A Look @: West Sussex (Part II)

With no easy way to split West Sussex up into manageable posts this will focus on the 'central' and 'eastern' constituencies and you can find the rest here. The West Sussex council is currently controlled by the Conservatives although the Liberal Democrats were the winners in the 2009 elections. They gained five seats but at the expense of Labour. The Tories hold 48 of the 71 seats and 7 of the 8 parliamentary seats in West Sussex and they look set to turn the whole county blue in May.

Constituency	Incumbent	Notional Majority	Swing Needed	Favourite	Prediction
Crawley	Laura Moffatt	37	0.1%	1/25	CON Gain
Sussex Mid	Nicholas Soames	6,462	6.4%	1/50	CON Hold
Horsham	Francis Maude	10,780	10.9%	1/100	CON Hold
Arundel & S Downs	Nick Herbert	12,291	12.0%	1/500	CON Hold

 

Crawley is one of the most marginal constituencies in the country and Labour are virtually certain to lose this in May. This was probably the main reason why Laura Moffatt stood down only a fortnight ago. Labour will select a new candidate on 31^st March so I'll update this when we know that is. Whoever it is they will almost certainly lose to the Conservatives PPC Henry Smith. He has led the West Sussex Council since 2003 and was responsible for reducing Moffatt's majority to virtually nothing in 2005. Tory Gain here.

Nicholas Soames has been in Parliament since 1983 but not all of them have been as MP for Mid Sussex. He represented Crawley up until 1997 and then followed some of his wards into this safer seat in boundary change. Soames is best known as being Winston Churchill's Grandson but has featured on the front bench for the Conservatives, usually in positions relating to Defence. He is another MP with mortgage problems but I suspect that as these have been paid they will have little effect on those involved. The size of his majority makes this seat the biggest Liberal Democrat target in the county but Serena Tierney has little realistic chance of unseating Soames. She did coordinate Richard Younger-Ross' successful gain in Teignbridge at the last election but Soames will be a lot harder to shift! Tory Hold.

Francis Maude was a Government Minister for a couple of years until he lost his seat in the 1992 election. He was then given the nice safe seat of Horsham in 1997 and has been a prominent member of the Conservatives shadow cabinet since. Maude was an initial target in the expenses scandal claiming for a flat only 70 yards from a house he owned. This might give the Lib Dem PPC, former Horsham Councillor Godfrey Newman, a chance but he still has a lot of votes to make up; Tory Hold.

Arundel & South Downs was Howard Flight's constituency until 2005. He was the MP secretly recorded saying if the Tories got into power spending cuts would be a lot bigger than Michael Howard was promising, causing huge embarrassment for his party. The then Deputy Chairman quit his post, had the whip withdrawn and was then forced to stand down as a candidate little over a month before the election. Quite a fall from grace! His replacement, Nick Herbert, won with ease in 2005 but he hasn't been an angel in his first term. Herbert claimed stamp duty on a house he bought less than a year after he was elected and also had to pay back just under £1,000 in overpaid mortgage claims. Despite this his majority should be enough to prevent West Sussex Councillor Derek Deedman taking this seat for the Liberal Democrats; Tory Hold.