Derby North
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 15845 (39.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 12293 (30.6%)
Conservative: 10395 (25.9%)
Other: 1583 (3.9%)
Majority: 3552 (8.9%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 15515 (35.4%)
Labour: 19272 (44%)
Liberal Democrat: 7209 (16.5%)
UKIP: 864 (2%)
Other: 958 (2.2%)
Majority: 3757 (8.6%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 15433 (35%)
Labour: 22415 (50.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 6206 (14.1%)
Majority: 6982 (15.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 19229 (34.3%)
Labour: 29844 (53.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 5059 (9%)
Referendum: 1816 (3.2%)
Other: 195 (0.3%)
Majority: 10615 (18.9%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Bob Laxton(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Candidates: Stephen Mold (Conservative) born 1968, Banbury. Sales and marketing director for a software company
Lucy Care (Liberal Democrat) born Derby. Educated at the University of Durham. Chartered engineer. Former Derbyshire County Councillor, Derby Councillor since 1996. Contested Derby South in 2005.
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 90157
Male: 48.5%
Female: 51.5%
Under 18: 21.8%
Over 60: 21.3%
Born outside UK: 6.3%
White: 93.1%
Black: 1.1%
Asian: 3.6%
Mixed: 1.4%
Other: 0.7%
Christian: 70.1%
Hindu: 0.6%
Muslim: 1.3%
Sikh: 1.8%
Full time students: 8.4%
Graduates 16-74: 19.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 28.4%
Owner-Occupied: 68.6%
Social Housing: 20.5% (Council: 15%, Housing Ass.: 5.5%)
Privately Rented: 8%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 11.3%
Pete, IYDMMA, you know when you were referring to another site above, was it the vote-2007 site by any chance?
I suspect many voters will know about the notional result in 2005, not least because you can bet your bottom dollar that the LibDems will tell them repeatedly. (No liability taken for this statement!).
However, I think that the Tories are simply not far enough behind the LibDems here for people to switch tactically from Tory to LibDem, particularly if, as recently, the LibDems appear fairly stagnant in the polls and the Tories are doing very well.
I have recently posted on the Liverpool Wavertree thread commenting on seats that the LibDems would notionally take on a 5% swing. They have a number of seats like this that look less attractive for the LibDems when analysed closely than at first sight.
The LibDems appear to be campaigning for the same middle class undecided vote as the Tories and Labour, presumably in the hope of getting seats like this and a number of other three way contests such as Colne Valley and Pendle, where they are actually close behind in third place. Looking from afar, this looks to be the wrong tactic. They would be better going for disaffected student and working class (including unemployed) votes in seats where the Tory vote is now residual. It is even conceivable that the LibDems could fail here but win Ashfield, which whilst in Nottinghamshire is not that far away.
Opinion polls are not good at picking up what is happening in three-way constituencies where tactical voting is a big issue. If anybody has local informaiton about what is going on in this seat, it would be helpful if they could post to this thread.
P.S Electoral Calculus currently has the Tories on 32.89%, Labour on 32.81% and LibDems on 23.39% for this seat. If the electors get to hear of such a prediction, surely the LibDems would suffer rather than benefit from tactical voting.
The Politicshome marginals poll out this morning is predicting that election night will be a very happy one one for us Derbyshire Tories and something of a wake for the local Labour Party. As part of a generally very weak performance in the East Midlands region Labour is projected to lose all of its Derbyshire MPs other than Margaret Beckett and Dennis Skinner. A Tory gain in this seat would be particularly satisfying from a Lib Dem baiting point of view as they have been bigging up the chances of Lucy Care for some time now.
The two seats from this region that the Tories are projected to gain that I am a bit sceptical about are NE Derbyshire and Nottingham South. I don’t know much about Nottingham but I do seem to recall that Tory performances in local elections, outside of a few redoubts, have in recent years been nothing to shout about. Nottingham S also has quite a high student population which in recent years has not proved to be fertile ground for the Tories.
As to NE Derbys, I have said on the relevant thread that I feel it is a seat that is moving towards the Tories in the long term, I just felt that the next election would be a few years too soon for it to be a Tory gain. Natashca Engel is a pretty good MP from what I can gather. Were she to lose I think she would (like several others no doubt) be entitled to count herself unlucky to just be in the wrong party at the wrong time. A bit like the late Chesterfield MP Eric Varley. What should have been the best years of his career just happened to coincide with labour losing power and shifting to the unelectable left.
I agree about Derbyshire NE and Nottingham S being unlikely to fall. It’s more likely that they’ll be a higher swing in the other Tory targets and a lower one in those two.