Sefton Central
2010 Results:
Conservative: 16445 (33.93%)
Labour: 20307 (41.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 9656 (19.92%)
UKIP: 2055 (4.24%)
Majority: 3862 (7.97%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 19184 (46.2%)
Conservative: 13642 (32.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 7543 (18.2%)
Other: 1146 (2.8%)
Majority: 5542 (13.3%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 11623 (32.1%)
Labour: 17463 (48.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 6298 (17.4%)
UKIP: 454 (1.3%)
Other: 356 (1%)
Majority: 5840 (16.1%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 11974 (32.5%)
Labour: 20327 (55.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 4084 (11.1%)
Other: 481 (1.3%)
Majority: 8353 (22.7%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 15367 (34.8%)
Labour: 22549 (51.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 5080 (11.5%)
Referendum: 813 (1.8%)
Other: 332 (0.8%)
Majority: 7182 (16.3%)
Boundary changes: Major. The seat loses part of Crosby itself to Bootle, while gaining the Sefton parts of the old Knowsley North and Sefton East seat, namely Park, Sudell and Molyneaux wards, which include Maghull. Concerns about splitting Crosby were raised at the boundary review, but alternative plans would have had to split Bootle or Maghull instead. With only part of Crosby in the new seat, the name was changed to Sefton Central.
Profile: Sefton Central is a suburban seat stretching along the Irish sea coast north between Southport and Liverpool, covering the northern part of Crosby, Maghull and Formby. It is a relatively affluent seat with some of the most desirable areas of housing in Merseyside such as Blundellsands and Freshfields. Mostly residential in character, it is also a popular with tourists in the Summer. Crosby beach is the site of Antony Gormley`s sculpture another place – consisting of 100 upright, cast-iron, life-size figures, scattered for 2 miles across the beach.
Despite being a notional Labour seat, at a local level the Labour party do not have a single councillor, with the wards held by either the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats. Its predecessor Crosby was once regarded as a safe Conservative seat until the iconic 1981 by-election victory by the SDP`s Shirley Williams. Even so, it returned to the Tories and was held by them until 1997.
Current MP: Bill Esterson (Labour) Runs a training consultancy. Medway councillor.
Debi Jones (Conservative) Television and radio presenter. Sefton borough councillor since 2006. Contested Crosby in 2005. Bill Esterson (Labour) Runs a training consultancy. Medway councillor.
Richard Clein (Liberal Democrat) born 1971. Former constituency organiser for Malcolm Bruce 1995-1997 and BBC Radio Merseyside journalist (1998-2003), now associate director for a public affairs agency. 
Peter Harper (UKIP) born Aintree. Educated at Maghull High School. 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 88864
Male: 47.8%
Female: 52.2%
Under 18: 21.4%
Over 60: 26.4%
Born outside UK: 2.7%
White: 98.6%
Asian: 0.5%
Mixed: 0.5%
Other: 0.4%
Christian: 87.2%
Full time students: 3.5%
Graduates 16-74: 20.8%
No Qualifications 16-74: 25.9%
Owner-Occupied: 87.9%
Social Housing: 6.8% (Council: 5.5%, Housing Ass.: 1.3%)
Privately Rented: 3.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 7.4%
A fan of Red Ed Militant no doubt
Debi Jones making a come back..
she has been selected for Ravenmeols ward (with the sitting councillor deselected)
Jones remains an albatross around Sefton Tories’ necks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ravenmeols (one of the wealthiest wards in the country) went Labour next May.
http://www.crosbyherald.co.uk/news/crosby-news/2010/10/28/tories-resign-in-support-of-deselected-formby-councillor-68459-27553449/
like Manor ward – you know, the one she so arrogantly relinquished on the dead cert of being elected Sefton Central’s MP!
Ravenmeols is actually less affluent than the other safe Tory ward, Harington – and has been won by Labour in recent years, twice.
