Predict gains/losses in your local area in next GE

[nw1]

Following on from the discussion in the Tories/Sunak thread, I wonder if people have any idea about changes in their local area, assuming a GE in around 15 months' time (so May or June 2024).

I'll go with Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex and the IoW.

The south of course tends Tory anyway, so maybe not many seats will flip, but I predict:

Southampton Itchen - will be a Labour gain. It was Labour from 1992 to 2015, there has been rightwards movement recently but I suspect it's the sort of urban seat that will flip next time.

Winchester - Lib Dem gain. The Lib Dems had high hopes last time and came close, but not quite there. This time I think it'll inevitably be a Lib Dem gain.

Esher and Walton - Lib Dem gain. Raab is unpopular and it swung markedly towards the Lib Dems last time. I think they'll take it this time, particularly if Raab remains the Tory candidate.

Guildford - Lib Dem gain. Well connected university town, and was Lib Dem briefly in the past. I'd again suggest a Lib Dem gain this time.

Finally a wildcard: Worthing East and Shoreham - Labour gain. Tory majority not vast (7500) and dropped to 5100 in 2017, before certain voters drunk the Boris kool-aid. Nonetheless Worthing council was Labour gain last time, and I get the impression the area is getting more liberal due to influx of people from Brighton.

Other than that, all other seats to be a hold for the existing party, mostly the Tories.

 

[Thirteen]

Esher is a dead cert for Lib Dem gain as Raab's majority was wiped out last time if Labour hadn't stood, he would have lost his seat.

I think a few London seats will swing to Lib Dem or Labour like Wimbledon and Sutton.

 

[telstarbox]

Remember that there's a boundary review due soon, so are you talking about the new seats

In Kent Labour will gain at least another two or three seats - but not Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Maidstone & Malling or High Weald.

In Greater London I would expect Labour to gain some outer seats which were marginal in the last couple of elections such as Chipping Barnet and Chingford & Woodford Green.

 

[brad465]

Tunbridge Wells is one of the biggest swing projections I'm predicting a Lib Dem gain for (they require a 14+% swing to take it), partly because they increased their vote share by 18% in 2019, but also as the Lib Dem candidate, Dr Mike Martin, has started campaigning already (he's also been a good commentator for what's going on in Ukraine).

Dover has a good chance of being a large swing to Labour; currently held by Natalie Elphicke, she's not gone down well in the constituency, particularly after the P&O sackings, and the seat was Labour throughout the last Labour Government.

 

[Ediswan]

The current Conservative MP for Stevenage has already stated he will not be seeking reselection "in order to take up new opportunites outside of politics".

 

[jfollows]

My area:
Hazel Grove and Cheadle - Lib Dem
Altrincham & Sale West - Labour
Tatton & Macclesfield - both more likely to go Labour than Lib Dem but I'm not convinced
Anything around Warrington - Labour
Crewe & Nantwich - Labour

 

[Snow1964]

Here on the Wiltshire Somerset borders think the Lib Dem will take a few seats from Conservatives. There are quite a lot of constituency boundary changes.

I predict Frome will go Lib Dem.
Possibly Stroud, Glastonbury & Somerton, Honiton & Sidmouth, Wells & Mendip Hills too

Labour has never done very well in any rural area in the South

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Wythenshawe and Sale East - Labour hold. Likely massive increase in majority. Safe Labour seat.

Altrincham and Sale West - could be really interesting and has the potential to be a key marginal. Seat currently held by a certain Sir Graham Brady (Conservative) with a 6,139 majority ahead of Labour, which lead might possibly completely evaporate in the next General Election as @jfollows has already indicated upthread.

 

[D6130]

Calder Valley - Labour gain from Conservatives by a small majority.

Halifax - Labour hold (safe seat)

Keighley & Ilkley - Conservative hold by a reduced majority.

 

[MikeWM]

On the current boundaries (though they may well be about to change, Cambridgeshire may go from 7 constituencies to 8):

Cambridge will stay Labour.

