Shrewsbury and Atcham
2010 Results:
Conservative: 23313 (43.95%)
Labour: 10915 (20.58%)
Liberal Democrat: 15369 (28.97%)
BNP: 1168 (2.2%)
UKIP: 1627 (3.07%)
Green: 565 (1.07%)
Others: 88 (0.17%)
Majority: 7944 (14.98%)
2005 Results:
Conservative: 18960 (37.7%)
Labour: 17152 (34.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 11487 (22.8%)
Other: 2697 (5.4%)
Majority: 1808 (3.6%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 18674 (37.4%)
Labour: 22253 (44.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 6173 (12.4%)
UKIP: 1620 (3.2%)
Green: 931 (1.9%)
Other: 258 (0.5%)
Majority: 3579 (7.2%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 18814 (34%)
Labour: 20484 (37%)
Liberal Democrat: 13838 (25%)
Referendum: 1346 (2.4%)
Other: 862 (1.6%)
Majority: 1670 (3%)
No Boundary Changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Daniel Kawczynski(Conservative) (more information at They work for you)
Daniel Kawczynski(Conservative) (more information at They work for you)Jon Tandy (Labour) Postman. Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Councillor since 2004 and Shropshire County Councillor since 2001.Charles West (Liberal Democrat) GP. South Shropshire District councillor.Alan Whittaker (Green)Peter Lewis (UKIP)James Whittall (BNP)James Gollins (Impact)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 95850
Male: 49.1%
Female: 50.9%
Under 18: 22.5%
Over 60: 22.6%
Born outside UK: 3.9%
White: 98.4%
Asian: 0.4%
Mixed: 0.5%
Other: 0.6%
Christian: 77.9%
Full time students: 2.4%
Graduates 16-74: 20.7%
No Qualifications 16-74: 26.2%
Owner-Occupied: 74%
Social Housing: 14.2% (Council: 11.7%, Housing Ass.: 2.5%)
Privately Rented: 8.4%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 7.3%
Often people who think they are morally superior,
whilst ironically being very disdainful of the
rocks which provide exactly that.
Until they were forced to confront reality, they would demand things more socialist than Labour all the time.
I think the Tories look secure enough here for some years to come.
My mother likes Nick Clegg interestingly enough and she’s the kind of voter who would probably still vote lib dem. She views changes in public spending as ‘shifts’ rather than ‘cuts’.
I’m not sure how common that kind of lib dem voter is though.
“Often people who think they are morally superior”
Does anyone think of themselves as morally inferior, Joe? It’s basic psychology, proved time and again, that people attribute their own flaws to situational factors and those of others to moral weakness (fundamental attribution error).
Not sure how this seat will go. Kawczynski strikes me as being almost as peculiar a fellow as his predecessor, and it does not strike me as inevitable that he will go from electoral strength to strength – although he is helped by a split opposition in this seat.
If Shrewsbury is so solidly middle-class, how come Labour won here twice? I know the rural part of this seat is poor for Labour. I ask in genuine curiosity, since I have no real knowledge of this area.
‘If Shrewsbury is so solidly middle-class, how come Labour won here twice?’
I was refering to the constituency being middle class
Shrewsbury itself is more mixed in its social profile although it is generally a fairly pleasant middle England market town
But New Labour’s success was based on attracting middle class votes – and judging from the last election they’ve been better at holding on to these votes than those from voters lower down the social scale
I was surprised though that Labour leapfrogged the Lib Dems to take this seat from the Tories in 1997 – it’s not natural Labour teritoiry by any means
If there were ever two elections when Labour might conceivably win a basically classic middle class seat like this, they were 1997 and 2001.
Shrewsbury had one Tory MP all the way from 1945 to 1983 and I don’t think he was every in trouble. It was at the outer margins of the Blair landslide in 1997 (coming from a very narrow third) and Labour held on due to a tactical squeeze of the Lib Dem vote in 2001.
You could tell an interesting (and maybe slightly depressing) tale about the changing character of backbench MPs by charting the four who have sat here since the war – Sir John Langford-Holt (quintessential knight of the shires), Derek Conway (classic 80s man on the make), Paul Marsden (political cross-dresser) and Daniel Kawczynski (eccentric and not terribly bright political geek).
