Gedling (UK Parliament constituency)

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Gedling County constituency

Gedling shown within Nottinghamshire, and Nottinghamshire shown within England
Created:	1983
MP:	Vernon Coaker
Party:	Labour
Type:	House of Commons
County:	Nottinghamshire
EP constituency:	East Midlands

Gedling is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

1 Boundaries
- 1.1 Boundary review
2 History
3 Members of Parliament
4 Election results
5 See also

[edit] Boundaries

Part of the Greater Nottingham area, the constituency covers the most populated parts of the borough of Gedling, covering the mainly affluant north eastern suburbs of the Nottingham area including Arnold, Burton Joyce, Carlton, Colwick and Gedling village Woodthorpe and Mapperley Plains.

It is a mostly middle-class residential area, with similar characteristics to the nearby Broxtowe constituency, on the opposite side of Nottingham.

The constituency is one of contrasts, Arnold itself along with its smaller neighbour of Daybrook are Labour the surrounding suburbs of Woodthorpe Kingswell and Mapperley are staunchly Conservative.

[edit] Boundary review

Following their review of parliamentary boundaries in Nottinghamshire, the Boundary Commission for England has made only minor changes to the existing constituencies to allow for population changes. The boundaries of the modified constituency to be fought at the next general election are:

From the Borough of Gedling - Bonington, Burton Joyce and Stoke Bardolph, Carlton, Carlton Hill, Daybrook, Gedling, Killisick, Kingswell, Mapperley Plains, Netherfield and Colwick, Phoenix, Porchester, St James, St Marys, Valley, and Woodthorpe.

[edit] History

The constituency of Gedling was created in 1983, replacing the earlier Carlton constituency. Until 1997, it was thought of as a safe seat for the Conservative Party, being represented by the former Carlton MP Sir Philip Holland until 1987, then by Andrew Mitchell, the son of former Conservative MP David Mitchell. The seat was gained by the Labour Party in their landslide victory at the 1997 general election. In that election, Mitchell (by then a junior minister) lost to Labour's Vernon Coaker, who has held the seat since then.

It is now considered to be a marginal constituency, fought between Labour and the Conservatives. In the 2005 general election, the Conservative candidate Anna Soubry caused controversy by revealing that she "was not proud" of the area she was intending to represent, referring to crime levels in the Nottingham area [1]. This statement is alleged to have contributed to her losing the election, with the swing to the Conservatives from Labour being less than in other areas. However, Labour and the Conservatives both gained a lower percentage of the vote in Gedling than in 2001, so the swing could even be considered to be from both of these parties to the Liberal Democrats and the two eurosceptic parties, UKIP and Veritas. Feeling within the local Labour Party was that Vernon Coaker was personally well-liked and not tied to 'New Labour' because he had fought the seat in 1987 and 1992 under the Neil Kinnock leadership, and that stopped him from losing large amounts of votes.

[edit] Members of Parliament

1983 – 1987: Sir Philip Holland, Conservative
1987 – 1997: Andrew Mitchell, Conservative
1997 – present: Vernon Coaker, Labour

[edit] Election results

General Election 2005: Gedling
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Vernon Coaker	20,329	46.1	−5.0
	Conservative	Anna Soubry	16,518	37.5	−0.8
	Liberal Democrats	Raymond Poynter	6,070	13.8	+3.2
	UK Independence	Alan Margerison	741	1.7	N/A
	Veritas	Deborah Johnson	411	0.9	N/A
Majority			3,811	8.6
Turnout			44,069	63.9	0.0
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 2001: Gedling
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Vernon Coaker	22,383	51.1	+4.3
	Conservative	Jonathan Bullock	16,785	38.3	-1.2
	Liberal Democrats	Tony Gillam	4,648	10.6	+0.7
Majority			5,598	12.8
Turnout			43,816	63.9	-11.8
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 1997: Gedling
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Vernon Coaker	24,390	46.8
	Conservative	Andrew Mitchell	20,588	39.5
	Liberal Democrats	Raymond Poynter	5,180	9.9
	Referendum Party	J Connor	2,006	3.9	N/A
Majority			3,802	7.3
Turnout			52,164	75.7	0.0
	Labour gain from Conservative		Swing	Con to Lab 13%

General Election 1992: Gedling
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Andrew Mitchell	30,191	53.2
	Labour	Vernon Coaker	19,554	34.4
	Liberal Democrats	DG George	6,863	12.1
	Natural Law	A Miszeweka	168	0.3	N/A
Majority			10,637	18.7
Turnout			56,776	82.3
	Conservative hold		Swing

[edit] See also

List of Parliamentary constituencies in Nottinghamshire

Constituencies in the East Midlands
Labour	Amber Valley \| Ashfield \| Bassetlaw \| Bolsover \| Broxtowe \| Corby \| Derby North \| Derby South \| Erewash \| Gedling \| High Peak \| Leicester East \| Leicester South \| Leicester West \| Lincoln \| Loughborough \| Mansfield \| Northampton North \| North East Derbyshire \| North West Leicestershire \| Nottingham East \| Nottingham North \| Nottingham South \| Sherwood \| South Derbyshire
Conservative	Blaby \| Boston and Skegness \| Bosworth \| Charnwood \| Daventry \| Gainsborough \| Grantham and Stamford \| Harborough \| Kettering \| Louth and Horncastle \| Newark \| Northampton South \| Rushcliffe \| Rutland and Melton \| Sleaford and North Hykeham \| South Holland and The Deepings \| Wellingborough \| West Derbyshire
Liberal Democrat	Chesterfield
East Midlands European constituency: Conservative (2) \| UKIP (2) \| Labour (1) \| Liberal Democrats (1)