Wantage (UK Parliament constituency)
Wantage | |
---|---|
County constituency for the House of Commons | |
Boundary of Wantage in Oxfordshire. | |
Location of Oxfordshire within England. | |
County | Oxfordshire |
Electorate | 82,931 (May 2015) |
Major settlements | Wantage, Didcot, Wallingford, Faringdon |
Current constituency | |
Created | 1983 |
Member of parliament | Ed Vaizey (Conservative) |
Number of members | One |
Created from | Abingdon (majority of) (note: abolished) |
Overlaps | |
European Parliament constituency | South East England |
Wantage (/wɒntɪdʒ/ is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2005 by Ed Vaizey, a Conservative.[n 2]
In terms of electorate, at the time of the 2015 general election, Wantage was the 37th largest of 650 UK seats.
Boundaries
1983-2010: The District of Vale of White Horse wards of Appleton, Craven, Drayton, Faringdon and Littleworth, Greendown, Grove, Harwell and Chilton, Hendred, Icknield, Island Villages, Kingston Bagpuize and Southmoor, Longworth, Marcham, Segsbury, Shrivenham, Stanford, Steventon, Sutton Courtenay, The Coxwells, and Upton and Blewbury, and the District of South Oxfordshire wards of Brightwell, Cholsey, Didcot North, Didcot Northbourne, Didcot South, Hagbourne, and Wallingford.
2010-present: The District of Vale of White Horse wards of Blewbury and Upton, Craven, Drayton, Faringdon and The Coxwells, Greendown, Grove, Hanneys, Harwell, Hendreds, Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor, Longworth, Marcham and Shippon, Shrivenham, Stanford, Sutton Courtenay and Appleford, Wantage Charlton, and Wantage Segsbury, and the District of South Oxfordshire wards of Brightwell, Cholsey and Wallingford South, Didcot All Saints, Didcot Ladygrove, Didcot Northbourne, Didcot Park, Hagbourne, and Wallingford North.
In September 2016, the boundary commission proposed to amend the boundaries of five of the six constituencies in Oxfordshire including this seat. The main proposed change would see Wallingford become part of a renamed Henley and Thame constituency. The town of Wallingford would become part of that seat, villages surrounding (including Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and Cholsey) would remain in Wantage. In Oxford West and Abingdon: Appleton, Besselsleigh and Eaton) would become part of Wantage.[1]
History
The constituency was created in 1983 from parts of the seat of Abingdon. Its first MP was Robert Jackson, who served as a junior minister under both Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Jackson defected to the Labour Party in 2005 shortly before standing down as an MP for the 2005 general election. At that election, Ed Vaizey was elected as MP for Wantage and 2010-2016 held the post of Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.
- Political history
The seat including its forerunner has been won by Conservative Party candidates since 1924. The 2015 result made the seat the 76th-safest of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority.[2]
- Other parties
All five parties' candidates achieved more than the deposit-retaining threshold of 5% of the vote in 2015. Social Democrat candidate Winifred Tumin won the largest third-party share of the vote to date, in the 1983 election — 32.3% of the vote.
Constituency profile
There are three market towns in the constituency: Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage. All have tourist attractions, Wantage having monuments to being the birthplace of King Alfred the Great, Wallingford, ancient enclosure walls of a castle and a medieval bridge.[n 3] Faringdon bears a scar of the English Civil War as its church lost the top of its steeple. The largest town in the constituency is Didcot, which grew up around the Great Western Railway when Isambard Kingdom Brunel built a branch line from its main line between London and Bristol to Oxford, siting the junction at the then-sparsely-populated parish and it has a power station and many major national construction and aggregate industries.
The constituency is mostly rural in character, with more than 400 farms in operation. Included are the Uffington White Horse and The Ridgeway, a prehistoric road, runs along its southern border. The River Thames runs along the northern and western border. The area is affluent and Conservative in nature containing many commuters with fast transport links to London, with Didcot the only area with a strong Labour vote locally. The seat includes international race horse breeders and trainers with racing stables across a broad area that reaches into the Lambourn Downs, crossing over the border into the Newbury seat.
