Torbay
2010 Results:
Conservative: 19048 (38.71%)
Labour: 3231 (6.57%)
Liberal Democrat: 23126 (46.99%)
BNP: 709 (1.44%)
UKIP: 2628 (5.34%)
Green: 468 (0.95%)
Majority: 4078 (8.28%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 18995 (41.7%)
Conservative: 16240 (35.6%)
Labour: 6684 (14.7%)
Other: 3645 (8%)
Majority: 2755 (6%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 17288 (36.5%)
Labour: 6972 (14.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 19317 (40.8%)
UKIP: 3726 (7.9%)
Majority: 2029 (4.3%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 17307 (36.4%)
Labour: 4484 (9.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 24015 (50.5%)
UKIP: 1512 (3.2%)
Other: 251 (0.5%)
Majority: 6708 (14.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 21082 (39.5%)
Labour: 7923 (14.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 21094 (39.6%)
Other: 3223 (6%)
Majority: 12 (0%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Adrian Sanders(Liberal Democrat) (more information at They work for you)
Marcus Wood (Conservative) David Pedrick-Friend (Labour) Contested Torbay 2005.Adrian Sanders(Liberal Democrat) (more information at They work for you)Julien Parrott (UKIP)Sam Moss (Green)Ann Conway (BNP)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 95291
Male: 47.7%
Female: 52.3%
Under 18: 20.2%
Over 60: 28%
Born outside UK: 4.1%
White: 98.7%
Asian: 0.3%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 75.8%
Full time students: 2.1%
Graduates 16-74: 13.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 29.8%
Owner-Occupied: 72.7%
Social Housing: 7.4% (Council: 1.5%, Housing Ass.: 6%)
Privately Rented: 17.1%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 15.7%
Its a 2 way thing though – to use this seat as an example, Marcus Wood has been the Conservative candidate here for over 6 years almost uninterrupted – would he want to spend another 5 years in that position, with the possibility he may come up short again?
Equally, the local association may decide a new face is needed – it worked in seats like SE Cornwall, Newton Abbot and Richmond Park
I tend to agree with Matt’s point, at least a general level. There’s a number of candidates who fought a potential target in 2005, lost cutting the majority and then got reselected (usually quite early in the electoral cycle) for the same seat…some of them are MPs now…but some of them have lost again.
I guess there may be a change of candidate for many of those seats because a) they were expected to win this time (esp if up against labour) b) the candidate him/herself may decide not to invest 5 more years of his/her life to fight another marginal seat
I agree with some of what Matt and Andrea say – it has to be case by case.
I suppose I fear that if you have a revolving door without showing dedication to the area, it can rather put you back at square 1.
The dilema can be that if a candidate does well but not well enough, they can then be rewarded with a better seat, whereas they may be the ideal person to see it through.
Conservatives lost a council seat to the Lib-Dems here last night.
“The dilema can be that if a candidate does well but not well enough, they can then be rewarded with a better seat, whereas they may be the ideal person to see it through.
June 13th, 2010 at 10:12 pm”
Yes, very true – and not a policy which benefits the party as a whole, at all.
“Conservatives lost a council seat to the Lib-Dems here last night”
Depends what you mean by ‘here’. The ward was in Brixham which is Torbay borough but Totnes constituency
Thanks for the correction Pete.
‘The ward was in Brixham which is Torbay borough but Totnes constituency’
Interesting
I always thought Torbay comprised Torquay, Paignton & Brixham and assumed all three towns were in the Torbay constituency
I though that’s what distinguished this seat from the old Torquay seat prior to 1974
no, the Torbay seat has never included Brixham, even though Brixham is regarded as part of Torbay.
When Barnaby says “Torbay seat has never included Brixham” he of course means ‘since 1983′
This is in answer to a point that came up on the Tiverton and Honiton thread 2/8 about Torbay.
I agree with Pete.
On Torbay –
There’s nothing in the results from 1987 to 1997 to suggest Rupert Allason did anything other than respectably for the context of each of those 3 elections.
I would say 1987 was slightly positive as the SW was starting to drift away from the Tories then.
The anti Tory vote did swing behind the Alliance in 1983 as Pete explained.
Labour had quite a decent vote in 1979.
They did well in the 1990 local elections and quite well in 2005, no doubt partly providing some of the extra LD votes this time.
Just back from a few days in Torquay.
I have many happy memories of holidays in South Devon as a child in the early-mid 1980s and I have to say that Torquay and Paignton both seem to have declined quite a lot since then. Not as bad as the Hastings and Margates maybe, but still noticeably a far less prosperous place.
The Teignbridge area seems to have held up better. Still many very nice houses around Dawlish and Teignmouth (although the centres of both towns aren’t that nice). I’m not surprised the Tories managed to get Newton Abbot back rather than Torbay.
