Eastleigh
11
93
Notional 2005 Results:
Liberal Democrat: 18282 (38.3%)
Conservative: 17752 (37.2%)
Labour: 10075 (21.1%)
Other: 1617 (3.4%)
Majority: 530 (1.1%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 18648 (37.5%)
Labour: 10238 (20.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 19216 (38.6%)
UKIP: 1669 (3.4%)
Majority: 568 (1.1%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 16302 (34.3%)
Labour: 10426 (21.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 19360 (40.7%)
UKIP: 849 (1.8%)
Green: 636 (1.3%)
Majority: 3058 (6.4%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 18699 (33.7%)
Labour: 14883 (26.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 19453 (35.1%)
Referendum: 2013 (3.6%)
Other: 446 (0.8%)
Majority: 754 (1.4%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Chris Huhne(Lib Dem) born 1954. Educated at Westminster school and Oxford University. Former city economist and journalist. Contested Reading East 1983, Oxford West and Abingdon 1987. MEP for South East England 1999-2005 and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the European Parliament. MP for Eastleigh since 2005. Lib Dem shadow chief secretary 2005-2006, Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for the Environment 2006-2007, Lib Dem shadow home secretary since 2007. Somewhat audaciously Huhne stood for the Liberal Democrat leadership following Charles Kennedy`s resignation, despite having been an MP for only a few months, and came surprisingly close to victory. During Ming Campbell`s short leadership a Huhne candidacy when Campbell stood down was seen as inevitale, but he entered the 2007 contest playing catch up to the younger front runner Nick Clegg, who had declined to enter the contest in 2006. In the event Huhne again came closer than expected, losing by only 511 votes (more information at They work for you)
Candidates:
Maria Hutchings (Conservative) Mother of an autistic son who berated Tony Blair on a Channel 5 discussion programme during the 2005 election about the closure of special schools.
Daniel Clarke (Labour)
Ray Finch (UKIP) engineer.
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 96098
Male: 49.1%
Female: 50.9%
Under 18: 24.1%
Over 60: 18.5%
Born outside UK: 4.7%
White: 97.5%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 1.1%
Mixed: 0.7%
Other: 0.5%
Christian: 76.4%
Full time students: 2.1%
Graduates 16-74: 17%
No Qualifications 16-74: 23.5%
Owner-Occupied: 79.2%
Social Housing: 13.6% (Council: 1.3%, Housing Ass.: 12.3%)
Privately Rented: 5.3%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 5.5%
Indeed, and “My Pink Half of the Drainpipe” stands as a fabulous monument to the parochialism and the tedious obsession with the tiny minutiae of daily life than can characterise suburban existence.
If the odds are still the same come next spring I will be backing the Tories to take this seat. I don’t think Huhne comes across that well to the electorate (witness the clip posted upthread by Martin Day and his performance against Pickles on R4 during the Lib Dem conference), so I am banking on his incumbency boost not being enough to save him form a national shift to the Tories. Romsey I have as an almost certain Tory gain; in Winchester our chances are slim.
Huhne does not need an incumbency boost , there may be a national shift to the Conservatives but the shift in Eastleigh and Winchester ( and in Romsey outside the Southampton wards ) since 2005 has been a 2% swing from the Conservatives to the LibDems from 2005 CC to 2009 CC .
As has been said before though on this thread, Huhne was not a candidate in the county elections, and there is a history in this seat of there being a largish disparity between the votes cast in local and parliamentary contests. There are numerous examples around the country of strong Lib Dem performances in local elections going back quite some time having hitherto failed to translate into a strong performance at general elections. One example I would give is my old stamping ground of Hull.
I would never ignore local results, and indeed they have formed the basis of my conviction expressed on the relevant part of this site that the Tories are unlikely to regain Westmorland and Lonsdale any time soon, but they are only part of the picture.
Beside, for 6-4 to be a value price about the Tories here their chance of winning only needs to be more than 40% not a stone cold certainty. I may not be as much of an electoral stats man as some on here but I do know the world of betting pretty well!
Maybe Winchester is a better bet for the Tories than Eastleigh.
I can see it unravelling in General Election circumstances (although the results in 2009 weren’t as good as in 2006).
Here, in Eastleigh, I think most likely is a slight increase in the LD majority, with Labour falling back somewhat more than I expected, to about 13-15%.
If the Libdems increase their majority against the Conservatives it will be bucking a national trend in a big way. The gap between the two in the polls is the smallest it has been for ages, and even still it represents a 5%swing from Lib-Con since 2005.
Yes, indeed.
Perhaps I don’t want to be seen as always knocking the Lib Dems, but I do rather suspect Huhne will buck the trend given his greater profile.
But then it could just not ….