course. The Labour gains will be significant. But wouldn’t expect too many gains in wards that they failed to take last year-even if technically there would have been a swing nationally between 2010 and 2011. I’m not sure that local election results work like that any more.
Your overall council predictions though I have had no cause to disagree with Barnaby. I think we’ll end up with our predictions in the same place in terms of councils even if not precise necessarily wards.
I didn’t make many predictions. This was one I got wrong. The rather poor Labour result is in contrast with almost all surrounding areas, eg Labour gaining a majority of the seats contested in Sefton, which is very rare, and Labour making gains in most other neighbouring authorities. Interesting.
If its any consolation Barnaby Labour did far better in Knowsley ward that I expected.
Also if the outgoing Labour leader had defended his seat in Bickerstaffe I’m certain you would have held that too.
You ‘do’ need to remember that this area can be deceiving because whilst Labour do respectably in Ormskirk the Tories hardly register in Skem. So Labour can win most votes but not most seats
Thatcher’s Chief Whip in the Lords, Lord Hesketh has defected to UKIP.
May 2012
Most likely
West Lancashire
Con hold
(But very close)
So far I agree with all your predictions.
The Tories held on but Labour won 11 seats to the Tories’ 7.
Everytime I catch BBC Parliament, I spot Rosie Cooper asking a question in the Commons. There’s not a session recently that she’s not there to pop up; is she in need of a few screenshots to put on leaflets? West Lancs isn’t *that* marginal…
I can’t imagine why you’d have any antipathy to Ms Cooper……
West Lancashire has the strange distinction of being one of few seats (Perhaps maybe the only one) to have two sitting Sefton councillors standing for a Parliamentary seat in the North West outside of Sefton. Alf Doran who was then a Tory councillor for the Harington ward in Formby (Later UKIP of course) stood here as the Conservative candidate in 2005, while the Liberal Democrats’ John Gibson who was from 2008-2012 a councillor for Manor ward (Hightown, Little Crosby, Thornton) was the party’s candidate here in 2010. Bizarrely, the Lib Dem candidate in 2005 was also a Merseysider- Veteran Liverpool Lib Dem councillor (Church ward) Richard Kemp, also Lib Dem candidate for the Liverpool Mayoral Election in May of this year.
Rather oddly, considering that we live in London & he lives in Liverpool, my wife often works with Richard Kemp, but I haven’t met him.
He may well have been the only Lib Dem who won at the 2011 local elections in Liverpool. His wife Erica definitely was in 2012. Church has of course for a long time been the Lib Dems’ strongest ward in the city- There was a time mot so long ago when they were polling 70% + there.
Prediction for 2015-
Cooper (Labour)- 25, 573 (52.4%, +7.3%)
Tory- 17, 633 (36.1%, -0.1%)
Lib Dem- 3, 321 (6.8%, -6.8%)
Others- 2, 234 (4.5%, -0.7%)
Lab hold.
Turnout- 48, 761.
Majority- 7, 940 (16.2%)
Swing- +3.7% From Con to Lab.