Sutton and Cheam
2010 Results:
Conservative: 20548 (42.36%)
Labour: 3376 (6.96%)
Liberal Democrat: 22156 (45.67%)
BNP: 1014 (2.09%)
UKIP: 950 (1.96%)
Green: 246 (0.51%)
English Democrat: 106 (0.22%)
Others: 112 (0.23%)
Majority: 1608 (3.31%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 20310 (47%)
Conservative: 17440 (40.3%)
Labour: 5152 (11.9%)
Other: 349 (0.8%)
Majority: 2870 (6.6%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 16922 (40.4%)
Labour: 4954 (11.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 19768 (47.1%)
Other: 288 (0.7%)
Majority: 2846 (6.8%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 15078 (38%)
Labour: 5263 (13.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 19382 (48.8%)
Majority: 4304 (10.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 17822 (37.8%)
Labour: 7280 (15.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 19919 (42.3%)
Referendum: 1784 (3.8%)
Other: 287 (0.6%)
Majority: 2097 (4.5%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Paul Burstow(Liberal Democrat) (more information at They work for you)
Phillipa Stroud (Conservative) Charity worker and leader of a central London church. Executive Director of the Centre for Social Justice, the think tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith after his removal as Conservative leader. Contested Birmingham Ladywood in 2005.
Kathy Allen (Labour) Paul Burstow(Liberal Democrat) (more information at They work for you)
Peter Hickson (Green) Contested Carshalton and Wallington 1997, Croydon and Sutton 2000 London Assembly elections.
David Pickles (UKIP) Sutton councillor since 2002, originally elected as a Conservative defected to UKIP in 2007. Contested Croydon and Sutton in 2008 London elections.
John Clarke (BNP)John Dodds (English Democrat) Matthew Connolly (CPA) Martin Cullip (Libertarian)Brian Hammond (Independents Federation UK)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 88344
Male: 48.4%
Female: 51.6%
Under 18: 21%
Over 60: 20%
Born outside UK: 13.4%
White: 88.9%
Black: 1.9%
Asian: 5.3%
Mixed: 2%
Other: 1.9%
Christian: 71%
Hindu: 2.2%
Muslim: 2.7%
Full time students: 2.9%
Graduates 16-74: 24.2%
No Qualifications 16-74: 20.9%
Owner-Occupied: 78.8%
Social Housing: 9% (Council: 5.4%, Housing Ass.: 3.6%)
Privately Rented: 10.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 7.1%
This particular set of elections is a good opportunity for the Tories in Sutton to show that it is still possible for them to get more votes than the LDs (in certain circumstances).
Boris had a good vote from Sutton (as in 2008).
Wandle Valley (in Hackbridge) was close-ish though (although still a substantial 8% gap) – you’d have thought that would vote Labour in a different seat – perhaps it did just on the GLA.)
Boris won every ward in Sutton.
Yes it did
Labour won 3 wards in this Borough on the GLA list vote – St Helier, Wandle Valley & perhaps a little more surprisingly Sutton Central. One might have expected Labour to do better in The Wrythe than in the latter.
Thanks.
Perhaps the Tories will be 5th time lucky here.
The only Tory who has won elections here for 20 years is Boris.
The contribution from Sutton was pretty important in 2008 and 2012.
Or perhaps not, if Joanne Cash stands again.
Don’t know why you mention her. She didn’t stand here last time. The Sutton & Cheam Tories have had the knack of selecting poor candidates here for a while, but surely won’t make that mistake again.
Philippa Stroud, then. All the same kettle of fish.
The 2010 result wasnt actually bad at all. Swing of 1.5% odd LD -> Con is about the national average. Nailed on tory gain here.
Maybe so. The candidate would need to be effective though.
I don’t think Philippa Stroud was a bad a candidate as Cash. I would agree with Joe that it looks like a Tory gain at the moment.
The local elections next year will be interesting.
Although the Tories will be desperate to take control
I think it can be easier to defeat Lib Dems in Parliamentary seats when people are fed up with them locally.
So it’s a bit of a dilema.
I certainly think the Tories should heavily target both elections though.
The question is this- Where is the Labour vote here? Like in neighbouring Kingston and Surbiton, I would expect Labour to take votes equally off the Lib Dems and Tories, thereby deciding the result.
Well its pretty clearly tactically voting LD at the moment
If their current standing in the polls is anything to go by, I should think that by the next election, they’ll be anything but.
There isn’t very much of a natural Labour vote in Sutton & Cheam.
The Lib Dem vote base is of very long standing, going back to their by election win in 1973 and their having controlled Sutton council since the mid-80s.
A sizeable number of Tories peeled away to the Lib Dems in 1997, and haven’t returned in enough numbers for the Tories to win the seat back since.
Despite the smallish majority this will be harder than it looks for the Tories to win back, as it always has been.
Seats where Lib Dem incumbents are reliant on huge tactical voting from Labour supporters will be easier gains for the Tories.
Demographics also matters. The Lib Dem vote in Sutton is suburban working class and lower middle class. It is not from the demographics that have deserted them most since 2010 – basically public sector professionals and university seats.