HH,
I hope you enjoyed your holiday in Torbay, and staying in Torquay.
Seems like your experience has some similarity to mine.
I went here in 1983 and 1984 on family holiday.
In 2007, though, was on holiday on the River Dart, and decided to go over to the Torbay area and admire the red sandstone, and see what the area was now like.
Paignton always was, I think, somewhat lower status than Torquay (or Brixham, which left the seat after 1979), but I couldn’t quite assess whether the area in general was more run down than 23 years earlier.
Where it really wins is on outdoor activity, and boats, which I’m sure quite a few of the local people also take part in. It’s pretty spectacular I think the way it’s built up on different levels around the Bay.
Quite a lot of shops were struggling though, closing down sales etc. and a program around 2008 said the average salary is only £12,000.
I couldn’t quite assess whether this is an area which would have got more difficult for the Tories because of it’s economic profile, but there has been a fairly consistent failure to break out of 35-40% regardless of local elections.
Thanks Joe.
I love Devon and so does my American wife – its cream teas appeal to her rather stereotypical idea of what England should be like.
I think a major factor in Torbay is the seemingly constant arrival of retirees, mostly from the urban north and of relatively modest means (otherwise they would be retiring in Spain) – the house prices in Torquay are pretty cheap. This must be a major source of Labour (tactical LD) support.
I think the area is a bit too downmarket now to be solidly Tory.
Yes, Torbay is now one of the most deprived areas in the peninsula as far as unemployment, wage levels etc, and I am sure bears strong comparison with seaside towns in other parts of the country. Adrian Sanders has generally been a popular and sympathetic incumbent, and the Tories have not fielded popular candidates against him! Adrian is also “local” in both senses. Alan Clark was being discussed on the Tiverton and Honiton thread. He was not only NOT local to Plymouth, but had the stupidity and brass neck to express something near contempt for his constituents. Sorry – Joe, you just cannot do that and get away with it. Adrian is the absolute antithesis of that.
I think it also worth mentioning the role of Mike Mitchell in this who developed the Liberal vote against the previous long term Tory incumbent Sir Frederic Bennett in 1979 and 1983, at some cost to himself.
I agree with Joe
I too went to Torquay recently and compared to seaside towns on the Sussex Coast at least ,it seemed very pleasant and didn’t seem to have changed greatly from when I used to holiday in Devon with my family in the 1980s
Paignton has always been a bit ‘chav’ – and seemed so today
Nothing stuck out to explain why the Tories could get majoroities of 15,000 in the 1960s (not a particularly good decade for them) and now can’t win the seat – as opposed to places like Hastings and Morecambe where the reasons are immediately evident on arrival
Tim 13
I made it very clear indeed that I think casework should be the most rewarding part of the job.
Alan Clarke’s views about constituents and constituency work
are NOT my views atall.
“Sorry – Joe, you just cannot do that and get away with it.”
I made it perfectly clear I strongly disagreed with what he said.
“I made it very clear indeed that I think casework should be the most rewarding part of the job.”
Do you (and Tim) really think that? While it can have a value, much of it must, in truth, be an enormous pain in the arse. For every valuable piece of work for somebody with a genuine issue the MP can help with, there are ten or twenty assorted serial whingers, small-minded NIMBYs, waiting-list jumpers, general loons and people who really should have gone direct to the relevant authority or their councillor. No MP can say it of course, but it is the long and short of the matter.
MPs, generally and at best, become MPs to contribute to shaping the kind of society they believe in on a macro level. There’s nothing dishonourable about that.
It’s a fair point, Sir Norfolk,
perhaps the truth is
the local casework
and the national macro policy of your party are vital.
The reason I think it’s vital is because there’s no point in shaping policy at macro level if you can’t work out how it affects people in practice. It’s an important test of how policy works.
I’ve never been an MP of course so couldn’t say what the balance is.
“its cream teas appeal to her rather stereotypical idea of what England should be like.”
we had clotted cream fudge.
One could get very fat.
Would like to go back and look at Stoke Gabriel,
I agree the staying grounded through casework point can be important, JJB.
There is a danger in policy making of ideas sounding good in theory but throwing up major problems on the ground which MPs see – things like the CSA and various well-meaning but overly-complex benefits for pensioners and others being examples.
But there is also a danger of becoming bogged down in it. It is a function of MPs, but not their principal role.
“Sorry – Joe, you just cannot do that and get away with it.”
I made it perfectly clear I strongly disagreed with what he said.
Now I genuinely am sorry, Joe, for misleading you (or allowing my words to be open to misinterpretation). I did NOT mean, or think you agreed with him. I was using “you” as in “one”. I posted this because you seemed to be surprised that the electorate would turn on him for that; you certainly seemed surprised at his defeat, whereas I saw it as pretty predictable.
