Local Election Maps

[doktorb]

That Lancaster cartograph thing is joyous.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Last in the Lancashire 2011/2012 series, Ribble Valley 2011. C 33 (+4) LD 6 (-4) Ind 1.

Finishing up in the ever-beautiful countryside of the Ribble Valley and the Forest of Bowland.  Ribble Valley is a tiny district in terms of population, and its main town has shifted over the years; the Roman settlement here was at Ribchester, the main religious settlement was at Whalley, whose abbey was so powerful that its ancient parish covered virtually all of east Lancashire (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lancashire_Administrative_Map_1832.png).  However, the main town of the district is Clitheroe, which grew up around a Norman castle on the River Ribble.  Virtually everything north of Clitheroe was originally Yorkshire.  The only other town of any size in the district is Longridge (covered by the three wards west of Ribchester), which is essentially a Preston dormitory town.  The five wards on the southern boundary from Billington and Old Langho to Mellor are Blackburrn commuter territory.  (Fun fact: my uncle lived in Langho for a while, and when he moved back to the States and sold his house the buyer was Henning Berg, then playing for and recently managing Blackburn Rovers.)  Read and Simonstone are Burrrrrrnley dormitory villages, while Sabden's economy is based on treacle mining.

The politics of the area have got steadily more boring since the Lib Dem gain in the 1991 Ribble Valley by-election was reversed in the following year's general election.  The Lib Dem council seats are now confined to Clitheroe, with the Conservatives sweeping the rural areas and normally winning a few wards unopposed (three in 2011: Gisburn, Rimington; Mellor; and Ribchester).

2011 map:


Cartogram of the 2011 results (showing each ward in proportion to its voting power):


Split wards in 2011 were:
Alston and Hothersall: C/Ind
Littlemoor: LD/C
Salthill: C/LD

After a quick diversion to the 2009 Lancashire county council elections, the next series of maps will cover the 2010 elections in South London.

[afleitch]

I’ve been toying with trying to show past local election results by constituency. By ward is too complex and by local authority area doesn’t pick up particular local trends. I’ve made a trial run with Strathclyde (using the 1983 boundaries as they were the first to be drawn using the new regions/districts) Worth pursuing?

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Doktorb did a map of Lancashire 2009 further up the thread.  Here's my version:



and the cartogram to match it:

[doktorb]

:bows down:


That's immense!

Just in case the image has been made unavailable or disabled, here it is again. But I have to say, I love your map Andrew The way Preston is increased and the other wards seem to "pull" towards there is amazing!

[You kip if you want to...]

Sort've OT, but while we're on county councils, what're people's thoughts about this May and the county elections? How are things gonna go?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sort've OT, but while we're on county councils, what're people's thoughts about this May and the county elections? How are things gonna go?

Labour will make significant gains basically everywhere and will take control of most of the remaining county councils where such a thing is plausible under non-extraordinary circumstances. I suspect that matters between the National Government parties may be surprisingly fluid. UKIP will probably lose most of their current unty councillors, though (who knows) might pick up elsewhere.

[freefair]

Sort've OT, but while we're on county councils, what're people's thoughts about this May and the county elections? How are things gonna go?

Labour will make significant gains basically everywhere and will take control of most of the remaining county councils where such a thing is plausible under non-extraordinary circumstances. I suspect that matters between the National Government parties may be surprisingly fluid. UKIP will probably lose most of their current unty councillors, though (who knows) might pick up elsewhere.

I don't quite know about that...  Taking the recent Police commissioner elections as current (if rather turnout and LibDem poor) examples, the Tories could end up holding non-safe counties like Staffordshire , Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and Yorkshire East Riding.

[MaxQue]

Sort've OT, but while we're on county councils, what're people's thoughts about this May and the county elections? How are things gonna go?

Well, considering 2009 results, Labour has nowhere to go but up and the reverse for Tories.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't quite know about that...  Taking the recent Police commissioner elections as current (if rather turnout and LibDem poor) examples, the Tories could end up holding non-safe counties like Staffordshire , Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and Yorkshire East Riding.

Would suggest that it's an error to use those joke elections as an example of anything.

Though I was careful to write most. Staffs wouldn't require an especially great night in theory (even if it doesn't include Stoke these days), but Labour have certain serious organisational difficulties there - which showed up in a set of genuinely catastrophic results in 2009 - and I would be very surprised at a Labour majority there. At least right now. I would love to be wrong, obviously.
Demographic changes mean that Northants is basically out of reach exception of a great night, Leicestershire CC is safe Tory barring utter catastrophe, and E.R. Yorks is actually a UA not a CC. And is certainly safely Tory.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

First in the South London 2010 series, Lambeth 2010. Lab 44 (+5) LD 15 (-2) C 4 (-2) Grn 0 (-1).

