Norfolk North West
2010 Results:
Conservative: 25916 (54.22%)
Labour: 6353 (13.29%)
Liberal Democrat: 11106 (23.23%)
BNP: 1839 (3.85%)
UKIP: 1841 (3.85%)
Green: 745 (1.56%)
Majority: 14810 (30.99%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 21567 (49.9%)
Labour: 13711 (31.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 6300 (14.6%)
Other: 1609 (3.7%)
Majority: 7856 (18.2%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 25471 (50.3%)
Labour: 16291 (32.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 7026 (13.9%)
UKIP: 1861 (3.7%)
Majority: 9180 (18.1%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 24846 (48.5%)
Labour: 21361 (41.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 4292 (8.4%)
UKIP: 704 (1.4%)
Majority: 3485 (6.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 23911 (41.5%)
Labour: 25250 (43.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 5513 (9.6%)
Referendum: 2923 (5.1%)
Majority: 1339 (2.3%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Henry Bellingham(Conservative) Born 1955, Cheltenham. Educated at Eton and Cambridge University. First elected as MP for North West Norfolk 1983. PPS to Malcolm Rifking 1991-1997. He lost the seat in 1997, but was re-elected in 2001. Shadow miniser for small business 2002-2005, opposition whip 2005-2006. shadow minister for constitutional affairs 2006-2007, shadow justice minister since 2007. (more information at They work for you)
Henry Bellingham(Conservative) Born 1955, Cheltenham. Educated at Eton and Cambridge University. First elected as MP for North West Norfolk 1983. PPS to Malcolm Rifking 1991-1997. He lost the seat in 1997, but was re-elected in 2001. Shadow miniser for small business 2002-2005, opposition whip 2005-2006. shadow minister for constitutional affairs 2006-2007, shadow justice minister since 2007. (more information at They work for you)
Manish Sood (Labour) Teacher and lecturer. Leicester councillor.
William Summers (Liberal Democrat) Born West Norfolk. Educated at Smithdon High School and Leicester University. Works for a non-profit housing organisation.
Michael de Whalley (Green) Educated at King Edward VII School, Kings Lynn. Formerly served in Iraq with the Royal Auxiluiary Air Force. John Gray (UKIP) 
David Fleming (BNP) Former Cynon Borough councillor. Contested Eastern region in 2009 European elections.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 89546
Male: 48.2%
Female: 51.8%
Under 18: 20.3%
Over 60: 27.9%
Born outside UK: 3.7%
White: 98.6%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.4%
Mixed: 0.5%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 77.6%
Full time students: 1.7%
Graduates 16-74: 13.3%
No Qualifications 16-74: 35.6%
Owner-Occupied: 70.4%
Social Housing: 16.3% (Council: 12.8%, Housing Ass.: 3.6%)
Privately Rented: 8.4%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8.2%
Norfolk has to rival rural East Yorkshire in terms of bad nights for Labour – they collapsed to 3rd in Yorkshire East and Beverley & Holderness, a seat they were less than 800 votes from winning in 2001
13.29% must surely be the lowest Labour percentage in a constituency they held for at least one term during their 13 years in office.
They did slightly better in Castle Point with 14.68% another seat they held from 1997 to 2001. They got 19.53% in Romford.
There weren’t any significant boundary changes in any of those seats AFAIK.
Romford is quite a lot bigger than it was when Labour won in 1997. However much of the new territory is politically not dissimilar from the rest of the seat.
The main change is that it has picked up the Hylands ward from Hornchurch while losing part of the old Ardleigh Green ward back to (Hornchurch &) Upminster. These boundary changes would on balance be beneficial to Labour
’13.29% must surely be the lowest Labour percentage in a constituency they held for at least one term during their 13 years in office.
They did slightly better in Castle Point with 14.68% another seat they held from 1997 to 2001. They got 19.53% in Romford.’
That makes the 21% and 19% they polled in Welwyn Hatfield (a seat they held until 2005) look respectable
This shows how decisively the lower middle classes (especially in the South and East) have swung away from Labour since 1997
Correction
‘That makes the 21% and 19% they polled in Welwyn Hatfield (a seat they held until 2005) look respectable’
I meant the 19% Labour polled in St Albans (another seat they mysteriously held from 97-2005)
Moss Evans, was a Labour councilor here
King’s Lynn and West Norfolk 1991 – 2001
He was General Secretary of the TGWU 1978-1985.
