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 | 79,775 (December 2010)[1] |
Major settlements | Wantage, Didcot, Wallingford, Faringdon |
Current constituency | |
Created | 1983 |
Member of Parliament | Ed Vaizey (Conservative) |
Seats | One |
Created from | Abingdon |
Wantage is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament 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 constituency in the United Kingdom and the second largest in Oxfordshire.
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.
History
The constituency was created in 1983 from parts of the seat of Abingdon. It is a safe seat for the Conservative Party. Its first MP was Robert Jackson, who served as a junior minister under both Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
However, Jackson defected to the Labour Party in 2005, and so Wantage unexpectedly had a Labour MP. Jackson was deemed unlikely to be re-elected in Wantage as a Labour MP, so he did not stand at the 2005 general election. At that election, Ed Vaizey was elected as MP for Wantage and now holds the post of Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.
Constituency profile
There are three market towns in the constituency: Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage. Wantage is famous as the birthplace of King Alfred the Great, Wallingford has the ancient enclosure walls of a castle and medieval bridge.[n 3] Faringdon bears a scar of the English Civil War, when 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 I.K. Brunel built a branch line from its main line between London and Bristol to Oxford, siting the junction at the then sparsely populated parish of Didcot.
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.[2]
Members of Parliament
Election | Member[3] | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" | | 1983 | Robert Jackson | Conservative |
style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" | | 2005 | Labour | |
style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" | | 2005 | Ed Vaizey | Conservative |
Elections
Elections in the 2010s
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 31,092 | 53.3 | +1.3 | |
Labour | Stephen Webb | 9,343 | 16.0 | +2.1 | |
Liberal Democrats | 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 Democrats | 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 | |||
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 Democrats | 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-Miloslavsky | 798 | 1.5 | −0.4 | |
English Democrat | Gerald Lambourne | 646 | 1.2 | N/A | |
Majority | 8,017 | 15.4 | |||
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 Democrats | 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 | |||
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 | ||
Labour | C Wilson | 16,222 | 28.94 | ||
Liberal Democrats | J Riley | 14,862 | 26.52 | ||
Referendum | S Rising | 1,549 | 2.76 | ||
Green | M Kennet | 640 | 1.14 | ||
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 465 | 0.83 | ||
Majority | 6,089 | 10.86 | |||
Turnout | 78.10 | ||||
Conservative hold | Swing |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 30,575 | 54.1 | +0.2 | |
Liberal Democrats | 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 | ||
SDP | W Tumin | 15,795 | 30.49 | ||
Labour | Stephen Ladyman | 8,055 | 15.55 | ||
Majority | 12,156 | 23.47 | |||
Turnout | 77.90 | ||||
Conservative hold | Swing |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 25,992 | 52.88 | ||
SDP | W Tumin | 15,867 | 32.28 | ||
Labour | AJD Popper | 7,115 | 14.47 | ||
Wessex Regionalist | AP Barrett Mockler | 183 | 0.37 | ||
Majority | 10,125 | 20.60 | |||
Turnout | 76.87 | ||||
Conservative win (new seat) |
Neighbouring constituencies
See also
- List of Parliamentary constituencies in Oxfordshire
- Banbury (UK Parliament constituency)
- Henley (UK Parliament constituency)
- Oxford East (UK Parliament constituency)
- Oxford West and Abingdon (UK Parliament constituency)
- Witney (UK Parliament constituency)
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
- ^ "Electorate Figures - Boundary Commission for England". 2011 Electorate Figures. Boundary Commission for England. 4 March 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ Unemployment claimants by constituency The Guardian
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 1)
- ^ "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.