Penistone Parliamentary Elections

Constituency Area:
The Penistone and Stocksbridge Parliamentary constituency is administered by Sheffield City Council and is made up of the following council wards.
(BMBC = Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, CofS = City of Sheffield Council):

BMBC Penistone East, BMBC Penistone West, BMBC Dodworth, CofS East Ecclesfield, CofS Stocksbridge and Upper Don, and CofS West Ecclesfield.

2024 General Election
Thursday 4th July 2024. Won by Marie Tidball of the Labour party.
The 59th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Notes:

• Short Notice - Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the date on Wednesday 22nd May 2024 of the next General Election for Thursday 4th July 2024.
• Election Results - Sourced from Sheffield News and BBC UK Results.
• Gain/Loss = A party's fortunes compared to the previous General Election, not the candidate. Percentage difference from that party's previous result.
• N/A = Not applicable. Relates to new parties or those not in the 2019 election.
• Δ Turnout = Difference in turnout from previous General Election.
• Other Results:
  • Barnsley (BMBC source) - Labour win for Dan Jarvis (Barnsley North), 50.4%, and Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley South) 46.7%, each with Reform UK coming second.
  • Huddersfield (BBC) - Harpreet Uppal 37.6% wins for Labour, reduced majority. Greens second, 26.3%. Conservatives third, 16.3%, Reform UK, 15.4%.
  • Ossett and Denby Dale (BBC) - Strong 39.3% by Jade Botteril, Labour. Conservatives second, 28.9%.
• Statement of Persons Nominated (BMBC - pdf) but gaves few clues about candidates. Candidates listed here were from 'Who can I vote for?'
• Miriam Cates - Was the sitting MP from the 2019 election, a director of Redemption Media and had been a parish councillor for Oughtibridge on Bradfield Parish Council. She is a Christian, has a Cambridge degree in Genetics and is a former science teacher. See the Miriam Cates section below for more.
• Robert Reiss - Grew up in South Lincolnshire, is Project Manager at Liberty Steel Group Ltd and served on both Ecclesfield Parish Council and Sheffield City Council for Ecclesfield East ward. He moved to his address near Fox Hill in 2020. (Who is my Councillor).
• Marie Tidball - Grew up in Penistone, went to PGS, moved to Stocksbridge, became an Oxford City councillor (news item), is a disability activist and Criminology research associate (Labour List).
• Andre Davies - A teacher and contractor in Countryside Management and former Green Party member who joined Labour during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Now back in the Green Party but was missing from the Yorkshire and Humberside Wiki list of candidates and 'Who can I vote for?' which had only three candidates shown. Probably a late entry.
• Edward Dilligham - The Reform UK candidate but online searches gave no background, only a 'Statement to Voters' repeated on several websites.
• Voting - Electors had until Tuesday 18 June 2024 to register to vote. Voter identification was required for those voting at a polling station.
• Opinion Polls (wiki) for this election. The Labour Party showed a very strong lead. BBC said that exit polls would be the most accurate.
• Public Opinion and Social Trends - Social insights on daily life and events from the Office for National Statistics.

So What Happened Nationally?
This was all about which party should govern the country. National turnout was down on 2019 from 67.3% to 60%, so perhaps the public had grown tired of the national debate, or just thought that MPs were 'all the same.' The Conservative party was trounced and Labour won the contest, not so much by their votes (up only 1.71%) but by Conservatives losing so many (down 19.9%). Taking into account the reduced turnout, that makes Labour up by 1.91% and Conservatives down by 22.32% (Calculation: 67.3 ÷ 60 = 1.122 ratio; then multiplied by votes %). Labour might have failed to gain a few more seats in those cities with large communities of foreign origin, very concerned about events in Gaza and thinking that Labour had let them down by not supporting an Israeli ceasefire. They must have believed that UK parties held some influence over foreign affairs.

Coming third, the ex-UKIP, ex-Brexit party and currently the 'Reform UK' party (practically the same people) took around four million votes with Nigel Farage newly at the helm, yet only gained a few MPs. Outside the London bubble at least, the country was still largely independence-minded and annoyed by unstoppable boats full of illegal immigration ushered our way (thereby requiring a lot more housing and other support). Political commentators said that Reform UK took their votes mostly at the expense of the Conservative party. There was a whiff of subterfuge in the air when Channel Four TV covertly recorded the wild rantings of a particular hothead at a Reform UK rally. It turned out that the man was an out-of-work actor whose normal posh voice was quite different to that adopted for his televised rant, which looked somewhat contrived. When interviewed by others, he said that he did not mean those horrible things that he had said! In a similar vein, three heckler intruders at another Reform UK rally tried to shout down the leader Nigel Farage, who simply brushed them off. They too turned out to be out-of-work actors and were shown to be 'Just Stop Oil' activists (as seen on Youtube, etc.) who infiltrated the meeting. There might be a pattern there. One ponders if they might have received a bung from someone, given their apparent unemployed(-able) status.