Alan Fisher (NUPE), and Moss Evans seemed to be the two leaders most blamed for the Winter of Discontent, which lost Labour the 1979 election.
It’ll be interesting to see the local elections here next year.
Labour has re-admitted Manish Sood after an internal investigation following his comments during the campaign
He did appear to damage Labour although a lot of that lost support appeared to go to the LDs (despite bad press about their amnesty proposals).
I suppose labour’s ‘natural level of support’ is around 30% and they might recover to 25% if they get their act together.
It is an absurdly poor result for them.
It is the kind of area which produced a large swing in 2010 and for a few years before,
but surely they must be able to get around twice that in normal circumstances.
‘It is an absurdly poor result for them’
It’s poor – but mainly so because they actually held the seat between 1997-2001 – surely one of their unlikeliest gains
‘It is the kind of area which produced a large swing in 2010′
I imagine it produced an even bigger one in 97 to give Labour a seat which I doubt thyey ever thought they could win
It was the only county seat they did win in the whole of Norfolk – an area which they used to do quite well in the 50s and 60s
I imagine a good deal of their vote here is of the transitory kind,
- that which just gets motivated by good years for the party.
I did see this seat described as a “marginal” in my 1979 guide.
They did pretty well in the council elections of 1999 IIRC, but it was one of very few losses, as we know, in 2001.
Labour should easily get 25% here without breaking much of a sweat here, even in poor times… although a win will always be a struggle because the rural bulk of the seat is true blue.
Their core vote is highly concentrated in one place – Kings Lynn – and it should be a doddle to bring it out more or less en masse. Labour did this quite effectively in held areas across the country in May, thus confounding meltdown predictions.
It is not like other seats (like North Norfolk) where there are good pockets for them but it’s a street here and a street there, and hard to consolidate and bring out.
But there organisation appears to have fallen apart completely in Kings Lynn, not helped by a terrible choice of candidate, who was suspended during the campaign. I would expect them to bounce back quite strongly however – although boundary changes can only hinder them and it is of course out of reach in the foreseeable future.
The Tories increased their majority over Labour in October 1974 from 803 to 1,343 so the seat has always had a slightly eccentric side.
Yes, they did run an effective damage limitation exercise in May, to avoid a disastrous slide to 1983 levels, there’s no denying it,
but this seat probably wasn’t a priority.
Didn’t realise they’d increased it.
This would certainly be one of the seats Labour would have felt they should have got in Oct 74.
“‘It is the kind of area which produced a large swing in 2010?
I imagine it produced an even bigger one in 97 to give Labour a seat which I doubt thyey ever thought they could win”
Actually the swing was just over 10% which was nationally average and considerably lower than in Great Yarmouth and also Norfolk SW and most of the rural Suffolk seats.
Labour had done well in 1992, doubling their vote and recovering nearly all the ground they had lost to the SDP. They actually did better then than they did in 2005
i imagine the predecessor seat was Kings Lynn which was Labour in a good year for the party, so in that context the votes they tallied in 2010 was indeed ‘absurdly poor’
Although Norfolk is rural, I would have expected Labour to have made more of a recovery in the 90s with regards to parliamentary elections as there are quite a lot of run-down towns scattered throughout the county.
They won the county in the 1994 European elections and they achieved big swings in 97 – Gillian Shepherd just hung onto to her seat of Norfolk South West by a very slim despite having an almost 20,000 majority in 92 – but their only gain (apart from Yarmouth and Northern Norwich) was North West – which they lost at the next election
Interestingly the old Kings Lynn seat was represented by Sir Robert Walpole, largely considered to be the UK’s first Prime Minister
Has this seat always included South Wootton, Rudham, Hunstanton, and Valley Hill wards, and were they in Norfolk North or Kings Lynn before then?
I’m pretty sure Hunstanton has always been part of this seat & that it was in King’s Lynn previously.
Barnaby, you are correct – Hunstanton was in the old King’s Lynn seat.
Labour missed out in a district council by-election in Spellowfields, but had a very convincing victory in the Clenchwarton & King’s Lynn S division of Norfolk County Council, polling 824 votes to 424 for the Tories. This was a Labour gain – Labour had polled only 11% in 2009 but just under 46% this time! Obviously 2009 was a rotten year for Labour but this result, which was the only seat which changed hands in yesterday’s many by-elections, will be pleasing. All the other by-elections were Tory holds except an easy Labour hold in a very safe in Middlesbrough.
Kings Lynn is a town where four locals beat up a Pole on CCTV and were acqutted.