Corby is a

constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It ...

represented in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

since May 2015 by

Tom Pursglove Thomas Christopher John Pursglove (born 5 November 1988) is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work. He served as Minister of State for Immigration from September 2022 to October 2022. He served as ...

of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

History

The seat was created due to population increases in the county for the 1983 general election. Since creation it has been a marginal seat alternating between Labour and the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

representatives with marginal majorities relative to national averages on all but two occasions, the 1997 Labour landslide and the 2012 by-election. The first Member of Parliament elected for the constituency in 1983 was William Powell, who represented the Conservatives for three sessions of Parliament until 1997. Labour then held the seat until 2010. On 6 August 2012, MP for the seat since 2010

Louise Mensch Louise Daphne Mensch (''née'' Bagshawe; born 28 June 1971) is a British blogger, novelist, and former Conservative Member of Parliament. In the 1990s she became known as a writer of chick lit novels under her maiden name Louise Bagshawe. She ...

(formerly Louise Bagshawe) announced she was resigning, triggering a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to ...

held on 15 November 2012. Labour's

Andy Sawford Andrew Sawford (born 15 March 1976) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Corby from 2012 to 2015. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he was a Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government from ...

won, becoming the first Labour MP for the seat since Phil Hope was defeated in 2010, and only the second in the seat's history. This was Labour's first by-election win from a Conservative since the

1997 Wirral South by-election A by-election was held for the United Kingdom parliament constituency of Wirral South, in Merseyside, England, on 27 February 1997. The seat became vacant on the death of Conservative Party Member of Parliament Barry Porter, and was won by Labo ...

. At the 2015 general election Tom Pursglove standing for the Conservatives won with a small majority. He won again with a similar margin in 2017 and in 2019 Tom Pursglove took the seat for the third time, but with a majority of over 10,000, turning Corby into a non-marginal seat by Conservative Party standards.

Boundaries

1983–2010: The District of Corby, and the District of East Northamptonshire wards of Barnwell, Brigstock, Drayton, Forest, Irthlingborough, King's Cliffe, Lower Nene, Margaret Beaufort, Oundle, Raunds, Ringstead, Stanwick, Thrapston, Willibrook, and Woodford. 2010–present: The Borough of Corby, and the District of East Northamptonshire wards of Barnwell, Dryden, Fineshade, Irthlingborough, King's Forest, Lower Nene, Lyveden, Oundle, Prebendal, Raunds Saxon, Raunds Windmill, Ringstead, Stanwick, Thrapston, and Woodford. The constituency was created in 1983 from parts of the seats of

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) ...

and Wellingborough. It is named after the town of Corby in

, and also covers much of the local government district of East Northamptonshire, but excluding

Rushden Rushden is a market town and civil parish in North Northamptonshire, England, around east of Northampton. The parish is on the border with Bedfordshire, north of Bedford. The parish of Rushden covers an area of some . The population of Rushd ...

and

Higham Ferrers Higham Ferrers is a market town and civil parish in the Nene Valley in North Northamptonshire, England, close to the Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire borders. It forms a single built-up area with Rushden to the south and has an estimated populat ...

which are in the Wellingborough constituency. . The seat is a highly

marginal Marginal may refer to: * ''Marginal'' (album), the third album of the Belgian rock band Dead Man Ray, released in 2001 * ''Marginal'' (manga) * '' El Marginal'', Argentine TV series * Marginal seat or marginal constituency or marginal, in polit ...

contest between the Tories and Labour, with Labour's vote strongest in the town of Corby itself, against the solidly Conservative rural areas of East Northamptonshire. The constituency is sometimes informally called "Corby and East Northamptonshire", but the Parliamentary Constituencies Order and '' Whitaker's Almanack'' both make it clear that its official name is "Corby".

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Notes

References

{{Coord, 52.48, -0.53, dim:35000_region:GB, display=title Corby North Northamptonshire Parliamentary constituencies in Northamptonshire Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983