The Lib-dems were overjoyed to increase their number of MPs but actually only picked up 0.64% more votes than in 2019 (0.72% in proportion). That's the luck of the draw with the 'First-past-the-post system' which at first glance looks quite wrong, but it relates to the number of contested seats of which the Lib-dems had many and Reform UK had few. A Reform UK MP complained to the house about the lack of MPs from their 4million votes. The Greens took more votes than the Lib-dems (4.05%) and gained three more MPs to add to their previously sole defender. They too contested more seats this time. The Scottish National Party (SNP) did rather badly and lost 37 MPs, leaving only nine remaining to fight their corner.

The subject of Brexit came up from time to time, and always in a negative way (mostly the BBC). After one Referendum and two General Elections to implement leaving the EU, the subject ought to have been dead by now, but this was election time and point-scoring was the game. Often remarked was that some previous Brexiteers had changed their minds, but never remarked was how many might have changed their minds the other way, thereby implying bias in the questioning. But Brexit might have influenced some Conservative votes in this election, either from disgruntled Remainers or possibly some turning against the party deposing their leader after he succeeded in his quest. Most of the London-based Remainer media, including the BBC as always, and Remainer MPs (actually most MPs) had wanted Johnson's head on a stick for quite some time, and by any means. Then it was only a matter of time ...

The electorate would also have remembered the other failed Conservative Prime Ministers, such as the hapless Theresa May. She always looked terrified of meeting the public but after removing 10,000 Police employees, she might have had good cause. When May was Home Secretary, it was fun watching her and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pulling faces at each other on Parliament TV whenever they thought they were off-camera. They were just as bad as each other. Then Liz 'Lettuce' Truss came along and messed up the economy just as life was becoming hellishly expensive, thereby making May look half-competent!

The last PM, Rishi Sunak, appeared to be the safest pair of hands out of the bunch because of his background in finance but he did not really have the gravitas needed for someone representing the country. At important international events, he tended to giggle and leap about. With that and his trademark half-mast trousers, he could at times came across much like an enthusiastic boy. Although a seemingly genuine sort of fellow, he particularly lost merit when he came home early in June 2024 from the D-Day commemorations, just before the free world leaders convened to show solidarity with Kiev for the photographers. That looked very bad for Sunak but it might not have been obvious to people watching UK news that the British event had been staged separately from the main event which the PM ought to have attended afterwards. Watching France 24 news there could have had been no British event at all, just the French and USA Presidents hugging each other like mad, with the other world leaders blurred in the background. Perhaps Sunak had been 'ghosted' by the French. Had he been invited? Mmm!

Broken Britain
However, the general mood in the country had been in decline since Covid, and Putin's lebensraum land-grab of Ukraine. Although somewhat over-used at election time (think Obama and Cameron), the single and unexplained word 'Change' was an apt slogan for the Labour party this time around. It gave nothing away yet it did fit the mood of the nation. And it worked.

'Broken Britain' had become the theme. So many things did not work properly, such as being unable to contact a tax office or bank, etc. (phones never answered), buses and trains cancelled (and strikes), prices rising, businesses closing down, pubs cutting opening hours, redundancies, NHS dentists unavailable, doctor's appointments difficult, long waits for hospital treatment, misbehaving MPs, online scams, etc. On top of this, large organisations doing as they pleased, such as foreign-owned utilities fleecing the public, water companies polluting waterways, the Post Office scandal (still no redress), etc. And a lot of bad weather. Not all the fault of government but, in the final analysis, they carry the can.

During the financial crisis some years earlier, the Treasury had required all departments to slash their outgoings. Beyond all idiocy, this included tax inspectors and tax collectors, resulting in each year's annual report (to this day) containing a well-buried line about how much tax was 'written off' for that year, and always into tens of £ billions! The Leeds tax office now covers the whole north of England. You could not make it up; in either sense.

Going back to the mood of the nation at this election. As in 1997, it had been another landslide victory for the Labour Party but the mood was different. More one of getting down to business rather than the 1997 national sigh of relief as Mr Blair took over. That one had followed the rushed sell-offs and other unpopular moves by the Conservatives. Also 'New Labour' had a fresh approach to politics, free from the usual crusty ideologues, and it proved popular for its time. Now, in 2024, Parliament is largely filled with newcomers and many are from quite diverse backgrounds. Interestingly, a large number of them still swore their oaths on the bible and some few others on other holy books. Interesting times.

2019 General Election
Thursday 12th December 2019. Won by Miriam Cates of the Conservative party.
The 58th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

New MP in 2019 for Penistone
Miriam Cates MP for the Conservative Party - Wikipedia. Conservatives gained the seat from Labour. See the winning announcement on Facebook. Not every candidate took the result with good grace.

2019 Local Notes
Turnout was slightly better than in 2017, which had been 69%. Nearby turnouts for traditional Labour seats were down by around 5% (rounded off here): Barnsley Central down from 61% to 56%, Bsly East from 59% to 55%, Wentworth and Dearne from 59% to 56%.
Local results sourced from BBC - Penistone and Stocksbridge and BMBC.

2019 Nationally
More than 32 million people voted in the 2019 General Election. Turnout was 67.3% from an electorate of 47.6 million. Conservatives made 58 gains but lost 10 seats for a net change of + 48. Labour gained one seat and lost 61, for a net change of - 60. The Liberal Democrats lost four seats but gained three, for a net change of minus one. The SNP gained 14 seats and lost one, for a net change of + 13. Together, Conservatives and Labour won 76% of the UK vote.
Source: HMG Commons Library.

