Bristol West: Education, education, education
At 700ft long and suspended 245ft above the Avon Gorge, crossing Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge into Bristol West is among the most spectacular ways to enter any constituency in the country. “It gives me a thrill down my spine when I see it,” says the constituency’s Conservative candidate David Martin. The bridge, with its twin towers, is a fitting landmark for a city, which according to Bristol West’s Labour MP Valerie Davey, has a “proud tradition” in engineering and a long academic heritage.
Bristol was designated a science city in Gordon Brown’s most recent Budget. Liberal Democrat candidate Stephen Williams is sceptical. “I think that’s one of those new Labour gizmos that sounds very good in a press release,” he says.
But Davey says the university has had a huge injection of money to enhance research work and teaching. She adds: “And don’t forget we go back. We are about to celebrate … the bi-centenary for Brunel. Its this creativity on which we have based our existence in the past. We’ve got this proud tradition … in engineering. This is the city for Concorde. We are very proud of what we have done and we want to take it on again, and we will.”
Central to continuing this tradition are the city’s universities, the University of Bristol, based in the heart of the city in the Bristol West constituency, and the University of the West of England. They interact with the political make-up of the constituency on many levels, providing it with a high proportion of students and people employed in higher education, and bringing issues such as top-up-fees and the Iraq war to the fore of the election campaign.
Top-up fees are clearly an issue that will play with the electorate in Bristol, and Davey is keen to set the record straight over opposition claims that she abstained in the crucial vote. “I still remain, and I was at the time, not opposed to students making a contribution. My opposition was to the variability of the fee,” she says. Williams accuses her of some “muddled thinking” on the issue, while Martin is quoted in one of his campaign leaflets as saying “the current Labour MP claims to oppose things, but does not have the courage of her convictions to vote against them.”
Davey responds: “By the end the bill had more merits than when it started out and I’d worked hard for that. It still had within it however the variable fee so I couldn’t vote for it. But I certainly wasn’t going to vote against all those improvements that we had made…”
Martin says top-up fees are not necessary, and wants to see more endowments and pro-active contact with alumni to raise money. “More could be done by Bristol University to raise its own money rather than rely on the taxpayer,” he argues, adding that top-up fees will “put off lots of people from poorer backgrounds.”
Williams warns that top-up fees will “perpetuate [Bristol University’s] existing social balance problem” because “Bristol will always be a university that charges to the full for every single course.”
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From the western bank of the river Avon the constituency of Bristol West takes in the Clifton Suspension Bridge and then spreads outwards from its eastern bank; with the town centre and floating harbour – a man made watercourse serving the old Bristol docks – to the south east, and the wards of Stoke Bishop, Westbury-on-Trym, Redland and Bishopston, including Bristol prison, to the north east.
While the constituency also takes in the deprived St Paul’s area of the city, much of it is characterised by parkland and streets of grand Georgian houses – Royal York Crescent being the most prominent – that help to provide an impression that this is Conservative territory. That it is not is a case study – a history lesson – on the plight of the Conservative party since 1997.
Valerie Davey became the constituency’s first Labour MP in 1997, displacing former Conservative minister William Waldegrave, now Lord Waldegrave of North Hill, who held the seat since 1979. “I wasn’t expected to win in 1997,” says Davey – perhaps unsurprisingly given that until her win, Bristol West had been a Conservative seat since its creation in 1885.
Davey beat Waledgrave by less than 1,500 votes in 1997 – securing 22,068 votes (35.2 per cent) to his 20,575 (32.8 per cent). She extended her majority to over 4,000 in 2001, albeit on less votes (20,505 votes, 36.84 per cent), while the Conservatives dropped to third place behind the Liberal Democrats.
Despite this, Conservative candidate David Martin is “very upbeat” about his prospects and believes the Conservatives will retake the seat this time around. Martin is a former MP, having represented Portsmouth South until 1997, and also ran for Parliament in Rugby and Kenilworth in 2001. “I have noticed that people are now coming back to us in quite heavy numbers. They deserted us in 1997 – that was quite plain. In 2001 they stayed away … They are coming out this time, and they are Conservative.”
Stephen Williams, 38, was the Liberal candidate in 2001 when they achieved second place with 16,079 votes (28.89 per cent), although they also polled less votes than in 1997. Standing again, he is hoping to win the seat this time around. “We are actually very confident, but I am having to constantly tell people that it’s not over until its over. The national party is confident we are going to win, our local activists are all fairly confident too, but its not going to be easy.”
Martin is dismissive of the Lib Dem challenge: “This is essentially a Conservative seat, which despite enormous promises by the Liberals that they were the only challengers to the Conservatives in 1997, went straight to Labour who were miles in third place – went straight past the Liberals and took the seat.”
“It is either a Labour seat as it is now, or it is a Conservative seat.”
Davey is cautious about her prospects of retaining the seat for a third time. “I am quietly confident, that there is a recognition of the stability of the economy, in a city that is thriving. There are of course pockets of need, and I don’t deny that. My constituency has probably the poorest people of the city and the wealthiest”.
But, like Martin she believes Conservative voters have stayed at home at the last two elections. “We’ve got to be looking for every single vote and working very hard for it, because I do believe if the Tories decided they would all vote, it could go back to being a Tory seat, and that would be outrageous given all the benefits Bristol has experienced in the last few years.”
A fourth element could be the Green Party. The Bristol branch of the Green Party describes the seat on its website as “the only four way marginal in the country” – something Williams describes as “somewhat ridiculous”. Justin Quinnell is standing for the Greens and he says: “It’s a seat that I believe will be won by the Green Party sometime in the future.”
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Transport is an issue of concern to the electorate in Bristol. There is a widespread feeling of disappointment over the failure of the Bristol light rail scheme – known as Bristol supertram – to get off the ground. But with light rail now not an option, the candidates want to see better use made of the existing rail network, including the reopening of the line to Portishead to passenger traffic.
There is also consensus on the need to improve the bus network in the city, with Williams describing it as “the biggest thing that would make a difference in the city.” The charity Sustrans, which promotes walking and cycling, is based in Bristol West. “Bristol’s the