South Cambs will go Lib Dem - was a bit of a surprise it didn't already do so in 2019.

Peterborough I don't know enough about, but it seems to be a reasonable and easily achievable target for Labour - they had it in 1997, 2001, 2017 and the 2019 by-election.

NE Cambs, NW Cambs and Huntingdon will stay Tory - these are very safe seats.

SE Cambs (my constituency) is probably the most interesting, as I mentioned on the Tories/Sunak thread earlier. If people coalese around either the Labour candidate or the Lib Dem candidate, they could win. But if the vote is split, the Tories will win. I suspect it won't be sufficiently clear who is the main opposition, and so the Tories will hold on here.

 

[chorleyjeff]

Following on from the discussion in the Tories/Sunak thread, I wonder if people have any idea about changes in their local area, assuming a GE in around 15 months' time (so May or June 2024).

I'll go with Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex and the IoW.

The south of course tends Tory anyway, so maybe not many seats will flip, but I predict:

Southampton Itchen - will be a Labour gain. It was Labour from 1992 to 2015, there has been rightwards movement recently but I suspect it's the sort of urban seat that will flip next time.

Winchester - Lib Dem gain. The Lib Dems had high hopes last time and came close, but not quite there. This time I think it'll inevitably be a Lib Dem gain.

Esher and Walton - Lib Dem gain. Raab is unpopular and it swung markedly towards the Lib Dems last time. I think they'll take it this time, particularly if Raab remains the Tory candidate.

Guildford - Lib Dem gain. Well connected university town, and was Lib Dem briefly in the past. I'd again suggest a Lib Dem gain this time.

Finally a wildcard: Worthing East and Shoreham - Labour gain. Tory majority not vast (7500) and dropped to 5100 in 2017, before certain voters drunk the Boris kool-aid. Nonetheless Worthing council was Labour gain last time, and I get the impression the area is getting more liberal due to influx of people from Brighton.

Other than that, all other seats to be a hold for the existing party, mostly the Tories.

The folk in Chorley are disenfranchised for the time being so no change here so long a Sir Lindsay keeps his job. Grrrr

 

[BenS123]

I'm in the Christchurch constituency which is unfortunately a Tory (very) safe seat... some of the projections saying the Tories will win 15 seats etc list Christchurch as one of them. Surprising as everyone I talk to locally wants to see the back of Chris Chope!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I still have a house in the UK - if I was home then I think my constituency being very safe conservative will remain that way.

Fylde (constituency) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fylde is a constituency in Lancashire which is represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Mark Menzies, a Conservative.

 

[nw1]

I still have a house in the UK - if I was home then I think my constituency being very safe conservative will remain that way.

Fylde (constituency) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Must be one of the safest Tory seats north of Manchester, looking at those majorities - considerable even in 1997.

I don't know much about Fylde other than "it's the area between Preston and Blackpool", a bit of a "here be dragons" area essentially, but I assume very rural and lots of farming?

 

[Typhoon]

Tunbridge Wells is one of the biggest swing projections I'm predicting a Lib Dem gain for (they require a 14+% swing to take it), partly because they increased their vote share by 18% in 2019, but also as the Lib Dem candidate, Dr Mike Martin, has started campaigning already (he's also been a good commentator for what's going on in Ukraine).

Dover has a good chance of being a large swing to Labour; currently held by Natalie Elphicke, she's not gone down well in the constituency, particularly after the P&O sackings, and the seat was Labour throughout the last Labour Government.

Dover might depend on how the locals consider the small boat crossings and the constant problems with traffic flow. She also seems to attract bad publicity. The problem with most Kent seats is that the town may consider turning, but the countryside still tends to support the blue rosette. Boundary changes might make some difference but majorities are still pretty large. One of the better MPs, Tracey Crouch, is losing some solid Conservative ground and picking up some more marginal 'inner Medway'. What concerns me most is Canterbury, where the sitting MP, Rosie Duffield, is under attack from inside Labour, and they lose the seat.

