Wakefield
2010 Results:
Conservative: 15841 (35.64%)
Labour: 17454 (39.27%)
Liberal Democrat: 7256 (16.33%)
BNP: 2581 (5.81%)
Green: 873 (1.96%)
Independent: 439 (0.99%)
Majority: 1613 (3.63%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 18014 (43.8%)
Conservative: 11477 (27.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 8221 (20%)
Other: 3436 (8.4%)
Majority: 6537 (15.9%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 13648 (31.5%)
Labour: 18802 (43.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 7063 (16.3%)
BNP: 1328 (3.1%)
Green: 1297 (3%)
UKIP: 467 (1.1%)
Other: 776 (1.8%)
Majority: 5154 (11.9%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 12638 (30.6%)
Labour: 20592 (49.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 5097 (12.4%)
UKIP: 677 (1.6%)
Green: 1075 (2.6%)
Other: 1175 (2.8%)
Majority: 7954 (19.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 14373 (28.5%)
Labour: 28977 (57.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 5656 (11.2%)
Referendum: 1480 (2.9%)
Majority: 14604 (28.9%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Mary Creagh(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Alex Story (Conservative) born 1974. Former Olympic rower, now a film and documentary producer. Contested Denton and Reddish in 2005.Mary Creagh(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
David Smith (Liberal Democrat) Born 1957, Paisley. Educated at Inverurie Academy and Glasgow University. Director of Leeds Voice, and former local government officer.Miriam Hawkins (Green)Ian Senior (BNP) Mark Harrop (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 91157
Male: 48.5%
Female: 51.5%
Under 18: 22.4%
Over 60: 19.6%
Born outside UK: 3.7%
White: 95.9%
Black: 0.3%
Asian: 2.9%
Mixed: 0.7%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 74.4%
Muslim: 2.6%
Full time students: 3.6%
Graduates 16-74: 14.3%
No Qualifications 16-74: 34.9%
Owner-Occupied: 62.7%
Social Housing: 29.8% (Council: 27%, Housing Ass.: 2.7%)
Privately Rented: 5.7%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8.6%
“I wonder if the Wakefield Conservatives were rather ‘shell shocked’ at their failure in 2010 after having put so much work in and achieved so much both here and in the other Wakefield constituencies.
Pete knows a couple at another place, have they said anything?”
They did go a bit quiet after May 2010, though of course they did get very creditable results througout the borough I think they did start genuinely to believe that Ed Balls was a gonner and must have been bitterly disappointed that he held on. What was strange though was that they still seemed to believe the Conservatives were going to continue making gains on the local council even after Labour had been booted out nationally
I’d love to have seen Balls booted
but I suspect he’s pretty important to why Labour isn’t further ahead now.
I think I’d like him to always have to endure recounts but to hang on.
There’s a very good Wikipedia section on
Wakefield Council election results 2012
with changes in share, and maps.
It seems UKIP did pretty well.
ht
tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakefield_Council_election,_2012
“What was strange though was that they still seemed to believe the Conservatives were going to continue making gains on the local council even after Labour had been booted out nationally”
I remember warning them about their optimism.
Is AC someone significant, WTB’s identity is well known.
Its such a shame for Wakefield Conservatives. They achieved such a lot in opposition. But this was one of those areas where Labour were ALWAYS going to come back strongly after they stopped being in government. It feels so dissapointing and demoralising, but that s just the way it is.
Another term in opposition after 2010 and Wakefield council would have been in Tory hands. Balls would then have lost in 2015. Oh what might have been…
But they’ll come back when Labour are next in government. Their victories have shown that it CAN be done when the circumstances are right.
Wakefield council might be a Conservative gain in 2018-2019 if the electoral cycle goes as some of us here expect.
The demographic changes will help the Wakefield Conservatives at that point.
As will the national Conservatives espousing more wwc friendly policies.
I’m not sure 2018-19 will be a long enough timeframe for the Conservatives to gain Wakefield council though.
2015 will be the first round of the elections by thirds in Wakefield and that will be on the same day as the general election (stupidly) meaning that Labour will win almost every ward in the borough as they did in 2010.
The Tories would have to then have performed spectacularly well in 2016 and 2017, pretty much returning to the pre 2010 position in just two years. 2018 is then county elections so Wakefield is not up, and then 2019 would see the Labour seats won on the same day as the 2015 general election recontested, with perhaps big gains due.
But if the Tories haven’t recovered instantly upon losing the 2015 election, to the extent that they win a majority of the wards in the borough in both 2016 and 2017, they will still not be able to take overall control in 2019.
I think it may take longer for overall control, personally. And that’s just if the Tories position amongst ordinary (non metropolitan elite) voters does not continue to decline further under Cameron.