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[3]
Members of Parliament
Election | Member[4] | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
1983 | Robert Victor Jackson | Conservative | |
2005[5] | Labour | ||
2005 | Ed Vaizey | Conservative |
Elections
Elections in the 2010s
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 34,459 | 54.2 | +0.9 | |
Labour Co-op | Rachel Eden | 17,079 | 26.9 | +10.8 | |
Liberal Democrat | Christopher Carrigan | 9,234 | 14.5 | +1.5 | |
Green | Sue Ap-Roberts | 1,546 | 2.4 | -2.7 | |
UKIP | David McLeod | 1,284 | 2.0 | -10.5 | |
Majority | 17,380 | 27.3 | -10.0 | ||
Turnout | 63,602 | 72.5 | |||
Conservative hold | Swing |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 31,092 | 53.3 | +1.3 | |
Labour | Stephen Webb | 9,343 | 16.0 | +2.1 | |
Liberal Democrat | Alex Meredith | 7,611 | 13.1 | -14.9 | |
UKIP | Lee Upcraft | 7,288 | 12.5 | +8.2 | |
Green | Kate Prendergast | 2,986 | 5.1 | +3.3 | |
Majority | 21,749 | 37.3 | +17.2 | ||
Turnout | 58,320 | 70.3 | +0.3 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | -0.4 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 29,284 | 52.0 | +8.9 | |
Liberal Democrat | Alan Armitage | 15,737 | 27.9 | +0.3 | |
Labour | Steven Mitchell | 7,855 | 13.9 | -10.0 | |
UKIP | Jacqueline Jones | 2,421 | 4.3 | +2.8 | |
Green | Adam Twine | 1,044 | 1.9 | -0.7 | |
Majority | 13,547 | 24.1 | +8.7 | ||
Turnout | 56,341 | 70.0 | +1.9 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +4.3 |
Elections in the 2000s
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 22,354 | 43.0 | +3.4 | |
Liberal Democrat | Andrew Crawford | 14,337 | 27.6 | −0.4 | |
Labour | Mark McDonald | 12,464 | 24.0 | −4.2 | |
Green | Adam Twine | 1,332 | 2.6 | +0.4 | |
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 798 | 1.5 | -0.4 | |
English Democrat | Gerald Lambourne | 646 | 1.2 | N/A | |
Majority | 8,017 | 15.4 | +4.0 | ||
Turnout | 51,931 | 68.2 | +3.7 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +1.9 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 19,475 | 39.6 | -0.2 | |
Labour | Stephen Beer | 13,875 | 28.2 | -0.7 | |
Liberal Democrat | Neil Fawcett | 13,776 | 28.0 | +1.5 | |
Green | David Brooks-Saxl | 1,062 | 2.2 | +1.0 | |
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 941 | 1.9 | +1.1 | |
Majority | 5,600 | 11.4 | +0.5 | ||
Turnout | 49,129 | 64.5 | -13.6 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +0.3 |
Elections in the 1990s
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 22,311 | 39.81 | -14.3 | |
Labour | Celia Wilson | 16,222 | 28.94 | +7.5 | |
Liberal Democrat | Jenny Riley | 14,862 | 26.52 | +1.5 | |
Referendum | Stuart Rising | 1,549 | 2.76 | N/A | |
Green | Miriam Kennet | 640 | 1.14 | -0.4 | |
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 465 | 0.83 | N/A | |
Majority | 6,089 | 10.86 | -18.3 | ||
Turnout | 78.10 | -4.6 | |||
Conservative hold | Swing | -10.9 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 30,575 | 54.1 | +0.2 | |
Liberal Democrat | RMC Morgan | 14,102 | 25.0 | −5.5 | |
Labour | VS Woodell | 10,955 | 19.4 | +3.8 | |
Green | RJ Ely | 867 | 1.5 | +1.5 | |
Majority | 16,473 | 29.2 | +5.7 | ||
Turnout | 56,499 | 82.7 | +4.8 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +2.8 |
Elections in the 1980s
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 27,951 | 53.96 | +1.08 | |
Social Democratic | Winifred Tumin | 15,795 | 30.49 | -1.79 | |
Labour | Stephen Ladyman | 8,055 | 15.55 | +1.08 | |
Majority | 12,156 | 23.47 | +2.87 | ||
Turnout | 77.90 | +1.03 | |||
Conservative hold | Swing | +1.4 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 25,992 | 52.88 | ||
Social Democratic | Winifred Tumin | 15,867 | 32.28 | ||
Labour | AJD Popper | 7,115 | 14.47 | ||
Wessex Regionalist | AP Mockler | 183 | 0.37 | ||
Majority | 10,125 | 20.60 | |||
Turnout | 76.87 | ||||
Conservative win (new seat) |
Neighbouring constituencies
See also
Notes
- ↑ A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
- ↑ As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.
- ↑ The town was granted a Royal Charter in 1155 and sent two MPs from 1295 until 1832, see Wallingford (UK Parliament constituency)
References
- ↑ Oliver, Matt (13 September 2016). "Boundary Commission proposes changes to Oxford East, Oxford West & Abingdon, Henley, Banbury and Wantage constituencies". Oxford Mail. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
- ↑ List of Conservative MPs elected in 2015 by % majority UK Political.info. Retrieved 2017-01-29
- ↑ "Unemployment: the key UK data and benefit claimants for every constituency". The Guardian. 17 November 2010. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
- ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 1)
- ↑ See List of British politicians who have crossed the floor#2001–2005 Parliament
- ↑ "Wantage Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
- ↑ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ↑ http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/services-and-advice/local-democracy/elections-and-registering-vote/elections-2015/parliamentary-elec
- ↑ "Wantage". bbc.co.uk.
- ↑ "Politics Resources". Election 1992. Politics Resources. 9 April 1992. Retrieved 2010-12-06.