Tunbridge Wells - you may be right, the council is LibDem led, in conjunction with an independent group and Labour so LibDem have a decent foothold and Labour have an incentive not to fight too hard - a continued presence at the cabinet table.

 

[nw1]

I'm in the Christchurch constituency which is unfortunately a Tory (very) safe seat... some of the projections saying the Tories will win 15 seats etc list Christchurch as one of them. Surprising as everyone I talk to locally wants to see the back of Chris Chope!

Strangely Christchurch did swing away from the Tories for a few years in the 90s, following a by-election in 1993 when the Lib Dems scored 62% of the vote. Sadly this only lasted four years and the right-wing Southampton reject has held it since 1997, with an obscene 69.6% in 2017. Quite amazing for an urban area.

That said, it's one of the few seats to swing away from the Tories between 2017 and 2019, with a slightly less obscene 65.2% in 2019.

The previous Conservative, Robert Adley (who has come up in a recent thread) seemed a lot more agreeable than Chope, or indeed the whole of the current cabinet.

 

[MikeWM]

Must be one of the safest Tory seats north of Manchester, looking at those majorities - considerable even in 1997.

I don't know much about Fylde other than "it's the area between Preston and Blackpool", a bit of a "here be dragons" area essentially, but I assume very rural and lots of farming?

About half of the people in the constituency live in Lytham St Annes - which is a very well-off area, considerably more so than anyone that has travelled on the Blackpool South line would probably think!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Must be one of the safest Tory seats north of Manchester, looking at those majorities - considerable even in 1997.

I don't know much about Fylde other than "it's the area between Preston and Blackpool", a bit of a "here be dragons" area essentially, but I assume very rural and lots of farming?

Yes but you would not believe the amount of new houses being built in the area. Huge- all using farmers fields. So the area will/has already change(d) considerably before I die

 

[nw1]

Yes but you would not believe the amount of new houses being built in the area. Huge- all using farmers fields. So teh area will/has already change(d) considerably before I die

And presumably it will become less of a safe Tory seat.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2023 ==

About half of the people in the constituency live in Lytham St Annes - which is a very well-off area, considerably more so than anyone that has travelled on the Blackpool South line would probably think!

I really don't know this area at all: I have glimpsed vast tracts of flat country west of the M6 and the WCML, and back in autumn 1976 or 1977 (sometime round then) when I was a young child we went to Blackpool Illuminations, but a) I was too young to pay attention to the surroundings and b) it was night.

I didn't think of the area as particularly well-off though; I imagined the coastal towns to be rather down-at-heel these days. Places like Poulton-le-Fylde I imagine as being mostly late-60s early-70s detached housing, but I've really got no idea.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

And presumably it will become less of a safe Tory seat.

I would assume so yes.

 

[AY1975]

In Greater London I would expect Labour to gain some outer seats which were marginal in the last couple of elections such as Chipping Barnet and Chingford & Woodford Green.

And Beckenham, which has historically been pretty safe Tory but when Labour were last in power the majority was small enough for it to be classed as a marginal.

Here on the Wiltshire Somerset borders think the Lib Dem will take a few seats from Conservatives. There are quite a lot of constituency boundary changes.

I predict Frome will go Lib Dem.
Possibly Stroud, Glastonbury & Somerton, Honiton & Sidmouth, Wells & Mendip Hills too

Labour has never done very well in any rural area in the South

Stroud was Labour from 2017 to 2019, and probably only reverted to the Tories because the Greens also actively campaigned there in 2019. It could easily go Labour next time, though. All the others that you mentioned will more likely go Lib Dem.

Other potential Lib Dem gains that I don't think have been mentioned include Carshalton & Wallington (which they held from 1997 until 2019), Cheltenham, Eastbourne (which they likewise have held on and off in the past, including from 2017 to 2019), Harrogate, Lewes (Lib Dem until 2015 as I recall) and Sutton & Cheam.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Feb 2023 ==

Keighley & Ilkley - Conservative hold by a reduced majority.

