Wantage | |
---|---|
County constituency for the House of Commons | |
County | Oxfordshire |
Electorate | 90,876 (December 2019) |
Major settlements | Wantage, Didcot, Wallingford, Faringdon |
Current constituency | |
Created | 1983 |
Member of Parliament | David Johnston (Conservative) |
Seats | One |
Created from | Abingdon (majority of) (note: abolished) |
Wantage is a constituency [n 1] in Oxfordshire represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by Conservative MP David Johnston. [1] [n 2]
Johnston was first elected at the 2019 general election replacing Ed Vaizey who served as MP for Wantage for 14 years after first being elected at the 2005 general election. [2]
Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat will be reduced in size, with northern and western areas, including the town of Faringdon, being transferred to Witney. It will be renamed Didcot and Wantage , to be first contested at the 2024 general election. [3]
The Wantage constituency covers the south-western part of Oxfordshire. There are three market towns in the constituency: Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage. All have tourist attractions, Wantage having monuments to being the birthplace of King Alfred the Great, Wallingford, ancient enclosure walls of a castle and a medieval bridge. [n 3] Faringdon bears a scar of the English Civil War as its church lost its steeple. The largest town in the constituency is Didcot, which grew up around the Great Western Railway when Isambard Kingdom Brunel built a branch line from its main line between London and Bristol to Oxford, siting the junction at the then-sparsely-populated parish and it has a power station and many major national construction and aggregate industries.
The constituency is mostly rural in character, with more than 400 farms in operation. Included are the Uffington White Horse and The Ridgeway, a prehistoric road, runs along its southern border. The River Thames runs along the northern and western border. The area is affluent and Conservative in nature containing many commuters with fast transport links to London, with Didcot the only area with a strong Labour vote locally. The seat includes international race horse breeders and trainers with racing stables across a broad area that reaches into the Lambourn Downs, crossing over the southern border into the Newbury constituency in Berkshire.
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian .
The constituency was created for the 1983 general election further to the Third Periodic Review of Westminster Constituencies. This followed on from the reorganisation of local government under the Local Government Act 1972 which came in to force in April 1974. This saw the bulk of the area represented by the constituency of Abingdon in Berkshire being transferred to Oxfordshire. Under the Review, the majority of the Abingdon constituency formed the new constituency of Wantage, with the town of Abingdon-on-Thames and areas to the west of Oxford being included in the new constituency of Oxford West and Abingdon.
The first MP for Wantage was Robert Jackson, who served as a junior minister under both Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Jackson defected to the Labour Party in 2005 shortly before standing down as an MP for the 2005 general election. At that election, Ed Vaizey was elected as MP for Wantage and 2010-2016 held the post of Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.
Ed Vaizey served as MP for Wantage until the 2019 general election whereby Vaizey announced that he would be standing down. Shortly prior to this, Vaizey had the Conservative whip removed after voting against Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 3 September 2019. [4] Vaizey had the Conservative whip restored on 29 October 2019. [5] This meant that, for a brief time, Wantage was represented by an independent MP. David Johnston was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent Wantage and was duly elected as the new MP for Wantage at the 2019 general election. [6]
The seat, including its forerunner, has been won by Conservative Party candidates since 1924. The 2015 result made the seat the 76th-safest of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority. [7]
All five parties' candidates achieved more than the deposit-retaining threshold of 5% of the vote in 2015. Social Democrat candidate Winifred Tumin won the largest third-party share of the vote to date, in the 1983 election — 32.3% of the vote.
The new constituency included Wantage, Wallingford, Faringdon and Didcot which had previously all been part of the abolished constituency of Abingdon.
Marginal changes due to the realignment of the boundaries following changes to local authority wards.
