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UK Parliament - Penrith & The Border

RACE DETAILS

Parents

> United Kingdom > England > North West > North West > Penrith & The Border

Office

Parliament

Type

General Election

Filing Deadline

April 19, 2005 - 12:00pm

Polls Open

May 05, 2005 - 01:00am

Polls Close

May 05, 2005 - 05:00pm

Term Start

May 17, 2005 - 12:00pm

Term End

May 17, 2010 - 11:00am

Contributor

Wishful Thinking

Last Modified

Wishful Thinking June 22, 2005 11:04pm

Data Sources

[Link]

Description

This is the largest constituency in terms of area in the country, even after it lost eight wards to Carlisle and Workington in the 1995 boundary review, but one of the most sparsely populated. It stretches from Longtown on the Scottish border and Bowness-on-Solway at the end of Hadrian's Wall, south to Appleby and Kirkby Stephen by way of the largest town Penrith, the remote market town of Alston and Lake Ullswater. It entirely surrounds the separate constituency of Carlisle. Penrith was synonymous with its former MP, Margaret Thatcher's deputy prime minister Willie Whitelaw. He held the seat from 1955 to 1983 when, on his elevation to the Lords, he was succeeded by the current MP, David Maclean. Mr Maclean's majority has not fallen below 10,000 since then. The seat is almost entirely (99.5%) white, with a high self-employed ranking and one in 10 are involved in agriculture and forestry. After 2001 this was the Conservatives' second safest seat (Richmond being number one). When it comes to local politics, party allegiances largely go by the board. By far the largest grouping on the District of Eden council is the Independents, with the odd smattering of Tories and Liberal Democrats. Labour are not in evidence here though they do have one councillor in the Wigton ward of Allerdale council.