I don’t think I mentioned casework actually, Norfolk P. Yes, of course it is a pain (I have had some second or third hand experience of the sort of things dealt with), but if you aim to be an effective representative at any level, you must do it thoroughly and well. But it could and ought to be part of a team approach. If you need to hand an item on to a councillor that should happen. But people often use MPs as they would the Managing Director – a convenient “top” person to complain to!
As a candidate before election as a way of demonstrating your commitment and effectiveness, casework can be very useful.
“you certainly seemed surprised at his defeat, whereas I saw it as pretty predictable”
I thought this discussion was about Alan Clark? He wasn’t ever defeated
I knew I should have looked him up!
In his diaries he said he feared being defeated in Sutton though, in 1990.
That’s interesting. I wonder which party he thought he might lose to.
The LDs were doing badly in the polls in 1990 but Labour were about 30% behind him in 1987 in Sutton.
I think he meant Labour.
He was referring to their lead in the polls and Mid Staffs.
I think he was a bit of a worrier.
He also had entries that he thought he could lose his seat in 1979.
Does anyone have results for the Mayoral election here (in 2005 I think)?
I can’t find them anywhere online.
It was quite heavily fragmented with several people ahead, but I think the Tories were quite easily the largest party. Must be coming round again?
will look when get more time
I’m surprised UKIP haven’t decided to stand in the Mayoral election, given that they got 34.4 of the vote in Torbay Borough at the 2009 European elections.
Not sure why Adrian Gloy Sanders was saying the Lib Dems had done well here on the overnight program on the BBC.
The results don’t show that.
There are quite a few split wards, and whereas it doesn’t look like a Lib Dem collapse,
the Tories held control, and several Lib Dem candidates were behind Labour.
The Mayoral election was won about 2 – 1 over the LDs.
Pretty unusual in recent years for Labour to win a seat in Torbay, too. When was the last time that happened?
I think it was about 8 years ago wasn’t it, Barnaby?
It was another excellent Tory result here. One would have expected them to lose the mayoralty with Nick Bye standing as an Independent against them, but they held on. I also thought they might lose control of the council but they held on there too.
Yes clearly bodes well for the Tories’ chances of gaining the parliamentary seat, although we thought that in 2000 too.
That’s true, we’ve been disappointed here many times.
This is in my top 10 of seats that the LDs really shouldn’t have held in 2010.
I wonder whether it’s got a bit of the problem we have in Twickenham where there is a rock core Conservative vote but it’s not been enough in high turnout elections, such as Generals.
There’s been some demographic change here aswell.
In the Tormohun ward each of the 3 main parties won a seat each.
Libs have won a local council seat at Cockington due to the collapse of the Green vote.
A friend was telling me her son who is a St Andrews graduate and his friend who is an Oxford graduate are working at a crazy golf course here.
A Lib Dem gain because of the collapse of the Green vote!? Must be some local circumstances? It certainly bucks what you would expect to be the trend.
The cause of the by-election was due to the Tory councillor having to give up his council seat after being successfully elected Mayor of Torbay in May.
The LDs went heavy with the “un-necessary by-election” line (because he had “hedged his bets” by still standing for council in May at the same time as for Mayor).
Wolf, not exactly: the majority (how many more votes the lowest Con had over the highest LD) in May was only 100 votes – at most 3.3% of the poll in May. The Con vote dropped by more than that. It is reasonable to argue that the LDs won it on the straight LD/Con swing.
Added to which, the figure for the Green share in May was probably not a true reflection of the party standing in the ward, since in May it was a 3 member ward, with 3LD, 3Con and one each Ind, Lab and Green, meaning everybody wanting to vote against the Govt could vote for all of the the Ind, Lab and Green candidates. If we were to have treated all the anti-govt candidates in May as if of a single party, the largest changes in share of the vote for the bye-election would have been (drop) Con -14.4%, (rise) LD +8.7%: again, suggesting it was won on straight Con/LD swing.
And in fact the LD numerical vote was almost identical to that achieved by their three candidates in May which suggests they may not have gained many new votes at all. Just that Conservative voters from May didn’t bother to turn out again, more or less for the reasons outlined by Nooffencealan
Torbay 2015 most likely
LD 38.1
Con 37.9
Lab 13
UKIP 8.5
others 2.5
The first tranche of target seats from the Conservatives in 2013…..include some seats they’ve already called for, which tells its own story I think
Anyway, the ten seats in the latest update (including some they’ve already mentioned) are
Birmingham Northfield
Bolton West
Brecon and Radnorshire
Chippenham
Chorley
Eastbourne
Mid Dorset and North Poole
Middlesborough South and East Cleveland
Morley and Outwood
North Devon
Somerton and Frome
Telford
Torbay
Vale of Clwyd
Kevin Foster has been selected for the Conservatives in Torbay.