Under the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the Boundary Commission for England has proposed boundary changes to the Wantage constituency in order to reduce the number of electorate in the constituency. [11] At the time of the 2019 General Election, Wantage's total electorate was 90,845, making it the largest constituency in Oxfordshire and the 13th largest in the United Kingdom. [12] The proposals will see the total electorate reduced to 74,356 which is significantly closer to the average electorate of 72,200 for constituencies in England. [13] [14]
The commission has proposed the renaming of the Wantage constituency to 'Didcot and Wantage'. [15] The proposed boundary changes would see the wards of Faringdon, Kingston Bagpuize, Thames, and Watchfield and Shrivenham move into the Witney constituency, whilst the newly renamed Didcot and Wantage constituency would absorb the small villages of Clifton Hampden, Culham, Nuneham Courtenay and Sandford-on-Thames from the Henley constituency. [16] [17]
Election | Member [18] | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
1983 | Robert Jackson | Conservative | |
Jan 2005 | Labour [19] | ||
2005 | Ed Vaizey | Conservative | |
Oct 2019 | Independent [20] | ||
Conservative | |||
2019 | David Johnston | Conservative |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | David Johnston | 34,085 | 50.7 | 3.5 | |
Liberal Democrats | Richard Benwell | 21,432 | 31.9 | 17.4 | |
Labour | Jonny Roberts | 10,181 | 15.2 | 11.7 | |
Independent | Mark Gray | 1,475 | 2.2 | New | |
Majority | 12,653 | 18.8 | 8.5 | ||
Turnout | 67,173 | 73.9 | 1.4 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | 10.4 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 34,459 | 54.2 | +0.9 | |
Labour Co-op | Rachel Eden | 17,079 | 26.9 | +10.9 | |
Liberal Democrats | Christopher Carrigan | 9,234 | 14.5 | +1.4 | |
Green | Sue Ap-Roberts | 1,546 | 2.4 | -2.7 | |
UKIP | David McLeod | 1,284 | 2.0 | -10.5 | |
Majority | 17,380 | 27.3 | -10.0 | ||
Turnout | 63,602 | 72.5 | +2.2 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | -4.95 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 31,092 | 53.3 | +1.3 | |
Labour | Stephen Webb | 9,343 | 16.0 | +2.1 | |
Liberal Democrats | Alex Meredith | 7,611 | 13.1 | -14.8 | |
UKIP | Lee Upcraft | 7,288 | 12.5 | +8.2 | |
Green | Kate Prendergast | 2,986 | 5.1 | +3.2 | |
Majority | 21,749 | 37.3 | +17.2 | ||
Turnout | 58,320 | 70.3 | +0.3 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | -0.4 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 29,284 | 52.0 | +8.9 | |
Liberal Democrats | Alan Armitage | 15,737 | 27.9 | +0.3 | |
Labour | Steven Mitchell | 7,855 | 13.9 | -10.0 | |
UKIP | Jacqueline Jones | 2,421 | 4.3 | +2.8 | |
Green | Adam Twine | 1,044 | 1.9 | -0.7 | |
Majority | 13,547 | 24.1 | +8.7 | ||
Turnout | 56,341 | 70.0 | +1.9 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +4.3 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Ed Vaizey | 22,354 | 43.0 | +3.4 | |
Liberal Democrats | Andrew Crawford | 14,337 | 27.6 | −0.4 | |
Labour | Mark McDonald | 12,464 | 24.0 | −4.2 | |
Green | Adam Twine | 1,332 | 2.6 | +0.4 | |
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 798 | 1.5 | -0.4 | |
English Democrat | Gerald Lambourne | 646 | 1.2 | New | |
Majority | 8,017 | 15.4 | +4.0 | ||
Turnout | 51,931 | 68.2 | +3.7 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +1.9 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 19,475 | 39.6 | -0.2 | |
Labour | Stephen Beer | 13,875 | 28.2 | -0.7 | |
Liberal Democrats | Neil Fawcett | 13,776 | 28.0 | +1.5 | |
Green | David Brooks-Saxl | 1,062 | 2.2 | +1.1 | |
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 941 | 1.9 | +1.1 | |
Majority | 5,600 | 11.4 | +0.5 | ||
Turnout | 49,129 | 64.5 | -13.6 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +0.3 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 22,311 | 39.8 | -14.2 | |
Labour | Celia Wilson | 16,222 | 28.9 | +9.4 | |
Liberal Democrats | Jenny Riley | 14,862 | 26.5 | -2.4 | |
Referendum | Stuart Rising | 1,549 | 2.8 | New | |
Green | Miriam Kennet | 640 | 1.1 | -0.4 | |
UKIP | Nikolai Tolstoy | 465 | 0.8 | New | |
Majority | 6,089 | 10.9 | -18.2 | ||
Turnout | 56,049 | 78.1 | -4.6 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | ||||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 30,575 | 54.1 | +0.1 | |
Liberal Democrats | RMC Morgan | 14,102 | 25.0 | −5.5 | |
Labour Co-op | Vivian Woodell | 10,955 | 19.4 | +3.9 | |
Green | RJ Ely | 867 | 1.5 | New | |
Majority | 16,473 | 29.1 | +5.6 | ||
Turnout | 56,499 | 82.7 | +4.8 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +2.8 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 27,951 | 54.0 | +1.1 | |
SDP | Winifred Tumim | 15,795 | 30.5 | −1.8 | |
Labour | Stephen Ladyman | 8,055 | 15.5 | +1.0 | |
Majority | 12,156 | 23.5 | +2.9 | ||
Turnout | 51,801 | 77.9 | +1.0 | ||
Conservative hold | Swing | +1.5 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Robert Jackson | 25,992 | 52.9 | ||
SDP | Winifred Tumim | 15,867 | 32.3 | ||
Labour | Andrew Popper | 7,115 | 14.5 | ||
Wessex Regionalist | AP Mockler | 183 | 0.4 | ||
Majority | 10,125 | 20.6 | |||
Turnout | 49,157 | 76.9 | |||
Conservative win (new seat) |
Wantage is a historic market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire since 1974. The town is on Letcombe Brook, 8 miles (13 km) south-west of Abingdon, 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Reading, 15 miles (24 km) south-west of Oxford and 14 miles (23 km) north-west of Newbury.
South Oxfordshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a planned move to Didcot, the district's largest town. The areas located south of the River Thames are within the historic county of Berkshire.
Edward Henry Butler Vaizey, Baron Vaizey of Didcot, is a British politician, media columnist, political commentator and barrister who was Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries from 2010 to 2016. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wantage from 2005 to 2019.
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