Keighley & Ilkley has historically been a key marginal - it was Labour when the party was in power and again from 2017 to 2019 so could easily go back to them.

Ditto High Peak in Derbyshire, and several of the Red Wall seats in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire that went Tory for the first time in 2017 or 2019 will probably also revert to Labour: Ashfield, Bolsover, Mansfield, and North-East Derbyshire, along with vast swathes of the Red Wall elsewhere: Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool, Leigh, Workington and the various Stoke-on-Trent seats, for example.

There are also a number of seats that have historically been marginal but now have pretty big Tory majorities thanks to an ageing population and younger people who are more likely to vote Labour having moved to where there are more job opportunities. But even places like that could potentially go back to Labour in the current climate. Apart from Dover, which was mentioned upthread, another such example is Amber Valley in Derbyshire.

 

[nw1]

Stroud was Labour from 2017 to 2019, and probably only reverted to the Tories because the Greens also actively campaigned there in 2019.

Big mistake there by the Greens. Judean People's Front syndrome.
But yes, Stroud has been surprisingly frequently Labour; as a provincial small town, it doesn't strike me as obvious Labour territory, so I'm slightly intrigued why. There must be something different about Stroud.

Other potential Lib Dem gains that I don't think have been mentioned include Carshalton & Wallington (which they held from 1997 until 2019), Cheltenham, Eastbourne (which they likewise have held on and off in the past, including from 2017 to 2019),

Eastbourne seems to have switched from one party to the other for the last few elections. Lib Dem in 2010, Tory in 2015, Lib Dem in 2017, Tory in 2019. The same two individuals playing musical chairs, too. So it wouldn't surprise me if it flips Lib Dem again next time.

More surprisingly, it was solid Tory during the Blair years. The Lib Dems won a byelection in 1990, but then one Nigel Waterson won it for the Tories in 1992 and held it, ironically, until 2010.

Harrogate, Lewes (Lib Dem until 2015 as I recall) and Sutton & Cheam.

Lewes has been a really, really surprising Tory hold in the past two elections. It's one I expected to flip back to Lib Dem in both 2017 and 2019. Firstly I get the impression Lewes town is a haven for slightly more alternative, progressive people, and secondly doesn't it contain the university campus at Falmer? Also it's a Remain-leaning constituency but I believe its Tory MP is a Brexiter.

Must surely be Lib Dem next time... mustn't it?

 

[telstarbox]

The Falmer campus is just inside one of the Brighton seats but Lewes and Worthing might show signs of a "Greater Brighton" spillover effect. You can see the boundaries here: https://mapit.mysociety.org/areas/WMC.html

 

[WizCastro197]

Woking may be able to flip to Liberal Democrats, it may be a stretch, but considering Woking Borough Council has a Lib Dem majority, it doesn't seem so far fetched.

Reigate won't flip, I am fairly certain.

 

[nw1]

The Falmer campus is just inside one of the Brighton seats but Lewes and Worthing might show signs of a "Greater Brighton" spillover effect. You can see the boundaries here: https://mapit.mysociety.org/areas/WMC.html

Ah right ok thanks, for some reason I thought Falmer was Lewes.

 

[90sWereBetter]

Here in East Anglia, Norwich North is probably a nailed-on Labour gain, Chloe Smith has clung onto the seat since 2009 with majorities never bigger than 5,000 (and barely held on in 2017) but she's standing down at the next GE.

Colchester could be a three-way marginal between the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour. Not sure about the old bellwethers like Basildon and Harlow, while Chelmsford and Southend are probably going to remain Conservative (and might be the only urban areas the party has left at the rate they're going!)

Romford is probably still safe for another election cycle or two, but how much longer can it stay Conservative against the prevailing London headwinds? The spillover from rock-solid Labour areas like Ilford, Newham and Hackney, coupled with the Elizabeth Line can only mean one thing in the future for Romford...

The Tories are toast in Chingford, we'll get confirmation of that if/when IDS announces he is standing down.