‘Kawczynski strikes me as being almost as peculiar a fellow as his predecessor, and it does not strike me as inevitable that he will go from electoral strength to strength’
What stuck out for me – apart from his height – was his accent which sounded as if he had come from Eastern Europe, which you would not expect from a member of the right-wing Cornerstone Group which have a particularly hard line on immigration
I thought you had to be British to be elected to Westminister – although I guess the example of Brooks Newmark in Braintree (an American) proves that wong
Funny that they are both Tories – supposedly the most patriotic of the mainstream parties
“It’s probably extremely foolish to predict middle england seats like this one for the next election.”
Or any seat for that matter.
Such a middle class seat would seem unlikely to rejoin Labour in the near future.
Perhaps a new Hereford South?
Certainly not natural Labour country, the borders have always had the Lib-Dems (and Liberals before them) as the Conservatives main challengers.
Parliamentary allowance abuser Derek Conway was actually the MP here between 1983-1997
Perhaps he had something to do with the Tories unexpected loss in ’97
It’s cetrainly hard to see this going back to Labour at any time soon, although 20% of the poll is a lot better than Labour managed in other semi-rural seats of similar social profiles
This must be one of the worst Labour performances in a seat they won in both 1997 and 2001.
In the West Midlands, yes. Wimbledon, Putney, Welwyn Hatfield, St Albans and Selby have all swung more to the Tories than S&A.
Thanks for the list. I don’t know about swing but of those only St Albans registered a lower Labour percentage with 17.6%. That must be the lowest for any seat Labour won in both 1997 and 2001 I should think.
According to Wikipedia Shrewsbury has a population of 70,689. That’s a lot higher than I’d assumed. I’ve always thought of the town as having around 40,000 to 50,000 for some reason.
If thats true Andy, then that is about the right level for a constituency based just on Shrewsbury town itself (under current rules). But I believe the real boundaries go quite a bit further than the town.
Could the figure given be the population of Shrewsbury and Atcham borough?
I had always thought that Shrewsbury was about that size. I think that figure would be for the town itself. The population isn’t the same as the electorate (since it includes thousands of children, for example), thus Shrewsbury isn’t large enough for a constituency without the rural elements represented by the name Atcham.
Thats right. Plus there is no such thing as Shrewsbury & Atcham borough since 2009 (but Shrewsbury itself has a town council since then which must make it one of the largest parishes in the country now)
There is a by-election here this thursday in the Quarry & Coton Hill ward (presumably this is what awakened Andy’s interest) in a marginal Conservative held ward
Ah yes of course Barnaby, I had forgotten that.
I’d also forgotten or a moment that local governmenthad moved on recently in Shropshire, Pete. However, a lot of these population figures are often several years old and so *could* have been from the time when the boroughs had existed…technically.
Thanks Pete for mentioning the by-election, which I hadn’t known about. Is that for the unitary council or merely the town one?
To answer my own question, I now see it’s for the unitary authority. Will watch out for the result.
The ward seems to be a Con-Lib Dem marginal. Not sure if Labour are thought to be in with a chance.
Labour didn’t stand in 2009 and as they were new ward boundaries then it is difficult to assess their previous form. I would suggest Labour have some more potential in the ward than their lack of a candidate last time might suggest, but probably not enough to win
Quarry/Coton Hill result
LD – 41.8%
C – 31.6%
Lab – 23.1%
Ind – 3.5%
Interesting that there are 3 labour councillors in Bayston Hill, I had assumed that the vast majority of labour support in this constituency would be concentrated in the town itself.
Although I see that the lib dems did not stand in that ward in 2009.
That is interesting, actually – how far outside Shrewsbury is it?
Actually, on second glance it does contain part of the south of the town but Shrewsbury does have strange wards.
Makes more sense then. There are some former mining villages in Shropshire, but I think such as they are they are in the North Shropshire constituency, not this one.
Lib dems have narrowly gained Abbey ward by 8 votes where there was no Labour candidate. Not really a surprise IMO in the context of their earlier gain in Quarry.