• John Booker of Burncross, Sheffield, the Brexit Party candidate, had been a UKIP candidate in the 2017 General Election and was the first UKIP councillor on Sheffield City Council, for West Ecclesfield ward (not currently a councillor).
• Cllr Miriam Cates of Oughtibridge is the Conservative Party candidate; a director of Redemption Media and was parish councillor for Oughtibridge on Bradfield Parish Council. She is a Christian, has a Cambridge degree in Genetics and is a former science teacher.
• Cllr Francyne Johnson is a youth and community worker and Sheffield city councillor for 'Stocksbridge and Upper Don' ward (Declaration of Interests).
• Cllr Hannah Kitchen of Thurlstone is the Lib-Dem candidate and a former NHS Physiotherapist. She helps run a Sheffield steel business 'Fernite' with her husband and has served the 'Penistone West' ward on Barnsley MB Council (Declaration of Interests from 2018).

Notes on the Candidates
Penistone Town Councillor Richard Trotman (Green Party) was initially said to be a candidate but did not appear on the list of candidates. The campaign HQ for Miriam Cates (Conservative) was on Penistone High Street. Hannah Kitching (Lib-Dem) is a 'Remainer' in our majority 'Leave' district but gains credibility by regularly mixing with the public in Penistone, being interactive on social media and standing her ground against the hostile Barnsley Council. John Booker (Brexit Party) was accused of 'Islamophobia' and vilified in the left-wing press in an attempt to brand the Brexit Party as racist. It was based upon some of his alleged Facebook 'likes' in 2017. The official Brexit Party policy was to target disaffected Labour 'Leave' supporters, of which there were many outside of London.

• BMBC Parliamentary Election page
• Statement of Nomination

2019 General Election Notes
Thursday 12th December 2019 General Election.
This was for the 58th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
2019 National Results and how they compared with various late predictions.
National turnout was about 67% of registered voters.

Sources: Exit Poll Forecast (BBC TV), YouGov, Electoral Calculus, Betting odds (Wiki), Actual Votes (BBC TV), Change from 2017.

Penistone on National TV - As the Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency is regarded as a somewhat marginal seat, the BBC's leading current affairs tv programme 'Newsnight' took an interest in it and their team visited Penistone on the morning of 26th November, seeking opinions from across the political spectrum. They had to cast their nets a little wider into Dodworth to get all that they needed. The feature was aired on the evening of Thursday 28th November.

There were some scenic views of our town and a look inside the Paramount "Which still has intervals" and, with a bit of tv wizardry, superimposed their visit footage as though projected to the big screen. The Café Crème knitting circle featured prominently and Karen Tyas employed her posh media voice. Karen also coached the team on how to pronounce "Dod'orth" where they would go to film a brass band practice. They encountered some very interesting and perhaps unexpected opinions from the bandsmen in Dodworth. Interestingly, the tv team did not feature the other half of our constituency, Stocksbridge. Perhaps the most newsworth aspect of the visit had been a Conservative party member encroaching upon a traditionally Labour territory in the Barnsley direction. Our constituency stretches deeply into Dodworth, as far as the Horizon college.

Why an Election?
After much unseemly, much delaying activity in the House of Commons and with the PM in an impasse over Europe, this election was called and finally approved by Parliament for Thursday 12th December 2019. Even the date had been subject to petty squabbling and point-scoring, as some MPs wanted it three days earlier on Monday 9th December, something to do with the best date for voting students (some of whom had voted twice in the 2016 Referendum). Elections in the UK are traditionally held on Thursdays. Interesting that in the UK we 'stand' for election whilst in the USA they 'run.'

This was a very strange and interesting election, with the old affiliations stretched to breaking point. The general feeling in the country was that MPs have deserted their constituencies, especially in the north, and are too remotely bound up in their 'Westminster Bubble' to feel the nation's pulse. The Brexit fiasco had been a real pain and people were well beyond fed up with all the parliamentary delays, manoeuvres and obstructions, which probably cost jobs and money through continuing uncertainty. The Conservative motto was 'Get Brexit Done' while Labour adopted an uncommitted stance with the likelihood of a second EU Referendum with only two choices: 1 - Remain, or 2 - Adopt a Leave deal which was not yet negotiated. The electorate was unimpressed.

The Brexit Party was new in 2019 under the guidance of a Mr Nigel Farage, whom one might have heard of. It accounted for the largest number of votes cast for Sheffield and Humberside in the EU election of May 2019 and more or less obliterated the earlier UK Independence Party (UKIP) which Mr Farage also used to lead. In a remarkable quick time, the Brexit Party had raised enough candidates to have one in every English constituency but has agreed to not stand in some areas so as to not dilute the chances of leaving the EU. They were rightly described by the Labour Party as a 'One-trick Pony' as they only have one particular aim but are likely to gain plenty of support in our area.

