Stafford General Election profile: A true bellwether seat
Continuing our series on the election battles in Staffordshire and the Black Country, today we look at Stafford.
Stafford is a typical bellwether seat.
Since 1983 it has voted for the party which has gone on to form the Government.
Generally considered a Conservative-Labour marginal, political feeling locally tends to be indicative of that national picture.
It is made up of most of the wards in Stafford Borough plus the South Staffordshire market town of Penkridge. The north of the borough is part of the neighbouring Stone constituency.
The economy in the county town is performing well. A total of £1.2 billion of investment is being made, from the expansion of MOD Stafford at Beaconside to the Riverside shopping complex and the Chinese takeover of the old Staffordshire University site.
The constituency has 78.5 per cent of people in employment and average weekly wages are £542.80 – both higher than the national average. The borough will be affected by HS2.
The high-speed rail line will pass through the eastern fringe of the constituency but the town’s railway station is due to be connected to the network, bringing a new hourly service to London which will take 50 minutes.
The hospital has dominated the agenda for the best part of the last decade – first with the two inquiries into poor care and secondly the downgrading of services that came into force before the 2015 election.
Conservative Jeremy Lefroy, an accountant by trade, strengthened his hold on the seat two years ago, increasing his majority to 9,177 from 5,460 in 2010.
Voters don’t seem to have been put off the Tories after voting them in for an historic third term in the county council elections this month despite record budget cuts and loss of public services.
Labour is left with just a single county councillor in the borough to the Conservatives’ seven.
Just 1.1 per cent of people are claiming out-of-work benefits – half the national average.
Mr Lefroy has an interest in international trade and development. He was a member of the Brexit select committee responsible for holding the Government to account before parliament was dissolved for the June 8 snap election.
Who are the 2017 election candidates for Stafford?
Mr Lefroy will be hoping to keep his seat for the Conservatives
Two years ago UKIP won 13 per cent of the vote but this time is not running a candidate, meaning around 6,000 votes are up for grabs.
The Labour candidate is David Williams who works for the YMCA. He was born in Stafford and attended Blessed William Howard Catholic High School. He is campaigning on the town’s hospital services and school funding.
The Liberal Democrats came bottom in 2015 with just 2.8 per cent of the vote. Christine Tinker is the candidate this time. She lives in Shropshire and served in the Army.
The Green Party candidate is Tony Pearce. He lives in Stafford and is a former teacher and full-time worker for the National Union of Teachers.
Who can we expect to win?
Best odds: Cons: 1/80, Lab 16/1, Lib Dem 50/1, Green 250/1
Prediction: Conservative hold with an increased majority
If this month’s county council election results are anything to go by then Jeremy Lefroy is on course to win his third General Election victory by a landslide.
His majority is already at a healthy 9,177 and it is hard to see him not adding to that substantially this time around. Labour won just one of the county council election seats in Stafford which gives the party a bleak outlook going into June 8.
UKIP’s decision not to run a candidate will undoubtedly benefit the Conservatives.
That decision is unlikely to be tactical, despite what Mr Nuttall might suggest. It probably has a lot more to do with the cash-strapped party being unable to either find a suitable candidate or finance one.
Stafford voted to leave the EU which will benefit the Tories despite the fact Mr Lefroy campaigned and voted to remain in the bloc.
Two years ago much was made of the possible impact of Support Stafford Hospital campaigners running their own candidate – however that failed to materialise when it came to the vote.
The Lib Dems will be hoping to do better than 2015 – frankly it will be hard to do worse – but this will be at the expense of Labour.
The campaign in Stafford has been rather muted up to this point, and although Mr Lefroy will be taking nothing for granted, he should be quietly confident of securing five more years in Westminster.
