Labour are on target to win both newly created Parliamentary seats in Huntingdon – the new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire seat and the revamped Huntingdon seat.
Research by Electoral Calculus – a highly regarded political consultancy specialising in constituency analysis –believes that if a General Election was called now, Labour could win both.
In St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire it pinpoints areas such as St Neots itself and places such as Girton, Histon, Impington and Bar Hill that could swing it for Labour.
Electoral Calculus give Labour a 66 per cent chance of winning, and with a predicted majority of 3,000 on a 64 per cent turnout.
In the new Huntingdon seat, Brampton, Godmanchester and Hemingford Abbots are reckoned to be Labour hot spots, with the 12,000 voters in Huntingdon East and Huntingdon North likely also to favour Labour.
And all areas of St Ives are thought by Electoral Calculus to secure a Labour majority, together with the Stukeleys.
Labour, said to have a 57 per cent chance of success by Electoral Calculus in Huntingdon, could end with a majority of just over 1,000 based on a 60 per cent turn out.
The research comes as Huntingdon MP Jonathan Djanogly failed to secure automatic re-adoption by his constituency’s selection committee.
He is thought to have lost the vote 9-12 at a selection meeting – he has been the MP since 2001 following the retirement of John Major.
Mr Djanogly is not taking defeat at a selection meeting without a fight and has indicated he will, as is allowed, go to a ballot of all members to try, and secure the nomination and overturn the committee’s decision.
Other factors maybe at work
Conservative Home – the house journal of the party – says the selection committee did not discuss recent headlines which involved Mr Djanogly and his wife and their housekeeping arrangements. A widely publicised employment tribunal involving two former housekeepers at his London home found against him.
However Conservative Home note that with only 66 per cent of his current constituency in the new constituency other factors were at work.
“Local sources suggest this manifested itself as six local councillors from Cambridgeshire North West who are all thought to have voted against Djanogly at the meeting,” says Conservative Home.
That conflicts with the views of political journalist Michael Creek who tweeted yesterday that he had been told that for some of the committee that recent revelations about the Djanogly family’s housekeepers were “the last straw”.
Conservative Home believes that, as with Richard Bacon, a Norfolk MP who failed to secure automatic re selection, the presence of the six councillors at the selection meeting “ combined with those aiming for a fresh face after 22 years, looks like it was enough to prevent Djanogly’s re-selection.
“Although he is currently predicted by Electoral Calculus to face a tight battle for re-election, he does not want to stand elsewhere or seek adoption for the new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency that incorporates some of Huntingdon”.
Already chosen in St Neots
Which is not possible anyway since South Cambridgeshire MP Anthony Browne has already been chosen to be the Conservative candidate for the new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire seat at the next General Election.
Mr Browne was interviewed recently by party members and given the gig, saying afterwards he was both delighted and honoured to be offered it.
“Choosing which Parliamentary seat to apply for has been the hardest decision of my life, he told reporters.
“I have a deep emotional attachment to South Cambridgeshire, but my constituency is being cut in two following the Boundary Review.”
“I have had to make a choice of which side to go for, and I decided to stand in the area where I believe my current campaigns can make the greatest difference for local people on the biggest local challenges.
“It is where I have lived most of the time since the last election, and I will be standing again as MP for many of the communities I currently represent.”
The next election is not expected until 2024 – and many believe it will be in the autumn of that year.