In a tv documentary, Jeremy Paxman asked the question (please pardon my language): "Why are our Politicians so Cr*p?" (See IMDb). He was not the first to ask this but we are likely to see some big changes as a whole new bunch of MPs might be elected this time. Several old timers were not standing for election and a lot of newbies are having a shot at it. Again, we shall see what they are made of. For more on how the parties stand on the interminable Brexit issue, see the BBC (page dated 30th Oct).

False news has also been prevalent in 2019 and Ofcom had a record number of complaints about the BBC's lack of impartiality on Brexit. The pro-remain bias was also remarked upon in John Humphrys' auto-biography which he published this year upon retiring from the flagship 'Today' programme on BBC radio 4. He said that there had been a stunned silence in the BBC newsroom as the EU Referendum figures arrived in 2016.

Leading figures such as Ann Widdicombe and Ron Liddel had also complained about attempted 'stitch-ups' by the BBC. In both cases, they had been introduced with out-of-context clips suggesting that they had changed their opinions. In both cases, they robustly defended what they had said within the actual context of the recordings. Politicians on the remain side did not appear to suffer the same degree of cross-examination and put-down as the leavers, although that is a subjective opinion.

On at least two occasions, BBC News had recklessly reported on the likelihood of panic-buying in shops which never happened. BBC news also predicted extreme shortages upon leaving the EU, such as Dutch flowers and medicines and that that British schools would run out of food. We shall see. It makes one wonder how all of the other non-EU countries could ever have survived without being part of the super-state.

In the end, Labour lost 59 seats while the Conservatives gained 47, giving them a clear lead. This was Labour's worse result in decades. Two reasons came up most often on the doorsteps (as elicited by both parties); firstly their party leadership and especially Jeremy Corbyn being a toxic name and secondly the likelihood of even more disarray for years to come about Brexit. To be fair, their policies had many attractive offerings (and 'All fully costed') but at what real cost? Nothing come completey free of cost or strings. Perhaps too many give-aways, the politics too left-wing and, beyond the party faithful, too few ordinary people were convinced.

For an independent view on the 2019 General Election, please also visit Wayne Chadburn's Blog site and particularly his 'I don't do manifestos, but if I did ...'

Miriam Joy Cates MP
(These notes are from May 2023)
With almost half of all votes cast in the Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency during the 2019 General Election, our new MP became Miriam Joy Cates, of the Conservative Party. Wikipedia: 'Prior to her parliamentary career, she was the finance director of a technology consultancy, teacher, and a parish councillor.'
Elsewhere she is described as having a Cambridge degree in Genetics and being a former science teacher.

With all of the upheavals and set-backs of recent times, it has not been easy to evaluate Miriam Cates MP. She lives with her family in Oughtibridge. Her husband has a steel business in Sheffield and she was a parish councillor representing Oughtibridge for Bradfield Parish Council before the General Election. She has attended some Penistone events but her main focus appears to be on the Stocksbridge side of the hill. This might be because our side covers a wider area stretching right into the badlands of Dodworth (a strong Labour district) and she might have thought it a no-go area for a Conservative. The two parts are quite different and have separate identities, but they both provide votes at election time. Seen in action at Penistone Grammar School for the Falklands ceremony, she gave a well-delivered, well-crafted speech.

The Barnsley Chronicle habitually refers to Miriam Cates MP as 'Barnsley's only Conservative MP' thereby perpetuating the tired insult that 'Penistone is in Barnsley' rather than a town in its own right, with its own sense of identity. Also, Barnsley has only two MPs: Dan Jarvis (Labour) for Barnsley Central and Stephanie Peacock (Labour) for Barnsley East.

On the Stocksbridge side, Miriam Cates MP has had some success with the plan to restore the freight railway link into Fox Valley as an important opportunity for Stocksbridge and the Upper Don Valley to build on 'the transformative £25 million of Government investment through the Stocksbridge Town Deal.' No such luck for Penistone unfortunately, which would benefit greatly from having a new medical centre, as they have in the Sheffield Borough and Stocksbridge.

Miriam Cates appears to be quite busy in Parliament. A Times newspaper article (Sat 20th May 2023) had her as a leading light in the 'New Conservatives' group, formed by a dozen 'Red Wall' MPs from the 2017 and 2019 intakes. A photograph with the article shows eight members meeting together in a Parliamentary office. These were: Lee Anderson, Andrew Lewer, Danny Kruger, Nick Fletcher, Miriam Cates, Alex Stafford, Jonathan Gullis and Sarah Atherton. Her work in child protection has been well-publicised and appears to have been well-received.

The 'New Conservatives' Group
Their aims:

• Supporting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,
• Limiting immigration (especially illegal immigration),
• An end to 'fiscal drag' (thresholds remaining the same in a changing world, taxation increases by stealth),
• reversing cuts to the Armed Forces,
• Against the 'woke' orthodoxy,
• Increasing focus on skills rather than universities.

'Woke' Orthodoxy
As part of its anti-Conservative campaign, the Guardian (newspaper article 18th May 2023) calls Cates 'the new darling of the right' and criticises her message that the low UK birthrate might in part be influenced by 'cultural Marxism' leading to low self-esteem. This is about the current 'woke orthodoxy' permeating the media and education at every level. Those who question this new orthodoxy usually subject to the most vicious and intolerant social media attacks, and worse.

