Day 147: Dean

[Silent Hunter]

Janet Dean, Lab, Burton.

[merseysider]

Loyal, locally-based backbencher; a former full-time councillor and housewife.

She's stepping down at the next election which may make it more difficult to hold this marginal seat which we won in 1997. Traditionally Burton was a Tory seat; not hugely safe but not a marginal either. I seem to remember that in 97 Labour treated it as a 'stand-alone' seat - it didn't get any outside support, but activists here wouldn't have been expected to go into other more marginal seats.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Traditionally Burton was a Tory seat; not hugely safe but not a marginal either.

And that's despite its demographics having a slight working class lean (it didn't even fall in 1966). The reason for that o/c is that the main industry in Burton is beer.
Btw, before '45 Burton was one of the safest Tory seats in the country (the Tories usually ran unopposed and when they didn't they won by absurd margins. Hard not to get the impression that the brewers put a certain amount of pressure on their workforce...) and its loss to Labour that year must have been huge.

[Silent Hunter]

Traditionally Burton was a Tory seat; not hugely safe but not a marginal either.

And that's despite its demographics having a slight working class lean (it didn't even fall in 1966). The reason for that o/c is that the main industry in Burton is beer.

"Going for a Burton" was RAF slang for "dying".