Which makes Labour’s dominance in this seat all the more surprising

Could the case not me made that this seat is in fact the true successor seat to Flintshire West with a few extra wards – namely the Clwydian range and Denbigh – whilst Clywd West is essentially the old north, central and western parts of the old Denbighshire seat – with the rest being in Clwyd South

If so it paints an even starker picture of the decline of Torey fortunes in the area

However, I think the size of the town would have a disproportionate effect on the outcome. I think the rural vale would be Conservative along with St. Asaph and (although I haven’t been there for years) Denbigh would be Labour (as it’s poorer and more ‘Welsh’ in nature).

Prestatyn I think is difficult. Its county councillors are nearly all Tory, but I doubt whether in a national election it is as Conservative. There are some very nice parts of the town, but also lots of council estates in the town and Meliden and hundreds of boxy little bungalows that house many of the same type of Scouse retirees who have moved to Rhyl. I would imagine that the vote is fairly even there but it would have been Tory in 2010 and Labour before.

I don’t know if that’s true because as you say elsewhere in your post, Rhyl, which has descended into an almost impoverished outpost, is completely different from the other towns in the constituency – namely Prestatyn, Denbigh and St Asaph and whilst i imagine Denbigh having a core Labour vote, I would have thought Prerstatyn, St Asaph annd the surrounding countryside to be more sympathetoc to the Tories than Labour (certainly nowadays any way)

This seat isn’t enrtirely different from the old Flintshire West seat – which was always Tory

However, many of those with social problems mightn’t vote and I think a substantial part of Labour’s excellent growth here is part of the Merseyside effect and poorer pensioners moving from that area to retire and bringing their anti-Tory voting habits with them. Colwyn Bay and Llandudno still get substantial numbers of retirees from nice parts of Manchester, Cheshire and The Wirral who are still pretty Tory. I used to do some teaching in a very nice part of the Manchester commuter belt and half the kids and members of staff seemed to have grandparents living in Rhos on Sea or Llandudno.

It is hard to believe that in the notional result from ’92 this seat had a Conservative majority of 2,000-odd. I think that Labour must have got the vote in Rhyl out massively, and they had good reason to turn out as many will be disproportionately hit by the cuts. There was a story in yesterday’s Daily Post on statistics from Rhyl regarding alcoholism, obesity, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy etc. and the results (even for me as someone who grew up near Rhyl) were truly shocking and utterly lamentable.

The contrast between the great result for Labour here and the bad ones next door in Clwyd West and Aberconwy is striking. 20 years ago the three main towns in these seats (Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, and Llandudno) would have behaved pretty equally in voting terms. Now the latter two still vote in similar ways (Tory in 2011), but the former has become completely divorced electorally from the other two. This can only be due to extreme demographic change.

However, many of those with social problems mightn’t vote and I think a substantial part of Labour’s excellent growth here is part of the Merseyside effect and poorer pensioners moving from that area to retire and bringing their anti-Tory voting habits with them. Colwyn Bay and Llandudno still get substantial numbers of retirees from nice parts of Manchester, Cheshire and The Wirral who are still pretty Tory. I used to do some teaching in a very nice part of the Manchester commuter belt and half the kids and members of staff seemed to have grandparents living in Rhos on Sea or Llandudno.