Miriam Cates Links:

• Miriam Cates MP
• Wikipedia
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Email: miriam.cates.mp@parliament.uk

The current contact address is: Maria House, 3 Fox Valley Way, Sheffield, S36 2AA.
The local Conservative Party Association Office is: 9a High Street, Penistone, Sheffield, S36 6BR (above Cafe Crème).

2017 General Election
Four candidates were nominated for the 'Penistone and Stocksbridge' constituency for the General Election of Thursday 8th June 2017. None of the campaigning messages were specific to Penistone. The focus of all four candidates was on north Sheffield and the world of Sheffield City Council, with a nod towards Stocksbridge. The Penistone district did not noticeably appear in campaign literature except for the constituency name, which one candidate persisted in calling 'Stocksbridge & Penistone.'

National Politics
The sitting Prime Minister, David Cameron, had abdicated his PM role upon losing the 2016 EU Referendum. After some shuffling about, the Conservative Party chose former Home Secretary Theresa May as Prime Minister but she craved greater legitimacy in her own name, hence this election.

Mrs May had called it the 'Brexit Election' while attempting to gain the mandate in her own name rather than being constrained by previous election promises from Cameron and Co. Another reason to call an election at this time was that May's term of office would have ended at an inconvenient time; at a critical point in the Brexit process. We must remember that all of the major parties had honouring the result of the EU Referendum in their election manifestos; a fact that some later would have us forget.

Any local campaigns were largely lost in the national media noise from the Westminster bubble. In the Referendum, 7 out of every 10 voters in our area voted to leave the EU, in the largest democratic process of UK history. The whole 2017 election played out to a backdrop of Brexit and not much else. 'Project Fear' was rolling on but not yet at fever pitch. EU leavers were generally quiet, thinking that they had won.

Unfortunately for Mrs May, her huge lead at the time of calling the election had largely dissipated by the time it took place. This was down to extremely poor campaigning on her part and a successful campaign by Labour and its left-wing 'Momentum' organisation making very effective use of social media, perhaps with a little help from outside the UK.

Mrs May's election campaign was weak to the point of insipid. She was perceived as cold, distant, ineffectual and desperately afraid of meeting the voters. She never looked comfortable talking to the public and avoided it as much as possible. Perhaps as part of the Conservative campaign, rumours abounded locally that Mrs May was visiting parts of Yorkshire, including Silkstone, but she remained invisible to the voting public. In the end, the Conservatives won. More accurately, they just about scraped in but did not enjoy their previous advantage in the Commons. They now needed the DUP to support them and promptly found some financial support to keep the DUP sweet.

Election Results
The Gain/loss column is compared to the 2015 results below. In the end, the political balance was a very close-run thing in our local area, between Labour and Conservative. The percentage UKIP losses in this election were mirrored by the percentage Conservative gains. With such a close result, we might speculate that the absence of a UKIP candidate might have helped a Conservative win, UKIP's votes added to Conservative votes yields 23,527, beating Labour by just 720 votes. The Conservative candidate was neither living locally nor known about in the election area, whereas the Labour candidate ticked both of those boxes.

But it might not have worked like that. According to experts, some northern losses from UKIP had been transferred to Labour. A TV expert explained that some former UKIP supporters had abandoned their natural party as they were confident that Brexit was on its way; in other words - 'Job done.' They felt free to vote for other things. As an individual candidate rather than a party, the UKIP candidate Cllr Booker's credentials would have been good enough anyway if the national campaigns by the big parties had not been fought on such narrow, partisan lines.

Local Conservative gains were most likely due to Mrs May's support of delivering Brexit, unusually with every home under a bombardment of personalised campaign materials through the post. It is likely that voters supported parties more than candidates in this one. The Conservative candidate lived in North Yorkshire, well away from the local area, and had just been elected (in May) as a councillor for North Yorkshire County Council. The Conservative campaign in our district had been far weaker than the others, who at least had made themselves visible in Penistone. The Lib-dems did rather poorly in our region. No pain, no gain.

The Labour candidate was 'mainstream' Labour, rather than leftist ('entryist'?) 'Old Labour' but had made only a small gain over the 2015 result. As with the Conservatives, the Labour Party campaign bombarded us with campaign materials but appeared to focus on the Conservative negatives (Eg. UK subsidies going to foreign, state-owned railway companies, privatisation by stealth of the NHS, etc., etc.) rather than anything that the LP might offer - but to great effect. It was not obvious at election time that our MP was a devout EU Remainer. That could easily have changed the outcome had it been obvious.

Notes from the 2017 General Election
This was for the 57th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Note that Sheffield City Council gave the turnout as 69.05%, while the BBC and my own calculation from published figures gave 69.8%. National Turnout was 68.73% of an electorate of 46,843,705 (alternatively given as 68.7% of 46,843,896). It had increased by 2.3% on the 2015 election.

Daily Telegraph - National voting trends:

• Conservative 42.4% (+5.5% on 2015 results);
• Lab 39.9% (+9.5% on 2015);
• Lib Dem 7.3% (-0.5%);
• SNP 3% (-1.7%);
• UKIP 1.8% (-10.8%);
• Green 1.6% (-2.1).