When the politicos in Parliament look out across the river, Lambeth is what they see.  At the northern end is a slightly touristy area around the South Bank, including the London Eye, County Hall, Waterloo station and Lambeth Palace, official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  This is Bishop's ward.  Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.  But these areas aren't generally representative of Lambeth, whose largest centres are Brixton, Clapham (the borough includes the eastern half of Clapham Common), Streatham and West Norwood.

Lambeth tends to have a reputation for rather radical Labour administrations, exemplified by Ted Knight's administration in the 1980s and the later problems with Militant in the early 1990s.  Labour lost control of the borough in the 1994 election, got it back in 1998, lost control again to a Lib Dem/Tory coalition in 2002 and then defeated the coalition in 2006 - the only London council Labour gained that year.  The 2010 election re-elected a Labour administration for the first time in twenty years.  The current Labour administration is just as high-profile as the hard-left ones of old, but rather more innovative, responding to the local government cuts by branding itself as the first co-operative council with an emphasis on mutualism rather than outsourcing (cf Barnet).  The architect behind that idea, Labour leader Steve Reed, recently got himself elected to Parliament in the Croydon North by-election.

2010 map:


Cartogram of the 2010 results (showing each ward in proportion to its voting power):


Split wards in 2010 were:
Clapham Common: 1LD/2C
Oval: 2Lab/1LD
Thurlow Park: 2C/1Lab
Vassall: 2Lab/1LD

[Filuwaúrdjan]

'I don't want someone of your class voting for me!'

If that isn't true, it should be.

[minionofmidas]

Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.

Pro hint: The vast majority of those people who don't care about cricket have never heard of it. Most people around the world have barely even heard of cricket. 

[GMantis]

Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.

Pro hint: The vast majority of those people who don't care about cricket have never heard of it. Most people around the world have barely even heard of cricket. 

That's not exactly true. Around here, no one cares about cricket, but it's still reasonably known as a weird sport played by Englishmen.

[minionofmidas]

Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.

Pro hint: The vast majority of those people who don't care about cricket have never heard of it. Most people around the world have barely even heard of cricket. 

That's not exactly true. Around here, no one cares about cricket, but it's still reasonably known as a weird sport played by Englishmen.

And do you know anything about it? 'Cause otherwise that's basically what I meant by "barely heard of".

[bore]

Interesting tangentially related fact!  Apparently, more Scots play cricket than rugby- which you wouldn't know if you went by media coverage/stereotypes.

[doktorb]

Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.

Pro hint: The vast majority of those people who don't care about cricket have never heard of it. Most people around the world have barely even heard of cricket. 

That's not exactly true. Around here, no one cares about cricket, but it's still reasonably known as a weird sport played by Englishmen.

It's not a weird sport.

 There is, I admit, something weird in so many people waking up at half-3 in the morning to listen to the BBC Radio commentary of the most recent one-day test

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Further south, Oval ward in Vauxhall is known throughout the world as the location of the [insert sponsor's name here] Oval cricket ground, home of Surrey cricket club and traditional location for the final Test match of the English cricket season.

Pro hint: The vast majority of those people who don't care about cricket have never heard of it. Most people around the world have barely even heard of cricket. 

[mock horror]You're joking![/mock horror]

I occasionally go to a quiz in Belgium, and the team setting the questions always put in a question about a cricket player.  It always gets a moan.

Some people reading this will get the reference to the Oval, and for the rest, it's an interesting fact to file away somewhere.

[minionofmidas]

I did, for one. I've spent time in India, I know (most of) the rules laws.
Though I've never bothered to find out the first thing about how cricket is organized below the national teams level...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Though I've never bothered to find out the first thing about how cricket is organized below the national teams level...

Are you familiar with the Gormenghast novels?

[minionofmidas]

Are you familiar with the Gormenghast novels?

No. (Except reading up on it on wikipedia when you mentioned it recently.)

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Croydon 2010. C 37 (-6) Lab 33 (-6).

Once Surrey's only county borough, Croydon has now overtaken Bromley to become the largest of South London's twelve boroughs.  Thanks to its location on the road and railway line from London to Brighton, Croydon boomed in the nineteenth century, turning from a minor provincial town into a major leisure destination and then into a suburb of London.  Until the second world war, Croydon Airport was London's major airport and that led to the growth of Croydon as a serious business area, something which survived the closure of the airport in 1959 in favour of Deathrow.  The modern London borough, which also includes the fashionable and expensive suburbs of Coulsdon and Purley further down the Brighton Line, claims to be the largest town in western Europe without city status.