 

[52290]

The folk in Chorley are disenfranchised for the time being so no change here so long a Sir Lindsay keeps his job. Grrrr

Sir Lindsay is valuable in promoting the Chorley accent throughout the world. I live in Leyland and because of Sir Lindsay I can now communicate with the people of Chorley.

 

[Lost property]

My area:
Hazel Grove and Cheadle - Lib Dem
Altrincham & Sale West - Labour
Tatton & Macclesfield - both more likely to go Labour than Lib Dem but I'm not convinced
Anything around Warrington - Labour
Crewe & Nantwich - Labour

Those are interesting projections given I also know the areas very well.

Hazel Grove ..Lib Dem...Cheadle...Con (Sunak helpfully bunged the constituency a helpful bribe, what with it being as I'm sure you know, one of the most socially and economically deprived areas in the UK )

Altrincham and Sale...as another contributor has already mentioned, no longer the rock solid, as it has been for years, Tory seat..but I'd be more inclined to go for Lib Dem than Labour along with the departure of Brady.

Tatton...Lib Dem...Macc / Congleton ...Con.

Crewe and Nantwich....Labour...

Interestingly enough, just a little bit further South, the current Tory MP for Stafford has been deselected. Seemingly on the basis she took six months maternity leave. As Boris happily takes lucrative speaking leave, hopefully his constituents will take note...assuming he survives the forthcoming enquiry in the first place.

 

[Typhoon]

Eastbourne seems to have switched from one party to the other for the last few elections. Lib Dem in 2010, Tory in 2015, Lib Dem in 2017, Tory in 2019. The same two individuals playing musical chairs, too. So it wouldn't surprise me if it flips Lib Dem again next time.

More surprisingly, it was solid Tory during the Blair years. The Lib Dems won a byelection in 1990, but then one Nigel Waterson won it for the Tories in 1992 and held it, ironically, until 2010.

Sometimes, with the Lib Dems, it is the candidate. It was Stephen Lloyd who appeared to be an extremely hard-working and constituency-centred MP (his constituency voted Brexit so he followed their line in the Commons). Did a lot of work on local health issues. He may well have had a sizeable personal vote.

Lewes has been a really, really surprising Tory hold in the past two elections. It's one I expected to flip back to Lib Dem in both 2017 and 2019. Firstly I get the impression Lewes town is a haven for slightly more alternative, progressive people, and secondly doesn't it contain the university campus at Falmer? Also it's a Remain-leaning constituency but I believe its Tory MP is a Brexiter.

Must surely be Lib Dem next time... mustn't it?

Lewes was Norman Baker's seat, another decent MP. They've now got Maria Caulfield, who is one of those sent out to do the morning studio interviews when everyone important has suddenly got a full diary. She is a former nurse, so it is her turn when there is industrial action. It rarely ends well. Surprisingly, there was a swing against her in 2019, majority less than 3,000. She needs to update her CV, she may need it!

The Falmer campus is just inside one of the Brighton seats but Lewes and Worthing might show signs of a "Greater Brighton" spillover effect. You can see the boundaries here: https://mapit.mysociety.org/areas/WMC.html

Worthing couincil is Labour (Lab 23, Con 13, LibDem 1). I've seen interviews with the leader, level-headed, none of your Momentum going on here. She contested Worthing West in the last two elections. The Conservative is Peter Bottomley, the Father of the House. He's 78, it might depend on whether he stands again.

 

[jfollows]

Altrincham and Sale...as another contributor has already mentioned, no longer the rock solid, as it has been for years, Tory seat..but I'd be more inclined to go for Lib Dem than Labour along with the departure of Brady.

Tatton...Lib Dem...Macc / Congleton ...Con.

I think you overstate the potential Lib Dem vote, but I'm not saying that your predictions will be wrong either .... Tatton (my constituency) has always had Labour in second place and I'll be voting for the most likely to win over Esther McVey at the next election, I voted Labour in 2019 for the same reason, so it's currently my "plan A' to do the same again at the next election.