Notice of Poll (pdf) - Posted at Sheffield City Council
BBC Election 2017 - The source of the above results table

Pre-election sources (some broken links were later removed):
General Election Documents - Posted at BMBC.
Party Funding - At the Electoral Commission.
'Reality Check' - The BBC considers the viability of party manifestos.
Sheffield Star - MP Angela Smith is one of many Labour MPs asking Jeremy Corbyn to stand down as party leader.
Opinion Polling Wiki - Aggregates opinion polls for this election.
2017 GE Hustings - Nothing listed for our area.

Nicola Jayne Wilson is listed at Companies House under the surname of Faris-Wilson.

The 2015 Parliamentary Election
The 'Penistone and Stocksbridge' constituency. The 'Ratio' column is the proportion of votes compared to total votes.
The election was held on Thursday 7th May 2015 at the same time as BMBC and PTC elections.
This was the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Breakdown
Disregarding, for the moment, the smaller parties, Penistone East had a Lab/Con ratio of about 2/3, while Penistone West was only slightly in favour of the Conservatives and could be winnable by either party. Somewhat predictably, Dodworth's Lab/Con ratio was about 3/2. The 'Stocksbridge and Upper Don' area had a Lab/Con ratio of about 7/4 but UKIP had gained significantly more votes than Labour, in line with a national trend against the EU. (Source: Electoral Calculus).

The 'Penistone and Stocksbridge' constituency was formed in 2010. From 1993 to 2010, it had been 'Barnsley West and Penistone'. A BCE boundary review in 2013 proposed the new constituency of 'Sheffield West and Penistone' but this was not enacted. A new BCE boundary review in 2018 proposed a different new constituency, 'Colne Valley and Penistone.'

BCE Links
Boundary Commission for England.
Report on the 2015 Election (pdf).
BBC Constituencies
New Proposed Constituency - Proposed new constituency 2018, 'Colne Valley and Penistone' (on this site).

2015 Notes
Party Gains/Losses ± column is compared against the 2010 election (details below).
No further information on turnout and spoiled papers available.
Main source: BBC News. Turnout information: Daily Express.
2015 UK Polling Report.
'They Work for You' has a page on our MP.
The BBC has another.

Penistone's Previous MP
Penistone's most recent MP had been Angela Christine Smith from 2010 to 2019. She was born in Grimsby but lived in Hillsborough, Sheffield, for where she was elected MP in 2005. The Sheffield Hillsborough seat was abolished and she won the 2010 election as Labour Party candidate in the newly-created 'Penistone and Stocksbridge' constituency. She would become Labour's Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for a time.

Although not often prominent at Penistone events in her early years and somewhat distant from local issues (which usually involve Barnsley's Labour-held Council), Angela Smith MP appeared to be well-regarded in the Penistone area and was known to respond well to enquiries from constituents. I can endorse that view.

This picture here shows her at the VE70 Commemoration in Penistone Church (Friday 8th May 2015), where she gave a very fine speech. She would go on to attend most if not all commemorative events in Penistone right up to November 2019, and again with generally good speeches.

After retaining her seat in 2015, The Star reported on her post-election statement:
"It feels really good to have more than doubled the majority but I will not rest on my laurels. You cannot take majorities for granted nowadays and we'll carry on working as hard as we can to deserve majorities like that. I feel happy; humbled; because, as I said in my speech, I never take elections for granted; ever. ... I always refuse to believe that I've won until I've actually seen the ballot paper on the table in front of me. It is a humbling experience."

"To voters I would like to say, thank you very much. I'm very grateful. I'll work as hard for you as I can and do my best to represent you effectively in Westminster."

Angela went on to win the June 2017 election with an improved majority but had not at that time revealed her stance on the EU. Her vote count would probably have been much lower had the voters known that she was a resolute 'Remainer' in our strong 'Leave' constituency. She also revealed that she supported a second, 'confirmatory referendum' which was being promoted as a 'People's Vote' as though the general election had been fought by hamsters). The common retort to this was "Best of three anyone?"

2019 Woes and the 'Wrexit' Party?
Brexit hysteria was boiling throughout 2019 and the national parties were subject to various re-alignments, with much desperate swapping of MPs. In February 2019, Smith left the Labour Party with six others to form a new Pro-Remain, centrist group known as The Independent Party (TIP) to support a second EU Referendum. Members of the group had concerns about the Labour Party being now too far to the left and that it had an undetermined stance on Brexit. Allegations of endemic anti-semitism in the Labour Party did not help their case.

In 'Why I left the Labour Party' from the link below, Smith summarised her motivation:
'(The Labour Party) has undergone major change since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader in 2015; changes which have destroyed the proud political movement built by our predecessors.  Labour is a party now characterised by intolerance and fuelled by hatred for anything other than a hard left political agenda; it fosters division rather than unity and despises all those who dare to disagree with its fundamentalist approach to political debate.'

The exodus had followed the re-admission to the party of the ultra-left Derek Hatton, which some thought put Labour beyond salvation. Hatton had been expelled from the party as a Liverpool MP decades earlier for his association with the extremist and revolutionary 'Militant Tendency' faction. This was a trigger point, outlining the party's general direction of travel. However, the reaction by moderates also had an effect. Hatton was swiftly expelled (again) following a 'discovery' of allegedly antisemitic comments from year before, or perhaps as damage limitation to pacify agitated Labour moderates and deter more desertions.