I think there is a fair chance that it could go Labour again this year. The Labour candidate is well established, held the vote up in the difficult years,
PS. Dave – I would use my Labour colours all the time but the system keeps forgetting my password! I rejoined the party shortly after the election
RodCrosby – Sefton Tories do indeed appear to be in turmoil. I won’t bother re-posting the comments on the Southport thread, but they lost 4 Sefton Cllrs yesterday and are down to just 11.
Another amusing story, is that LibDem Jack Colbert is chairman of Crosby Conservative Club!
It doesn’t bode well for Martyn Barber the remaining Tory cllr in that ward – Manor ward.
http://www.champnews.com/html/newsstory.asp?id=8815
The councillor who has switched to UKIP is actually in this seat.
This will be interesting. There are three LibDem councillors who could be in trouble, Debi Jones is viewed as a carpet-bagger in Formby, demographically, the Tory vote is declining. The one who should be safe is Alf Doran in Harington, but now he has switched parties….
It hasn’t actually been announced as yet where jack Colbert is going to seek election – his old Molyneux ward has a sitting councillor who may not wish to give way, and in any case, there’s a fair chance of a Labour win.
He lives in my ward, now in the Bootle seat, but the LibDems have disappeared since the main councillor who once managed to win the seat was thrown off for non-attendance and then died a few months later from acute alcoholic poisoning. Labour will hold here so I don’t think there’s much chance of change!
My dad was vice chair of High Wycombe Liberal Club but I don’t think he ever once voted anything other than Labour.
Funny you should say that – my granddad was a Liberal Party member, but they hardly ever stood candidates at that time & he thus almost always voted Labour.
Cllr Martyn Barber has been reported to the police, according to southportgb site for alleged election offences. He’s standing for re-election in Manor ward.
Merseymike was correct – Debi Jones lost to Labour by 58 votes. Labour also gained Manor (knocking out the last Tory, Martyn Barber) and Sudell from the LibDems. Recounts in other ‘safe’ LD and Tory wards in Sefton.
Very good results for Labour here. The molyneux ward was also won very easily and two other wards -Blundellsands and Park – were only list by tiny margins and will be targets for next year. As said Manor, Sudell and Ravenmeols were all won as well. Only Harington remains safe Tory. Next year Labour could easily take six seats
Sefton now has a Labour Leader for the first time in its history.
Cllr Gill Cuthbertson of Harrington ward has defected from the Tories. Unsure whether she’s sitting with the Ind Cons group or with her partner Cllr Alf Doran (UKIP).
Here are the overall results for Sefton Central local elections in 2011, with comparison on 2010
Lab 45.8% (+11.5%)
Con 32.9% (+4.2%)
LD 17.2% (-12.4%)
Oth 4.2% (-3.3%)
Lab won Manor, Molyneux, Ravenmeols and Sudell (I think all gains). The Tories held Blundellsands and Harrington, the Lib Dems Park.
Despite only having 7 wards, 3 of them were ultra close – a narrow Labour win over Con Ravenmeols, the opposite in Blundellsands and the Lib Dems just holding Park against a Labour challenge
I assume that this constituency will become ‘Southport & Formby’ and ‘Crosby & Bootle’ with the remainder of the borough being re-twinned with Knowsley.
2015
Southport & Formby
Debi Jones (Con) 19818
John Pugh (Lib Dem) 16151
Lab 12672
Con Gain from Lib Dem
Crosby & Bootle
Joe Benton 26262
Con 10191
Lib Dem 2323
Lab Hold
Kirby & Maghull
Bill Esterson 29282
Conservative 9877
Lib Dem 3242
Lab Hold
Con
I believe John Pugh is standing down at the enxt election and I can’t see Debi Jones being picked as the Conservative candidate.
But this is certainly an area where enlarged constituencies, the reduction in tactical voting and the loss of incumbancy bonus should give the Conservatives a gain.
Hard to say what the exact boundary changes could be in Sefton but I agree adding Harrington ward to Southport could narrowly hand Southport to the conservatives.
Boundary changes could deliver Bill Esterson a safe seat for the immediate future.
Joe Benton will be over 80 in 2015, so he may consider retiring freeing a safe seat for a new Labourite.
