Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
Posts: 67,680
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« Reply #28 on: May 10, 2005, 11:18:15 AM » |
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South West
Unlike the rest of the country, the South West is primarly a Tory/LibDem battleground, with Labour competative only in the urban centres and a handful of suprisingly rural seats.
In Gloucestershire, differential turnout, a rise in the LibDem vote and the retirement of Diana Organ enabled the Tories win the polarised Forest of Dean seat, but they suprisingly failed to take Stroud (a very rural seat for the most part) from Labour and there strong challenges in the two urban seats (Gloucester, held by Labour, Cheltenham, held by the LibDems) both failed with Gloucester being the biggest disapointment; dispite playing the race card (albeit in a somewhat discreet way) against Parmjit Dhanda, he manged to slightly increase his majority.
In Bristol, most attention was focused on Bristol West an affluent, socially liberal, ex-Tory stronghold that had been gained by Labour in 1997. It obeyed it's demographic leanings and fell to the LibDems.
The rest of Bristol was fairly dull, with Labour holding all the other seats in the inner metro area, even former marginals like Bristol NW.
Somerset had always promised to be one of the most interesting counties in the country with lots of tight finishes and several seats changing hands.
In Wansdyke, one of the "Countryside" Alliance's biggest hate-figures, Dan Norris (who was attacked by a group of CA thugs at the start of the campaign) held on by about 1800 votes despite the collapse of the Labour group at council level and the "Countryside" Alliance throwing everything they could at the rural seat, and if that wasn't enough, the CA's poster boy, Adrian Flook, was edged out (by just over 500 votes) of his Taunton seat by the LibDems. The Tories gained Weston-super-Mare from the LibDems with the Labour vote refusing to vote tactically to save Cotter, while in Somerton & Frome LibDem David "landslide" Heath, won the seat with a majority of under 1000 for the third election in a row... if Heath has any fingernails left it'd be a sort of miracle...
In Devon the Tories gained the open Devon West & Torridge seat from the LibDems, but failed to oust Nicholas Harvey in North Devon and even running Boris Johnson's father in Teignbridge wasn't enough to regain the seat from the LibDems. Meanwhile vetern Tory Anthony Steen (first elected for a Liverpool seat in the '70's) managed to hang on to Totnes in the face of another strong LibDem challenge, while Labour easily held both Plymouth seats along with Exeter (despite huge drops in the Labour vote in Plymouth).
Cornwall is now all yellow, with Falmouth & Camborne narrowly falling to the LibDems after one of the weirdest campaigns in the entire country (with former Tory M.P David Mudd, who ran as an independent due to the Tory candidate being gay, polling a mere 961 votes) and them holding on to Cornwall North, where the Tories had challenged strongly following the retirement of Paul Tyler.
In Dorset, the Tories easily won the urban seats (all dominated by retirement resorts) despite rumours of a strong LibDem assualt of Bournmouth East that never materialised.
The rural seats were much more interesting with Shadow Chanceller Oliver Letwin hanging onto Dorset West by yet another narrow margin, despite being on the LibDem "decapitation" list (if anything his inclusion on that list probably boosted his re-election bid) while the LibDems came close in Dorset North and easily holding Dorset Mid & North Poole.
The most interesting Dorset seat was Dorset South, narrowly gained by Jim Knight in 2001 and, as Labour's most marginal seat, was widely expected to flip to the Tories. Blair launched the Labour campaign in Weymouth and Labour put a lot of effort into the seat, but despite that, hardly anyone thought that Knight could hang on, despite a well deserved reputation as being Dorset's best M.P since the '60's.
Then Ed Matts, the Tory candidate, distributed a leaflet with a blatenly forged photograph aimed at making himself look "tough" on asylum seekers. He followed up this collosal blunder by then distributing a leaflet showing himself with two olympic gold medal winning yaughtswomen. Neither had given permission for him to use the photo on his leaflets and one is a die-hard Labour supporter.
Knight increased his majority to 1812.
And finally Wiltshire, where despite strong LibDem challenges to the Tories in two rural seats and strong Tory challenges to Labour in the two Swindon seats, when the dust had settled no seats changed hands, although the Labour majorities in Swindon were slashed.
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