None of the TIP group had been comfortable with Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader and with his anti-west posturing. They considered him unsuitable as a future British Prime Minister who might not be trusted with the defence of the nation. We must remember that members of the Armed Forces might well have been natural Labour supporters.

Within a short time, another Labour MP and three Conservative MPs joined the group. Predictably, TIP group members were pressed to put up for any by-elections to get the ball rolling. In the UK electoral system there is no legal requirement for an MP who changes parties to stand for re-election as, in theory anyway, they are elected as individuals, not for their parties.

Summer 2019
The local freebie newspaper 'Look Local' had a front-page article titled: 'MP Joins Lib-Dems' and explained that Angela Smith had now become the third MP to join the Liberal Democrat Party (12th September 2019). One snippet in the report was 'The Liberal Democrats are the strongest party to stop Brexit and build a society that gives opportunities for everyone.'

Autumn 2019
Look Local again: 'MP will not contest Stocksbridge and Penistone Seat' (17th October 2019). We might skip over the implied insult of the Stocksbridge paper misnaming our constituency in its favour, to discover that Angela Smith would instead contest the Altrincham and Sale West seat in Lancashire for the Liberal Democrat Party at the next General Election. The Altrincham and Sale West constituency is a Conservative stronghold in the Borough of Trafford, Manchester and includes the most expensive residential streets outside of South-East England. Candidates for this election were: Sir Graham Brady (Con - sitting MP), Angela Smith (Lib-Dem), Andrew Western (Lab), Neil Taylor (Lib) and Geraldine Coggins (Green).

Summarising her position, it was pro-Remain and anti-extremism in the Labour Party. Unfortunately for her, the local constituency proved to be overwhelmingly for leaving the EU, in the ratio of about 3 to 2. Whatever happened, Angela continues to be well-regarded, even in 2023.

2010 Parliamentary Election
The election was held on Thursday 6th May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters in the country. The boundary of the Parliamentary Constituency of 'Penistone and Stocksbridge' boundary was redrawn for this election, linking two quite separate areas.
This was the 55th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

2010 Notes
The Labour majority was 3,049 (6.55%), compared with the 2005 Labour majority of 8,617, but the boundary changes make the comparison of doubtful merit. Party funding figures in this table were from the Yorkshire Post, Sat 5th April 2011.

Of Interest:

• Chaos at Polling Stations (FoI return - pdf). Problems arose in the May 2010 election when voters were turned away after the 10pm deadline. This FoI report claims that 70 people had been affected in the Penistone area. Nationally, at least 1,200 people were still queuing at 27 polling stations in 16 constituencies at the close of poll at 10pm. See this Report (pdf).
• Audit of Public Engagement 2014 (about 5MB pdf), published by the Hansard Society, looked at public perceptions of politics and politicians.

2005 Parliamentary Election
Michael Clapham had held Penistone through four elections, from 1992 until 2010, when Angela Smith took the seat.
This was the 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Notes
The 'Barnsley West and Penistone' Constituency existed from 1993 to 2010, reaching all the way from Dunford Bridge to Dodworth in Barnsley. Before that it was just the 'Penistone' constituency.

Penistone MPs over time
Liberal at first but became mostly Labour over the years. Clifford Glossop of the Conservative Party bucked the trend but, after 1935, Penistone returned to being a Labour Party stronghold. The 2019 election brought Penistone back under the Conservatives.

Notes
The election of 1918 was called immediately after the Armistice had been signed with Germany following the Great War.
The Penistone Constituency was created in 1918 but Penistone had also been in the Holmfirth Constituency, see below.

Mr Sydney Arnold was a banker who won the Holmfirth by-election of 1912. This following the resignation of Liberal MP Henry Wilson at the age of 79, who had been MP since the Holmfirth Constituency was formed in 1885. Mr Arnold resigned from the newly-formed Penistone Constituency in 1921 due to ill health. He became the First Baron Arnold in 1924 and later joined the Labour Party.

Prior to 'The Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885', the Southern Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire returned just two MPs to Parliament. This was changed in 1885 to eight, single-member divisions with one MP each:

• Barnsley Division,
• Colne Valley Division,
• Doncaster Division,
• Hallamshire Division,
• Holmfirth Division,
• Morley Division,
• Normanton Division and
• Rotherham Division.

The MPs' Expenses Scandal of 2009 (of which I still have the complete list on paper).
Again, MP's expenses at IPSA. (Interactive Map)

In Antiquity
The whole County of York possessed only two members from 1295 until 1826. The composition of the unreformed House of Commons had changed little since 1265, when Simon de Montfort had summoned the first proper Parliament. The forty counties returned two Members each to Parliament (traditionally known as Knights of the Shire) until 1826. Candidates at the time were required to possess a property qualification of £600 a year. Eligible voters in County elections owned the freehold of land to an annual rent of 40 shillings which was £2 a year (‘Forty-shilling Freeholders’). The Boroughs had their own arrangements. The parliamentary term was seven years maximum between 1715 and 1911, after which it was five years maximum until the Second World War.