There are 15 MPs who will be aged between 75 – 85
if the GE is on 7 May 2015.
(Accepting all the assumptions in this last sentence) they are:-
Age MP (Party) Constituency
85 Peter Tapsell (C) Louth and Horncastle
84 Gerald Kaufman (Lab) Manchester Gorton
83 Dennis Skinner (Lab) Bolsover
82 Joe Benton (Lab) Bootle
81 David Winnick (Lab) Walsall North
80 Austin Mitchell (Lab) Great Grimsby
80 Paul Flynn (Lab) Newport West
78 Ann Clwyd (Lab) Cynon Valley
78 Glenda Jackson (Lab) Hampstead and Kilburn
77 Alan Keen (Lab Co-op) Feltham and Heston
77 Alan Haselhurst (C) Saffron Walden
76 Geoffrey Robinson (Lab) Coventry NW
76 Stuart Bell (Lab) Middlesbrough
75 Frank Dobson (Lab) Holborn and St. Pancras
75 Michael Meacher (Lab) Oldham West and Royton
Of interest only two women are in the list.
and so few tories relative to Labour, without having any scientific grounds to guess either way, if you’d asked me straight off I would have suggested their would be more older Tory MPs than Labour. That isn’t the case. It could be a product of Labour having a more concentrated vote, so more safe seats to represent for a very long time. Only Glenda Jackson and Alan Keen have done less than 20 years in parliament.
Labour will also have 12 MPs who will be between 70 and 75 on May 2015. How many Tories will be the in the same range?
“if you’d asked me straight off I would have suggested their would be more older Tory MPs than Labour.”
the average age of Labour MPs in this Parliament is 4 years older than the average age of Tory MPs. I guess it’s mainly due to the big Conservative new intake
The proposed Maghull seat looks rock-solid Labour to me, with the LibDems notionally second.
This is more or less what Democratic Audit projected.
Would Formby (or part of) going into Southport help the Tories?
‘Would Formby (or part of) going into Southport help the Tories?’
Presumably if it’s the Harrington part.
As I said previously could be decisive and a narrow tory gain could be possible if John Pugh’s retirement and tactical LD>Lab unwind are factored in.
The new Maghull seat seems to be mainly Kirkby. Maghull & Kirkby was a proposed name before the Knowsley North & Sefton East
best guess on Southport would be the 2010 LD majority cut from about 6,000 to 4,000…
hey, maybe Clegg might wind up in Southport…
back of fag packet for Maghull 2010
Lab 53%
Con 22%
LD 20%
Oth 5%
so Tories just edging out the LDs for second. Either way, the Tories’ prospect for two seats in the Sefton area seem gone for good, if they hadn’t already disappeared with the Sefton C result in 2010…
a 15,000 majority in other words, probably closer to 20,000 come 2015…
Yes…’Bootle’ will contain more of Crosby than ‘Bootle’.
The new boundaries more or less divide the former Crosby constituency and place one half with Bootle and the other half with Kirby.
The only likelyhood of Crosby being part of a Tory constituency again would either be through the Merseyside / Lancaster boundary being crossed or the number of UK constituencies being reduced so radically that Southport absorbed Crosby.
I gather that the Tories are livid about Blundellsands and it will probably end up as Bootle & Crosby to placate them. I can’t see the LibDems holding Southport. There was a big surge in the Labour vote there last May, and a good proportion of the Lib vote has been tactical. There were previously two areas of LibDem strength but Labour are getting properly organised in Maghull which has voted Labour nationally a while
There’s not much point in trying to change the name.
Who do you think will win Southport then?
“The proposed Maghull seat looks rock-solid Labour to me, with the LibDems notionally second.”
With respect it would be news if any Merseyside constituency wasn’t rock-solid Labour (apart from Southport).
Has this seat become a little faded in parts?
I did a Google view of Crosby itself, and the coastal area, and whereas it’s pleasant,
perhaps some of it has suffered just a bit like other coastal towns?
It’s interesting how the 1981 by-election in Crosby is referred to as a total disaster for the Tories.