Wakefield council is a lot more naturally pro-Labour than the parliamentary seat which bears its name, since it includes so much rock-solid territory in the constituencies of Jon Trickett & Yvette Cooper. I don’t see how the Tories could gain overall control of it even in utterly disastrous circumstances for a Labour government. It has some potentially winnable wards but surely not enough.
I am sorry to hear of Walter Harrison’s death & his straitened circumstances. He was an important man in the Commons for many years who was in charge of accommodation for MPs’ offices when, of course, there was far less space than today, and someone that it wasn’t a very good idea to get on the wrong side of. Politically he was a traditional right-wing loyalist who supported Denis Healey for the leadership; this seat doesn’t have a tradition of electing Labour left-wingers.
In 2008 the Tories won 11 of the 21 wards in Wakefield and amazingly Labour won none of the wards in the Hemsworth constituency (they broke 3 Con 3 Ind). Even so some of the wards the Tories won were ridiculously close whereas there was only one other ward which they didn’t win which they were remotely close to winning (Wakefield North). The chances of these kind of circumstances being repeated in two or three consecutive sets of elections, as they would need to be, does seem very remote. Perhaps the best chance the Tories would have would be if there was re-warding and therefore the whole council was up in one go and this were to coincide with a period of immense Labour unpopularity comparable with 2008/9. Again such a scenario depends on everything coming together in a perfect way which makes it exceedingly unlikely
Maybe if the Tories had actually managed to take the Council and make an impact with their local record (like Wandsworth) they could hold up in mid-term
but the 2007 results here still weren’t all that good for them.
2008 on it’s own wasn’t enough.
“whereas there was only one other ward which they didn’t win which they were remotely close to winning (Wakefield North).”
They weren’t too far away in Normanton and Kellingley ward in 2008 and I would expect them to be winnable for the Conservatives in 2018-2019.
I expect the government of the Eds to become very unpopular very fast.
Not so much because of their innate uselessness (although they certainly have that) but because of what’s going to hit after the next election.
Do you see EMs seat getting more marginal?
It will certainly be a worry for Milliband that in 2010 he was the first ever Labour MP in Doncaster North to go below 50% of the vote. I suppose demographic changes long-term may well make this more marginal than it is at present…
Richard, you are clearly looking forward to an exciting period of an Ed-Ed Government
followed by some enormous Tory landslide.
The trouble is, we’ve already had them.
You need to be careful what you wish for.
Over my dead body Joe!
Sorry folks just nipped out for breakfast, and Joe mentioning the LDs & PR in the same breath as Labour nearly brought it up.
“a nightmare Alliance of North Londonites and cod Balls economics who we can never get rid of.”
That doesn’t sound any different to what we have now.
And what’s your alternative? Cameron and Osborne presiding over the post 2015 government of discontent destroying the Conservative party forever?
Not for the first time, I agree with Richard.
I see little or no practical difference between Buffoon Cameron or Buffoon Ed.
At least under Buffoon Ed the Conservative Party has an electoral benefit.
I suspect the Cameronites in the party don’t like the idea that the party could sweep to a landslide following a period of Ed and Ed because it totally destroys their claim that the future of the party must be with their strategy.
This years elections were appallingly bad for the Tories. In many wards they were behind UKIP.
I think that Mary Creagh’s behaviour over this scandal has been extremley opportunistic which is rather unneccessary as depending on the way you look at it its either both parties faults or neither.
Its very good this type of thing has come to light and is no suprise to me whatsoever.
To be fair,
I think she does come across quite well actually.
I had rather labelled her as an Islington councilor type,
but she isn’t really.
I’m sure there is some political opportunism going on over this current situation though.
I think she could prove hard to shift even if the Tories improve on 2010.
We didn’t take this seat in 2010 when we had near perfect conditions so I cannot see us winning it now especially as Cameron seems too detached from the North.
Once Labour get in and we have a replay of 76-79 (without the rubbish piling high) then we might have a chance. We’ll hold up well in the South East and East Anglia but I’m not so sure about our prospects in seats like Wakefield in 2015. Labour will be difficult to budge and they’ll run the ‘Cameron only cares about the rich’ thing all day and all night.
‘To be fair, I think she does come across quite well actually.
I’m sure there is some political opportunism going on over this current situation though.’
I totally agree and would say her rising star status is warranted
Of course she’s being opportunistic over the sacandal – that’s what opposition politicians do – just as Tory MPs queued up to blame Gordon Brown and his government for the banking crisis
I agree that the Tories have missed their best chance to win Wakefield at the last election
Really? I dont rate her at all. I think she comes across quite badly.
Then again the labour figures I tend to think seem better probably aren’t the same people who labour voters like.
She strikes me as fairly straight forward and knowledgeable and gets stuck into the job,
not one of these screechy sanctimonious ones
who takes a lot longer to say anything.
Which seats was Ossett in before 2010?