Cornwall had many more MPs than Yorkshire, as a 'Rotten Borough' (Wiki). In 1821, the Cornish village of Grampound became disfranchised (1 & 2 Geo. IV, c. 47) for corruption by gross bribery in the 1818 election, which led to the criminal conviction in 1819 of Sir Manasseh Masseh Lopes and 23 electors (Hist of Parl, Grampound). On 8th June 1820, royal assent was received for Grampound's two seats to be removed at the next dissolution of Parliament. Objectors had protested that "only" 24 out of 69 electors had been found guilty of corruption. The two seats would have gone to a new Leeds constituency but for strong objections (particularly from the more populous West Riding), after which it was decided that they would go to the County of Yorkshire. Yorkshire's now four seats came into effect at the 1826 General Election.

The Representation of the People Act 1832 (aka the 'First Reform Act') split the Yorkshire constituency along the lines of its three ancient Ridings for Parliamentary purposes (ie. the North, East and West Ridings), allowing two seats each so that Yorkshire would have a total of six MPs. The Act also more than doubled the electorate, allowing the vote to around 653,000 of adult males out of a population of about 14 million. Prior to 1932, the estimated electorate of the counties had been about 266,232, itself an increase of 39% over the estimate of 191,600 in 1820. These numbers are approximate in the absence of any registers of electors and some voters could vote in more than one county. (Hist of Parl, 1820 to 1832)

Just out of interest, as the date of 1821 appears in the above scribblings, the longest Act of UK Parliament in the form of a scroll was passed in 1821. Regarding taxation, it is nearly a quarter of a mile (348 m) long and used to take two men a whole day to rewind it.

Mostly sourced from the History of Parliament.

The 1924 and 1929 General Elections
Results for the Penistone Parliamentary Division from the 1930 Penistone Almanack:

• 1929 (Electorate - Men 23,540 - Women 23,270 - Total 46,810):
• Smith, R (Labour) - 17,280
• Bibbings, DG (Conservative) - 10,640
• Mitchell, Ashley (Liberal) - 10,277

In the entry for 30th May 1929, it was reported thus:
'Parliamentary General Election. Result declared on the following day.
Rennie Smith, B Sc., Labour, 17,286 votes; F. G. Bibbings, Conservative, 10,640 ; Ashley Mitchell, Liberal, 10,277. Labour majority. 6,646.'

1924:

• Smith, R (Labour) - 10,997
• Hodgkinson, C (Conservative) - 9,718
• Pringle, WMR (Liberal) - 7,799

WR Election 1841
The West Riding General Election of 7th July, 1841 had been a close-run thing. John Stuart-Wortley received 13,165 votes and Edmund Becket-Denison 12,780 votes, narrowly beat their opponents, Viscount Milton (Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, with 12,080 votes) and Viscount Morpeth (George William Frederick Howard, 12,031 votes). Viscount Morpeth had been Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1835 to 1841. The 1841 election resulted in a swing to the Conservatives from the Whigs. See George Howard's Wiki and the 1841 Election wiki.

When Wortley and Denison came to Penistone from Wakefield on their election campaign, they were escorted from Hoylandswaine Heights by a cavalcade of horsemen and others, local farmers and a wagon carrying a brass band drawn by 24 horses grey horses belonging to Messrs Rolling of Oxspring Corn Mills, as a 'guard of honour.'

It seems that the West Riding and some of the other 1841 results had been contested. A Results Board announced these (presumably earlier) totals as below. Another board announced 'Majority - Wortley 1147!!! - Denison 799!!!' thus over-employing the exclamation mark just as much as in the present day.

• Wortley 13,196
• Denison 12,802
• Morpeth 12,003
• Milton 12,049

John Wortley was the eldest son of James Archibold Stuart-Wortley, the 1st Baron Wharncliffe. James was well-regarded as a soldier and politician and had been returned to Parliament several times until 1826. James was meeting strong resistance in Yorkshire from having supported Catholic emancipation. In the lead-up to the 1826 election, anti-Catholic sentiment was being whipped up by the Yorkshire press and was expected to cost votes for James, otherwise, he would have been expected to win. The Yorkshire Gazette complained that if Bethell and Stuart Wortley were returned in the Tory interest then ‘Not only will a great majority of Tories be unrepresented, but they will positively be misrepresented’ (See Hist of Parl 1820 - 1832, about 40% down).

James had been preparing for the election when news came along that he was to receive a barony and would enter the House of Lords, thereby diverting him from the House of Commons. One might suspect that he had been effectively promoted, to keep him from thwarting the ambitions of others, much as happens in companies these days. 'Although many suspected the motives behind his elevation, the duke of Bedford reported that it was the king’s ‘own gracious and spontaneous act.' Wortley considered taking Stuart as his title, but eventually settled on Wharncliffe, the name of one of his Yorkshire estates.' (Hist of Parl, Stuart-Wortley)

Upon Baron Wharncliffe's death on 19th December 1845, his eldest son John (the 1841 MP mentioned above) succeeded to the title as the 2nd Baron Wharncliffe.

Partly sourced from Wikipedia and checked against other sources, notably History of Parliament.