Clearly it was a great victory for the SDP who advanced over 30 points compared to the Liberals in 1979, with the Tories down some 17% points and Labour down some 15% points.
But put another way,
The Tory share only fell by a third.
Over 22,000 people did turn out to vote Conservative,
at the end of November,
and only a few months after the bottom of a slump.
In retrospect, by-elections where the Government retains around 2 in 3 votes, and almost two thirds of the numerical vote,
are not bad performances actually, and provide clues about how such by-elections will be reversed.
Perhaps when Government support more than halves it’s a warning that a change of government is a serious possibility.
In 1994, the Tories lost I think about two thirds of their votes in Eastleigh.
Labour did somewhat worse than that in Norwich North.
They actually stood up better in Crewe and Nantwich, but that was an important turning point for the Tories who had performed badly in by-elections ever since Kensington in 1988.
Our counter-proposal for this part of the world sees Southport attached to the Lancashire Marsh towns (Hesketh Bank, Tarleton etc.), a new West Lancashire which attaches Ormskirk/Burscough to Formby, and a refashioned Bootle and Crosby.
“Has this seat become a little faded in parts?”
Not really, from an environmental perspective. It’s still a great place to live, with some lovely houses and attractions. But the people have changed – for the worse…
It was extremely middle-class when it was a Tory seat. Not so now. We have hoodies roaming the streets, and there is regular mayhem every weekend in the bars of Crosby and Waterloo. Every year there is a major drugs bust, and you can be sure one of the “kingpins” lives in a big house in Blundellsands or Crosby…
Thanks Rod – your descriptions are very useful.
Why would the population have changed much in character though?
(as it clearly is a good place to live).
Where would people have moved to, and why?
Where have people moved in from?
I don’t think anyone’s moved out, so much as died out…
Society generally, is, imho, much more rough and depressing than say even 30 years ago. So Crosby will be affected just as much as anywhere else.
But Crosby really was “a cut above the rest” at one time. so, to me at least, the fall appears sharper, and sadder…
Nightime is worst, when most of the bars are taken over by drunken, drugged chavs and chavettes from Bootle and beyond…
I think the rot probably set in when Merseymike moved there
I’ve done some more Google mapping of it, and it generally looks like pleasant Victorian housing.
The odd thing about Crosby is it doesn’t seem to have much of a centre – it’s largely residential?
Also strange is the way Crosby and Bootle seem to fade into each other less distinctively than I expected, when they are meant to be such different areas, although the electoral “rot” lacks that clear blue water red lines.
I can’t see these mansions populated by drug dealers – I “Googled” a few outlying dead ends and just had newish estates.
Can’t see the Tories having much chance on these proposed new boundaries although I guess an unchanged Sefton Central may have offered them hope one day although not likely any time soon.
Freshfields is in this seat, further north, and that is very nice.
The centre of Crosby is known as “The Village” and is centred on the pedestrianised area at the southern end of Moor Lane. It’s not big, and it’s not as nice as it used to be either. A recent proposal from Sainsburys would have virtually obliterated the Village. A revised proposal to be revealed next month is expected to be scarcely less invasive.
Re the drug dealers: the kingpins of recent cases lived in Far Moss Road and Dowhills Road respectively, being two of the most expensive roads in the district, as well as in the northwest of England.
Re the boundary between Crosby and Bootle. It’s Seaforth, and the properties visibly deteriorate south of Cambridge Road, being the border between Waterloo and Seaforth.
Crosby isn’t any different from similar suburbs around other big cities. Social change has pushed the rich further out, while the houses are older and less well maintained.
Consider Hall Green and Halesowen in Greater Birmingham, places like Prestwich and Sale in Greater Manchester, and Ilford and Finchley in London.
The proposed Bootle seat also includes Vauxhall in Lpool. I think Liverpool Ports or Seaport/Freeport was a counter proposal name for the seat. Whilst its true that Vauxhall and Crosby are chalk and cheese socially, so are Speke and Woolton in the Garston seat.