STV for Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire remains remarkably intact as a council, where others have been split up into UAs. Its history is a bit complicated in that part of it was in a separate ancient county called Huntingdonshire and Peterborough has over the years been in this county, in Northamptonshire, in its own unit called, poetically, a Soke and now is its own unit called, unpoetically, a Unitary Authority. For the purposes of Parliamentary Constituencies, its usually linked with bits of North Cambridgeshire.
Cambridge and Cambridgeshire South (to elect 4 MPs, covering the current constituencies of Cambridge; Ely and East Cambridgeshire; South Cambridgeshire; St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Peterborough and Cambridgeshire North (to elect 4 MPs, covering the current constituencies of Huntingdon; North East Cambridgeshire; North West Cambridgeshire; Peterborough)
The Geography
The Counties FPTP constituencies split quite conveniently into two fours; areas that look to Cambridge and those that look to Peterborough.
Apart from that, well it’s flat and Cambridge, of course, and also Ely are well worth a visit. I have a memory from when I was about seven, some people we knew moved to Peterborough, and I told my parents I’d like to move there too. They told me that wouldn’t be happening, but moving to Leeds means I do get to travel through the station frequently.
The Politics
The north of the county was blue after 2019, now it’s 50-50 with Labour. The lowest anti-Conservative swing was in Peterborough, but that seat was lost because it was also the most marginal. The other three saw the Conservative vote approximately halved; That they held on in North-East is testament to the enormous vote share - almost Three Quarters - that Steve Barclay previously held. In North West they were not so lucky, and the youngest MP in the 2024 parliament won by 39 votes. Sam Carling is the first MP to have been born in the 21st century.
That makes this a good place to ask - Would STV lead to a significantly younger parliament? A linked question would be, would it encourage more young people to vote? On its own, possibly not, but it should offer more variety of candidates which could offer a positive answer to both. It’s a question to be discussed more fully in another post.
Back to a possible STV result in Peterborough & North Cambridgeshire; the current voting patterns would suggests the same 2-2 split that FPTP gave us in 2024, but the Conservatives might hope for better in another year. Reform UK got a reasonable vote in the area, and one second place, and might challenge for either big party’s second seat, if they could get transfers. The other left leaning parties would have to hope its FPTP that is suppressing their vote here, and put in more campaigning.
The level of campaigning required to win a constituency is also a factor when considering my South Cambridgeshire division, because this was clearly an area the Liberal Democrats did put in the resources, and it won them three MPs. The vote shares though were not close to 50%, and in one case, closer to 30%. STV remains party policy, but here it would have cost them at least 1 MP.
Labour won Cambridge itself with something to spare because the LD vote there is drifting the the Greens. That could have been more effort was being put into the surrounding seat, but the appeal of the Greens to Students could be a factor.
The truth is, the contest for the 4 MPs to represent here would be wide open based on the 2024 vote. The Lib Dems wold get one, and probably be the only party with a hope of a second. The Conservatives continued vote share even where they lost suggests they’d get one. Labour’s strength in the city would get them one, if their vote in the surrounding areas. This isn’t Reform’s strongest area but their vote was uniform across rural areas and they shouldn’t be discounted and the Green’s are not out of the running, especially if the current labour government disappoints.
So I’d say LD1, C 1, and anyone’s guess for the other two. One could be LD if their vote here wasn’t just tactical. I’ll make another post on this but my Party’s strategy in 2024 was tailored to FPTP. It would have to change under STV
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Something a bit different musically this time, as we drop in on the Cambridge Kings college choir