STV for Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county I know better because of the Peak District - arguably the reason I live in the North now because it was photos of the Hope Valley and Edale areas that led me to choose Sheffield as my university city.

Like Notts is a county with a greater north south distance than east-West. It’s undoubtedly a Midlands county but touches on both Sheffield and Manchester

 Derby and Derbyshire South (to elect 5 MPs, covering the current constituencies of  Derby North; Derby South; Erewash; Mid Derbyshire; South Derbyshire)

Derbyshire Dales (to elect 3 MPs, covering the current constituencies of  Amber Valley; Derbyshire Dales; High Peak)

Derbyshire North (to elect 3 MPs, covering the current constituencies of  Bolsover; Chesterfield North East Derbyshire)

The Geography

Derbyshire is remarkably like a mirror image of its twin, or is it rival, county to the east, and that is reflected in my suggested STV constituencies.

In the South we have the largest place and its surrounding areas, electing 5 MPs. Derby is a smaller city with only 2 MPs s, and the surrounding constituencies are not extensions of the suburbs to the extent the ones around Nottingham are. The Derby suburb of Allestree does find itself in the Mid Derbyshire seat, but places like Ilkeston and Swadlincote are some way distant. All are in my South Derbyshire seat.

In the north of the county we have a 3 MP area, also with ex-mining interests, but more compact than the equivalent seat over the border and with Chesterfield as a major settlement.

The areas I know best are in an STV constituency I’m calling Derbyshire Dales although that is the name of one of its constituent parts. Roughly that seat covers the White Peak area, High Peak covers the ‘Dark Peak’ - for those who don’t know he area these names refer to the Limestone of the southern half of our oldest National park, and the harder rocks like Millstone that underly the northern half. To make the constituency up to 3 MPs I add Amber Valley which does include some of the foothills around Ambergate, an also the location of a Writer’s summer school which I attended for several years

The Politics

There are not many areas of Britain that demonstrate the 2024 election result as clearly as Derbyshire. Before Labour held Derby South and Chesterfield, the Conservative the rest. Now the county is uninterrupted red. The Labour gain of the Dales (FTPTP version) is as astonishing as the Conservative win in Bolsover in 2019.

To look at how many of the 11 MPs would be Labour under my STV plan we would need to look at their vote shares.

In Derby itself, their vote share was curiously higher in North, the seat they gained. In South the result was affected by the standing down of Margaret Beckett, who must have had a large personal vote. They still won with some comfort but with less than a 40% share. this was also true of their other 4 gains in my ‘South’ constituency, suggesting they would probably just gain 2 of the MPs here. The Conservatives and Reform vote shares, even if the former was much reduced, would be good for 1 MP each. The fifth would definitely be up for grabs. I’m not suggesting the Worker’s party would be favourite but they did get a strong third in Derby South whee their candidate was a former Labour MP for Derby North.

The representation in Derbyshire North could also easily be split 3 ways. The Labour shares here were generally higher, averaging over 40%, but with only 3 MPs to be elected, and a Reform and Conservative vote of around 20% or a bit higher, they’d be hard pressed to get more than 1.

I’ve not mentioned my Party, the Liberal Democrats, for a few posts. They’ve held Chesterfield in the 21st century, but have fallen back a lot there.

In my Western STV Constituency, the Conservatives had two of their worst results in the whole of the country; Amber valley they fell into 3rd place from a close on 17,000 majority, and in Derbyshire Dales they lost an area held since 1950 (it had been West Derbyshire before)

Although they gained a 2nd place in Amber valley, perhaps an over spill effect - Lee Anderson’s seat is adjacent, Reform’s vote is close to their national Average in the two Peak District results.

Labour would win one of these three MPs and the Conservatives would win another - certainly down by one. The third would be close between Reform and Labour.

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The East Midlands are not throwing up the musical ideas that other regions are. If anyone wants to pass comment on that; tell me I’m missing obvious ones, then please do…. This guy is from Derby and this was a number one