It had been wrongly assumed before the last election that the seat called The Wrekin would automatically fall to the Conservatives as a result of boundary changes. The creation of the stand-alone constituency of Telford appeared to take away most of the Labour voters from the formerly oversized and extremely marginal Wrekin division, though it did at least end the worries of Bruce Grocott, who had originally gained the seat from the Conservatives in 1987 and could now pile up a majority of over 11,000 in Telford in 1997. However, to confound the pundits, the now reduced and more Conservative Wrekin (which had also taken in electors from solidly Tory Ludlow and Shropshire North) also managed to elect a Labour MP in 1997, with Peter Bradley defeating former Leicester East MP Peter Bruinvels by 3,000 votes.

The new Wrekin constituency still contains a number of small towns close to Telford itself, such as Arleston, Donnington and Hadley where Labour is able to rely on a solid vote. It seems though that in 1997, Bradley must have been able to take a fair vote from the large rural area in the constituency, which includes the town of Newport (a Liberal Democrat stronghold in local elections). Whether this vote can be retained at the next general election must be in some doubt; in the Euro elections the Conservatives led Labour 39-30% and their new standard-bearer Jacob Rees-Mogg will certainly hope for a better result than the 9% he achieved in Fife Central in 1997.

Parliamentary Statistics pre-Election 2001

Labour majority 3,025 (6.7%)  Conservative target 49
MP Peter Bradley
1997 (Turnout 76.6%)
Labour	21,243	46.9%
Conservative	18,218	40.2%
Liberal Democrat	5,807	12.8%

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For The Wrekin 2001 Election result - click here.