South West Constituency Target Seats
Party target seats »   Con   Lab   Lib Dem 1   Bristol West - Read   2   Stroud - Read   3   Falmouth and Cambourne  - Read 4   Wansdyke - Read   5    Swindon South - Read   6   Forest of Dean - Read   7   Gloucester - Read   8   Swindon North - Read   9   Exeter - Read   10   Plymouth Sutton - Read   11   Bristol North West - Read   12   Kingswood - Read   13   Torbay - Read   14   Somerton and Frome - Read 15   Weston-super-Mare - Read   16   Torridge and West Devon - Read 17   Northavon - Read   18   Taunton  - Read   19   Devon North  - Read		Party seats pre-Election 2001     Party target seats »   Con   Lab   Lib Dem 20   Cornwall South East - Read 21   Cheltenham - Read   22   St Ives - Read   23   Bath - Read   24   Dorset South - Read   25   Teignbridge - Read   26   Wells - Read   27   Dorset Mid and Poole North - Read   28   Totnes - Read   29   Tiverton and Honiton - Read

The South West is a varied region. Cornwall is a distinctive part of the country, Celtic rather than Anglo-Saxon, with a small nationalist movement of its own (Mebyon Kernow), a resuscitated language and a peculiar landscape. At the other end, the South West includes Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, parts of which are coming increasingly into the orbit of London work and leisure. Between lie Bristol and its city-region, Somerset and Dorset, and the large county of Devon.

The furthest part of the region, Cornwall and most of Devon, is very much on the periphery of Britain: Penzance is as far from London as Carlisle. It is remote and dependent on several declining industries first fishing, tin and china clay mining, then tourism. It is poorly served by airports, and communications by rail deteriorate abruptly at Exeter. Cornwall lacks a motorway, or a university, and suffers from an outdated economic base. The Conservatives lost ground here in 1987 and 1992, reflecting the understandable feeling in these parts that the south west was being neglected by London. Somerset shared many of these feelings. The rest of the region was less disenchanted with Thatcher in 1987 and Major in 1992, although Bath and Cheltenham did produce the two most dramatic Conservative reverses of that election. Dorset and Wiltshire continued to lend strong support to the Conservatives, with the party managing to hold Swindon. The Conservatives still dominated the region in 1992, with 38 MPs to 6 Liberal Democrats and 4 Labour, and 47.6% of the vote (down from 50.6% in 1987).

The Conservatives slumped across the region in 1997, being reduced to 22 MPs compared to 15 Labour and 14 Liberal Democrats. It could have been even worse there were close calls in several Tory seats including Teignbridge and Wells. They were wiped out in Cornwall and Bristol, although Dorset was one of only two counties with 100% Conservative MPs (Surrey is the other; there were 14 such English counties in 1992 and 21 in 1987). Although they won no seats, the Referendum Party and the UK Independence Party polled some of their strongest votes in the area.

The Conservatives came back very strongly in the 1999 Euro elections in the south west, particularly against Liberal Democrat opposition, and will have won all that party's seats in the region and reduced Labour to five, four in the Bristol area plus Plymouth Devonport. There are quite a lot of seats worth watching in the area, particularly if the Conservatives are going to improve their parliamentary position. The last time the Liberals won a swathe of these seats was in 1923, and that was followed at the next election by a sweeping Conservative recovery.

Outside the cities, Labour is quite weak. The party never managed to displace the Liberal Party as the voice of radicalism in these parts even at its high watermark of 194551 and puts in some of its worst showings in the rural Lib Dem-Con marginals.

Nearly all the interesting seats are in the list of marginals, but there are a few worth noting otherwise. Conservative strength in Plymouth makes Devonport interesting as well as Sutton; see the profile for Plymouth Sutton. Paddy Ashdown is leaving his seat at Yeovil; David Laws is the new Liberal Democrat candidate but the party has historically been bad at passing seats on when incumbents depart. Conservative Marco Forgione cannot be ruled out despite Ashdown's 21.1% lead in 1997; the Tories led by 15.5% in the Euro election. Liberal Democrat seats at North Cornwall and Truro and St. Austell also looked shaky in 1999 but should survive. The Conservatives were well adrift at Bristol East, even in 1999, and Bristol South after a wobble in 1987 has returned to its safe Labour status. The one Conservative gain anywhere in the country in 1997 was at Christchurch in Dorset; although the seat looks close on paper, the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP had won the seat in a sensational by-election in 1993 which still affected the result in 1997. Diana Maddock is now in the House of Lords and her successor cannot expect to improve on her showing in 1997. The Conservatives were nearly 50 points ahead of the third placed Christchurch Liberal Democrats in Euro 99. One day, as the Bournemouth-Poole metro area matures, it will surely produce a Labour possible, but that day is not coming any time soon.

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