Effectively, the Lib Dems owe this seat and their local election success to Graham Tope.
I think HH is right. There is perhaps a potential Labour vote in Sutton Central, and some bits of Sutton North & West, but very little in Cheam & Worcester Park & even less in Belmont or South Sutton. The non-white population is a bit of a feature in central Sutton but not elsewhere in the seat. The fact that this has been a consistently weak seat for Labour, much more so than Carshalton & Wallington which was once quite marginal & was actually won in the 1973 GLC election, is no accident – it’s not posh, but it’s not poor either, it’s owner-occupied, not very working class & other than central Sutton still overwhelmingly white too.
The central areas of Sutton are where the Tories have their biggest problem. The majorities were pretty close-ish in 2006 but the LDs re-established big leads in 2010.
The rest of it has quite a lot of wards with split representation, but it’s still flakey.
I think Labour would have more of a presence if the LDs weren’t so established though,
Considering how ridiculous the hold the Lib Dems have over the council (it’s something like 11 Conservatives v 42 LDs in the Council), it is highly unlikely that the Tories will gain a majority.
It’s the flagship lib dem council in the country at the end of the day and I think that the absence of victory is hurting the local Conservative organisation.
Phillipa Stroud, while one of Cameron’s ladies, was one of the most active and high-profile candidates in Sutton for quite a while. However, Burstow was buyoed by anti-Tory tactical voting, the enthusiasm of this support being lost now.
It all depends on who the Tories select. Is it this Cash personality? If so what is he like and what is he known for?
A little late but as some of you may know, this seat is one of ten in the “early tranche” of Conservative Party selections, which began on the 16th November and is set to be concluded by Christmas.
As per ConservativeHome – “None of these first ten have fast-tracked candidates – that is candidates who fought the seat at the last election and have asked to fight it again. A number of candidates in the other thirty of the forty seats have asked to be fast-tracked and are going through the relevant ConHQ and local approval processes.
Constituencies with less than 100 members will have to choose a three person shortlist given to them by a special ConHQ committee or choose their candidate by open primary.”
Stonecot, LB Sutton:
Lib Dem 1,034, C 402, Lab 289, Ukip 182, Green 32. (May 2010 – Three seats Lib Dem 3,023, 2,664, 2,508; C 1,814, 1,801, 1,774; Lab 632, 490, 459; BNP 413).
Lib Dem hold. Swing 7.7% C to Lib Dem.
Yes I heard about this this evening – I think the Labour candidate was Charlie Mansell. It’s an impressive result for the LDs, and shows that the council is still pretty popular here – the Tories appear to have demography on their side, and still they lose. Indeed the Tories would be close to being wiped out altogether if they did as poorly as this in the borough as a whole.
Looking at this in more detail, it was in fact UKIP whose vote rose most sharply (this is a suburban owner-occupied area, but not posh, with many voters whom one would expect to be receptive to them at the moment), and Labour next. Nevertheless, the LD vote still went up by nearly 2% from an already pretty high base (starting at over 50%), so one still has to say it’s a good result for them. Labour’s vote has at least risen by more than 4%, and it isn’t traditionally a great area for my party, but it still leaves us with only about 14%, hardly setting the world alight, though it has left the Tories less securely in second place at least.
Yeah….but the Tory association seem to be unable to get their show on the road here.
It’s either a bucket with a hole in the bottom
or a car which nobody has managed to repair for 26 years,
And all the limp dums who (for some reason) are free during the day (unlike Labour and Tory people) flock together into by-elections.
At the General Election it’ll go more like this (hopefully)…,
Con 30,144
*LD 16,022
Lab 6,298
UKIP 1,934
You can’t write off the Lib Dems in south-west London at least. I still think the Conservatives will win this seat- they don’t have a massive majority to close and the demographics seem a lot more favourable than somewhere like Twickenham or Kingston- but I don’t think the victory will be resounding at all. Perhaps:
Con 43
LD 39
Lab 12
I’d agree with Tory more than Joe James Tory.
I think Labolur should do better than 12, more like 15-18
My serious view on this one
is I don’t know.
It could be that the bad local council by-elections are a reflection of Lib Dem activism when they can pool resources
and
that in a General Election
national trends (net swing between Con and LD) take it into the Con column anyway by a narrow
margin.
But there is clearly something at work “on the ground” here which has enabled the LDs to resist national trends well so of course they can’t be written off – on the current or the new boundaries.
Census results, white British 2001 / 2011:
Belmont: 81.2% / 69.4%
Cheam: 81.3% / 72.3%
Nonsuch: 86.9% / 78.5%
Stonecot: 83.8% / 73.4%
Sutton Central: 81.1% / 63.7%
Sutton North: 84.4% / 69.4%
Sutton South: 79.3% / 62.6%
Sutton West: 80.4% / 65.9%
Worcester Park: 84.7% / 71.1%
TOTAL: 82.6% / 69.7%
White overall, Sutton & Cheam:
2001: 88.9%
2011: 78.6%
Some fairly big drops in the Sutton wards, bigger than I expected.