Taunton Deane (UK Parliament constituency)

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Taunton Deane
County constituency
for the House of Commons
Outline map
Boundary of Taunton Deane in Somerset.
Outline map
Location of Somerset within England.
County Somerset
Electorate 82,882 (December 2010)[1]
Major settlements Taunton, Wellington
Current constituency
Created 2010
Member of parliament Rebecca Pow (Conservative Party)
Number of members One
Created from Taunton
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency South West England

Taunton Deane is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Rebecca Pow of the Conservative Party.[n 2]

History

Parliament accepted the Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which created this constituency for the General Election 2010 as a reduced form of the Taunton seat. The western wards, transferred to the new seat of Bridgwater and West Somerset for 2010, were all close to or in Exmoor, which were five in number:

  • Aville Vale, Brompton Ralph and Haddon, Dulverton and Brushford, Exmoor and, Qualme.[2]
Political history

The predecessor seat, while approximately 7% larger in electorate (and thus due to population and settlements' growth, oversized), had been held by a Liberal Democrat, Jeremy Browne, since 2005, who won this seat as its main successor with a relatively marginal majority. In the two elections before that, the seat had seen alternation between a Conservative and a Liberal Democrat. The last general election in which either party polled less than 38% of the vote, thus allowing a larger majority, was in 1987, taking into account only one of their notionally equivalent predecessors, the Social Democratic Party - their candidate participated in the SDP–Liberal Alliance.

Prominent members

Since the 2010 election, the elected member Jeremy Browne has been a Minister of State, until September 2012 of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and after this of the Home Office. He announced on 15 October 2014 that he would be stepping down at the 2015 General Election.[3]

Boundaries

The seat has electoral wards:

This borough centres on the town of Taunton while extending to include Wellington within an approximate rhombus-shaped swathe of land forming the south-western portion of Somerset.

History

In the 2005 general election, the victorious Liberal Democrats' candidate in Taunton required the smallest percentage swing from the Conservative MP for them to take the seat. In the 2010 general election, the seat was identified as a target for the Conservative party, ranking 29th on their target list.[5] The incumbent, Jeremy Browne had a notional 3.3% lead from the 2005 election. Browne held the seat in 2010, increasing his majority to 6.9%, a 1.8% swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats.[6]

Constituency profile

The seat is a mixture of partially agricultural commuter villages and a spacious urban town, which has business parks in a similar way to Wells, connected by road and rail to the major conurbations, north and south, Bristol and Exeter. The majority of the eastern half of the ridge-like Blackdown Hills is in the Blackdown electoral ward. Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[7]

Members of Parliament

2010–present

Election Member[8] Party
2010 Jeremy Browne Liberal Democrats
2015 Rebecca Pow Conservative Party

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

General Election 2015: Taunton Deane[9][10]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Rebecca Pow 27,849 48.1 +5.9
Liberal Democrat Rachel Gilmour 12,358 21.3 -27.7
UKIP Laura Bailhache 6,921 12.0 +8.3
Labour Neil Guild 5,347 9.2 +4.1
Green Clive Martin 2,630 4.5 +4.5
Independent Mike Rigby 2,568 4.4 +4.4
TUSC Stephen German 118 0.2 +0.2
Independent Bruce Gauld 96 0.2 +0.2
Majority 15,491 26.8 +19.9
Turnout 57,887 70.7 +0.2
Conservative gain from Liberal Democrat Swing +16.8
General Election 2010: Taunton Deane[11]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne 28,531 49.1 +4.7
Conservative Mark Formosa 24,538 42.2 +0.8
Labour Martin Jevon 2,967 5.1 -6.8
UKIP Tony McIntyre 2,114 3.6 +1.2
Majority 3,993 6.9 +3.9
Turnout 58,150 70.5 +1.2
Liberal Democrat hold Swing +1.8

See also

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ↑ A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
  2. ↑ 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.
References
  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2010 post-revision map non-metropolitan areas and unitary authorities of England
  3. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29633089
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Unemployment claimants by constituency The Guardian
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Sources

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