Westmorland and Lonsdale (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 54°18′43″N 2°52′48″W / 54.312°N 2.880°W / 54.312; -2.880

Westmorland and Lonsdale
County constituency
for the House of Commons

Outline map

Boundary of Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria.

Outline map

Location of Cumbria within England.
County Cumbria
Electorate 66,609 (December 2010)[1]
Current constituency
Created 1983
Member of parliament Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat)
Number of members One
Created from Morecambe and Lonsdale and Westmorland
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency North West England

Westmorland and Lonsdale is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Boundaries

The constituency is based on the South Lakeland district of Cumbria. Important towns by size in the constituency include Kendal, Windermere and Kirkby Lonsdale.[n 2] It is named for the historic county of Westmorland and the Lancashire Hundred of Lonsdale. (The main part of that hundred is still part of Lancashire. However, Westmorland and Lonsdale contains not only the old Westmorland part of geographic Lonsdale, Kirkby Lonsdale, but also the detached part of the old Lancashire administrative hundred of Lonsdale in the Lake District, made up of old Furness and Cartmel, both of which are not geographically in the dale of the River Lune, or "Lonsdale".)

Boundary review

Following their review of parliamentary representation in Cumbria, the Boundary Commission for England created a modified Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency, to deal with population changes.

The electoral wards used to create the modified seat, contested for the first time at the 2010 general election, are entirely within the South Lakeland district.

This removed Broughton-in-Furness from the constituency.

History

Having been a Conservative seat since its creation in 1983, the 1997 election saw the Tory majority cut to less than 5,000 votes. This was further reduced at the 2001 election. In 2005, the constituency featured among a list of seats held by high-profile Conservatives (in this case, the Education spokesperson Tim Collins) targeted by Liberal Democrats by deploying supporters from across each region in what was referred in the media as a "decapitation strategy".[3] In the event, this was the only one of the "decapitation" seats to change hands in 2005, with Tim Farron gaining the seat by a marginal majority.

In the 2010 general election, this constituency recorded the largest swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats (11.1% Con-LD) in a seat where those two parties were in the top two positions. The constituency also produced the lowest share of the vote for Labour (2.2%, one of five lost deposits for Labour nationally). With 96.2% of votes cast for either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat candidates, Westmorland and Lonsdale also had the highest combined share of the vote cast for the Coalition parties.

Contrasting with its Conservative history the combined Conservative/UKIP vote narrowly failed to reach 40% in 2015. This was also the only constituency in that entire general election in which a Liberal Democrat candidate secured an absolute majority (i.e. over 50%) of all votes cast.

Members of Parliament

ElectionMember[4] Party
1983 Michael Jopling Conservative
1997 Tim Collins Conservative
2005 Tim Farron Liberal Democrat

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

General Election 2015: Westmorland and Lonsdale[5][6]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Liberal Democrat Tim Farron 25,194 51.5 −8.5
Conservative Ann Myatt 16,245 33.2 −3.0
UKIP Alan Piper 3,031 6.2 +4.6
Labour John Bateson 2,661 5.4 +3.2
Green Chris Loynes 1,798 3.7 N/A
Majority 8,949 18.3 -5.5
Turnout 48,929 74.3 -1.5
Liberal Democrat hold Swing −2.75
General Election 2010: Westmorland and Lonsdale[7][8]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Liberal Democrat Tim Farron 30,896 60.0 +14.1
Conservative Gareth McKeever 18,632 36.2 −8.1
Labour Jonathan Todd 1,158 2.2 −5.6
UKIP John Mander 801 1.6 +0.2
Majority 12,264 23.8 +23.3
Turnout 51,487 75.8 +5.1
Liberal Democrat hold Swing +11.1

Elections in the 2000s

General Election 2005: Westmorland and Lonsdale[9]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Liberal Democrat Tim Farron 22,569 45.5 +5.1
Conservative Tim Collins 22,302 44.9 −2.0
Labour John Reardon 3,796 7.6 −3.3
UKIP Robert Gibson 660 1.3 +0.1
Independent Anthony Kemp 309 0.6 N/A
Majority 267 0.5
Turnout 49,636 71.6 +3.8
Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative Swing +3.5
General Election 2001: Westmorland and Lonsdale[10]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Tim Collins 22,486 46.9 +4.7
Liberal Democrat Tim Farron 19,339 40.4 +7.0
Labour John Anthony Bateson 5,234 10.9 −9.7
UKIP Robert Gibson 552 1.2 N/A
Independent Timothy John Bell 292 0.6 N/A
Majority 3,147 6.5
Turnout 47,903 67.8 −6.2
Conservative hold Swing −1.2

Elections in the 1990s

General Election 1997: Westmorland and Lonsdale[11]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Tim Collins 21,463 42.3 −14.6
Liberal Democrat Stanley Bernard Collins 16,942 33.4 +5.9
Labour John Harding 10,452 20.6 +5.5
Referendum Michael H. Smith 1,924 3.8 N/A
Majority 4,521 9.0
Turnout 50,781 74.1
Conservative hold Swing −10.3
General Election 1992: Westmorland and Lonsdale[12][13]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Michael Jopling 31,798 56.9 −0.7
Liberal Democrat Stanley Bernard Collins 15,362 27.5 −1.7
Labour Dickon J. Abbott 8,436 15.1 +1.9
Natural Law Robert Johnstone 287 0.5 N/A
Majority 16,436 29.4 +1.0
Turnout 55,883 77.8 −3.0
Conservative hold Swing +0.5

Elections in the 1980s

General Election 1987: Westmorland and Lonsdale[14]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Michael Jopling 30,259 57.6 −3.7
Liberal Stanley Bernard Collins 15,339 29.2 +2.1
Labour Shaun Patrick Halfpenny 6,968 13.2 +3.3
Majority 14,920 28.4
Turnout 52,566 74.8
Conservative hold Swing −2.9
General Election 1983: Westmorland and Lonsdale[15]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Conservative Michael Jopling 29,775 61.3 N/A
Liberal Dr. Ken Hulls 13,188 27.1 N/A
Labour Chris Stott 4,798 9.9 N/A
Ecology Robert Anthony Gibson 805 1.7 N/A
Majority 16,587 34.2 N/A
Turnout 48,566 72.3 N/A
Conservative win (new seat)

See also

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ↑ A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
  2. ↑ The area does not include the whole historic county of Westmorland, particularly lacking the county town Appleby-in-Westmorland.
References
  1. ↑ "Electorate Figures - Boundary Commission for England". 2011 Electorate Figures. Boundary Commission for England. 4 March 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  2. ↑ "2010 post-revision map non-metropolitan areas and unitary authorities of England" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-12.
  3. ↑ Senior Tories Avoid LibDem "decaptitation" The Evening Standard 6 May 2005
  4. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 3)
  5. ↑ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  6. ↑ "Westmorland & Lonsdale". BBC News. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
  7. ↑ "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  8. ↑ Westmorland and Lonsdale Conservatives, Westmorland and Lonsdale Conservatives
  9. ↑ "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  10. ↑ "Election Data 2001". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  11. ↑ "Election Data 1997". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  12. ↑ "Election Data 1992". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  13. ↑ "UK General Election results April 1992". Richard Kimber's Political Science Resources. Politics Resources. 9 April 1992. Retrieved 2010-12-06.
  14. ↑ "Election Data 1987". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  15. ↑ "Election Data 1983". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
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