STV for Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is a county with more North-South ‘height’ than east-West width and my three STV Constituencies follow a similar pattern - which leads to an issue with labelling them!

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire South (to elect 5 MPs, covering the current constituencies of  Broxtowe, Nottingham East; Nottingham North and Kimberley;  Nottingham South, Rushcliffe)

Nottinghamshire East (to elect 3 MPs, covering the current constituencies of  Gedling; Newark; Sherwood Forest)

Nottinghamshire North West (to elect 3 MPs, covering the current constituencies of  Ashfield; Bassetlaw; Mansfield)

The Geography

In dividing up the county’s eleven FPTP constituencies my first issue was that Newark takes up most of the east side. Then I was planning Nottingham would be a unit in itself, with 3 MPs, but the city is surrounded by 3 outer suburban constituencies and they are not as well connected to each other as I thought, especially Rushcliffe and Broxtowe that only meet at a watery point with no road links.

And yet these are the two I include in a Nottingham seat. Gedling also includes areas, like Woodthorpe and Porchester , that look on the map to be city suburbs, but it it closer to the two East Constituencies

My North West seat does look strung out but the areas do fit together, making up, with part of Sherwood, the old Nottinghamshire Coalfield

The Politics

There are so many moving parts to the election in the county in 2024, its hard to give an overall picture. All but two are now held by Labour but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

The City of Nottingham stayed in the Labour Column in 2019; In 2024 they suffered a vote loss in two of the constituencies, and the main beneficiaries were the Greens. In ‘North and Kimberley’ they made a small advance, and the main change was a 20% vote shift from Conservative to Reform to give them second place. The Broxtowe result is hard to analyse because last time the former Conservative MP had stood under different colours. Rushcliffe was a dramatic, and rather clear, gain for Labour because it is the seat so long associated with Conservative stalwart Ken Clarke.

Despite the changes in direction, the Labour vote here is consistently over 40%, and in one case, over 50%. I can confidently say they’d win two of the five, but the other three would be very close, with Labour in with a chance of a third. The Conservatives would usually expect one, but I couldn’t say in 2024. The Reform vote was variable here, but averaging out at their national level. The Green advance in two seats might get them one MP if it could be extended out the city

The East STV Constituency has the remaining Conservative MP in the county, leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick in Newark. He held on despite losing a third of his vote share. The Tory loss in vote was more dramatic in the other two, half or over half their previous share. The Labour vote increased in all three, while Reform were just above their national average in two but at nearly a quarter share in Sherwood Forest.

A three way split for these three parties would be the most likely outcome under STV, though Labour might threaten a second at the expense of one of the others. In 2019 there would have been two Conservatives and a Labour.

The coalfield extended into what is now called Sherwood Forest constituency but the main mining areas are in Nottingham North West. The Nottinghamshire miners were not the same as in Yorkshire and South Wales, not so blanketly Socialist, and the Conservatives had some success back in the days of the 1980s strike. It was therefor not as surprising as other areas that these constituencies fell in the ‘Red Wall’ effect.

Labour retook two of them in 2024 but one of those victorious 2019 Conservatives held on in 2024, but only by changing his party colours to Reform. That’s maybe a better fit to Lee Anderson’s politics, though he only jumped after being pushed. I found it weird on election night that his ‘hold’ was declared as a big ‘swing’. It’s a bit strange to hear him promote electoral reform now; something he never mentioned as a Tory.

As I’ll cover somewhere else, self interest certainly exists in the debate on Electoral Reform, but it exists on both sides. The only way the evaluate the case is to move past that.

Back to the STV result in Nottinghamshire North West, the situation is similar to East, through I am more certain of a Reform MP. The Conservative vote halved in two of these seats but crashed in Ashfield. They kept two second places though, and a three way split seems the most likely result.

Are there any stars associated with the area than….