Croydon elections are incredibly polarised.  The Conservatives clean up in safe wards in Coulsdon and Purley and in southern Croydon, while Labour have their own share of safe wards in northern Croydon, Selhurst (home of Crystal Palace football club) and Norbury plus the enormous and isolated council estate of New Addington - effectively a council-built new town which has seen some high votes for far-right parties.  The effect of all this polarisation is that in the eight elections since 1986 the Conservatives have never fallen below 30 of the 70 seats on the council and Labour have never scored less than 27, so in normal political circumstances control of the council comes down to the only ward in the entire borough which can be described as marginal: Waddon ward, located south and west of Croydon town centre and including the private Whitgift School; much of Waddon ward is built on the old airport site.  At the 2010 election the Conservatives won Waddon and therefore continued to control the council; Labour took back seats they had lost to the Conservatives in 2006 in South Norwood, Upper Norwood and Addiscombe ward, but in a shock result lost to the Conservatives one of the two seats in New Addington ward.

2010 map:


Cartogram of the 2010 results (showing each ward in proportion to its voting power):


Split wards in 2010 were:
New Addington: C/Lab

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Sutton 2010. LD 43 (+11) C 11 (-11).

Next door to Croydon to the west can be found the towns of Beddington, Carshalton, Cheam, Sutton and Wallington which form the London Borough of Sutton.  This is all comfortable suburbia with frequent rail links to London.  There's not really much more to say on that front; almost the whole borough is a place where affluent commuters live.  The southern and western edges of the borough are close to the North Downs and tend to be more expensive areas.

Sutton is a longstanding Liberal and Liberal Democrat hotspot: Sutton and Cheam was one of only two constituencies ever to elect a Liberal GLC councillor (in 1973, shortly after the Liberals won a parliamentary by-election in the same seat).  The Liberal Democrats have run the council continuously since 1986 and held a majority of seats since 1990, and gained both parliamentary seats from the Conservatives in 1997.  The Tories fought strongly in the 2006 borough elections but came six seats short of gaining control, and fell back in 2010, although their share of the vote isn't as poor as the seat figures suggest (LD 46.3 C 35.2 Lab 10.3).  Labour were wiped out of the council in 2006 after losing their last redoubt in St Helier ward, Sutton's half of a large council estate which straddles the boundary with Merton.

2010 map:


Cartogram of the 2010 results (showing each ward in proportion to its voting power):


Split wards in 2010 were:
Beddington South: 2LD/1C
Carshalton South and Clockhouse: 2C/1LD
Cheam: 1LD/2C
Nonsuch: 2LD/1C
Sutton South: 2LD/1C
Worcester Park: 2LD/1C

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Southwark 2010. Lab 35 (+7) LD 25 (-3) C 3 (-3) Grn 0 (-1).

Directly across the river from the City, Southwark is historically one of the most prosperous parts of the old county of Surrey thanks to its location on the south side of London Bridge; everything going south from the old City had to go through Southwark, and it became a market and entertainment centre (the old Globe theatre being just one of the many entertainments for Londoners located here).  The modern Southwark borough, which also includes Bermondsey and Camberwell, became a large and long-lasting slum area which is now seeing major regeneration: the Southwark waterfront has been taken over by professional and services companies in shiny buildings facing the City (including the Greater London Authority), while work is well advanced to replace the decaying estates in Peckham and in the Elephant and Castle and the Bermondsey riverside is swiftly gentrifying (Riverside and Surrey Docks wards voted for Boris last year).  At the southern end of the borough, Dulwich is a rather leafy area, atypical of the borough as a whole.  The newest addition to the Southwark skyline is the EU's tallest building, the recently-completed "Shard of Glass" at London Bridge.

Southwark's local politics has never been quite the same since that by-election in Bermondsey in 1983 (five days before I was born) which elected Simon Hughes in what had been a safe Labour seat.  At the following borough election in 1986 the Alliance won fifteen seats on the council from a standing start; eight years later there were 27 Lib Dem councillors and the Labour majority was down to four seats.  The pattern of party support is essentially unchanged since then, with the Lib Dems sweeping Southwark proper and Bermondsey, Labour sweeping Camberwell and Peckham and Conservative support confined to Dulwich; relatively few seats change hands at each election, with most of the seat changes coming in Dulwich and Walworth.  Labour finally lost control in 2002, the Lib Dems becoming the largest party on a hung council and forming a coalition with the Tories which lasted until Labour retook control in 2010.  The Green councillor elected in 2006 was Jenny Jones, the 2012 mayoral candidate, in South Camberwell ward.

2010 map:


Cartogram of the 2010 results (showing each ward in proportion to its voting power):


Split wards in 2010 were:
Chaucer: 2LD/1Lab
College: 2Lab/1C
Newington: 2Lab/1LD
Village: 1LD/2C

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's going to look rather different next year, methinks.