Three Way Split
Our area is somewhat unloved by those who draw the boundaries for constituencies, so our area is now split into 3 constituencies. While Longfield remained in Dartford constituency, Hartley was moved to Tonbridge, as was New Ash Green from Sevenoaks Constituency. This left Fawkham remaining in Sevenoaks.
All Change in Dartford
Dartford took over from Gravesham in 2005 has the country's longest running bellweather seat, having returned an MP from the governing party every year since 1964 (Gravesham had an even more remarkable run since 1955, but voted Conservative in 2005 when Labour won the election. True to form Dartford switched to Labour with the winning candidate getting a percentage vote that matched Labour's score nationally. In recent years the Brexit vote has tilted the seat in a bluewards direction, and Labour was clearly the beneficiary of a large vote for Reform. As befits their status as safe seats, the Conservatives were comfortably returned in Sevenoaks and Tonbridge. The Independent Alliance candidate in Tonbridge scored a respectable 2% of the vote, although they do have a presence on Tonbridge and Malling Council.
The Campaign
The campaign locally appears to have been quite low key. Gone are the days when Dartford would be visited by major figures from both parties. The only such visitor I am aware of was former Home Secretary Priti Patel for the Conservatives. Election posters appear to have almost completely gone out of fashion, on a tour of parts of Longfield, Southfleet and New Barn I only saw 5 posters - 3 Conservative (Main Road (2) and Westwood) and 2 Labour (West Shaw and Kent Road). In Hartley the only poster I could see was for the Independent Alliance in Ash Road, surprisingly there were no Conservative posters in places that usually put one up in Hartley.
Labour also paid for a wrap around advert in the Dartford Messenger. The paper was at pains to point out that they are neutral, but any party running is welcome to pay for an ad.
The real battle is waged online now it seems. Both local parties have Facebook pages, although Labour has twice as many followers, perhaps an indication of the voting preferences of the middle aged. Both were actually very similar - pictures of the candidate with about half a dozen party workers or councillors outside a local landmark, with a caption saying something like "great evening campaigning in X". One Labour post has a picture captioned the candidate talking to a voter, who looks similar to a party worker in another picture...
Youtube advertising seems popular too. I've seen ads from the Labour candidates for Gravesham and Rochester, and also the Conservative candidate for Gravesham, however none for my own constituency, which suggests the targetting of ads could be improved. I understand Reform and Labour also posted a lot nationally on TikTok.
I received leaflets from all the candidates. Kudos to the Greens for eschewing glossy leaflets and sending a little square leaflet on recycled paper, although they did miss an apostrophe! One of my Conservative leaflets was delivered by the candidate himself, who appeared to be delivering leaflets on his own.
Like many MPs faced with an unpopular national party, the Conservative candidate fought a hyper local campaign, and his dedication to the constituency was acknowledged by Mr Dickson in his acceptance speech. I noted he also mentioned the Lower Thames Crossing and how it might not happen if Labour won. However I keep old election leaflets, and he had called for the crossing in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024. His leaflet five years ago claimed a vote for Labour was one for delay in it. He also made a lot of the Labour candidate being a councillor from South London, not surprising when I seem to remember he got a hard time from Labour in 2005 when he was the candidate who didn't live in the constituency. The truth is ambitious party members often have to try their luck in a lot of constituencies before being selected. Indeed former Dartford Conservative MP Bob Dunn was a councillor in South London before being selected in 1979, obviously it was OK for South London councillors to stand in Dartford then! It has been said that the Conservatives gave Reform too much of a free run, and certainly one of the Conservative leaflets for Dartford inferred that they thought there was little difference between the two parties, at the same time Reform was attacking them and saying there were.
Labour's leaflets were less detailed and tended to repeat the national message. Their candidate followed the rules of the game if you are not a local candidate, which is to be pictured standing in front of a lot of local landmarks.
The Green and LibDem candidates were the only ones who lived in Dartford constituency, and their sole leaflets were brief statements of national policy. Neither party targeted Dartford, I am told by people I know who live in Tunbridge Wells that they got many LibDem leaflets.
The Reform leaflet was the least local of all. Indeed the only picture was of leaders Nigel Farage and Richard Tice with the name of the candidate inserted at the top. Nearly all of the leaflet was about immigration, so people would have little idea of any other policies. The party did not stand in Dartford in 2019, because they agreed not to stand against sitting Conservative MPs, their result was similar to what UKIP got here in 2015. Reform, by the way, is not a political party run by its members like the other parties, it is a private company with registered supporters. As of 2024 it has 15 shares, 8 owned by Mr Farage and 5 owned by Mr Tice. So when Mr Farage became leader in June, it could be seen as more like a boardroom takeover!
This election saw a record number of MRP polls which try to forecast the result of each individual constituency. All but one gave the seat to Labour, and none gave Sevenoaks and Tonbridge to anyone but the Conservatives. The last YouGov poll was almost spot on for Dartford and Sevenoaks, and in Tonbridge the main difference was between the relative number of votes for Labour and the Greens. It may be that these polls helped to reduce Labour's share of the vote in the last days of the campaign as people may have thought they didn't need to vote, or could safely vote for someone else (a view encouraged by the other parties). Certainly turnout was down on 2019 and, as befits a bellweather seat, Dartford's turnout was almost exactly the same as the national average.
The result was announced at just before 5am. Labour have posted a video on their facebook page, which includes the Returning Officer, and what I thought were very gracious speeches from both the Labour and Conservative candidates.
The Results
| Name | Vote | Percent | 2019 | Change |
| Dartford (Lab Gain) | ||||
| Jim Dickson (Lab) | 15392 | 34.6% | 29.5% | +5.1% |
| Gareth Johnson (Cons) | 14200 | 31.9% | 61.1% | -29.2% |
| Lee Stranders (Reform) | 9523 | 21.4% | n/a | +21.4% |
| Laura Edie (Green) | 3189 | 7.2% | 2.4% | +4.7% |
| Kyle Marsh (LibDem) | 2184 | 4.9% | 7.0% | -2.1% |
| Turnout | 59.0% | 65.7% | ||
| Tonbridge (Cons Hold) | ||||
| Tom Tugendhat (Cons) | 20517 | 40.8% | 64.8% | -24.0% |
| Lewis Bailey (Lab) | 9351 | 18.6% | 15.1% | +3.5% |
| Anna Cope (Green) | 7596 | 15.1% | 7.9% | +7.2% |
| Terea Hansford (Reform) | 7548 | 15.0% | n/a | +15.0% |
| John Woollcombe (LibDem) | 4234 | 8.4% | 12.3% | -3.9% |
| Tim Shaw (Ind Alliance Kent) | 926 | 1.8% | n/a | +1.8% |
| Ian Grattridge (SDP) | 156 | 0.3% | n/a | +0.3% |
| Turnout | 69.3% | 73.7% | ||
| Sevenoaks (Cons Hold) | ||||
| Laura Trott (Cons) | 18328 | 36.7% | 61.7% | -25.0% |
| Richard Streatfeild (LibDem) | 12888 | 25.8% | 19.4% | +6.4% |
| James Milmine (Reform) | 9341 | 18.7% | n/a | +18.7% |
| Denise Scott-McDonald (Labour) | 6802 | 13.6% | 13.5% | +0.1% |
| Laura Manston (Green) | 2033 | 4.1% | 3.4% | +0.7% |
| Elwyn Jones (Rejoin EU) | 298 | 0.6% | n/a | +0.6% |
| Adam Hibbert (SDP) | 209 | 0.4% | n/a | +0.4% |
| Turnout | 67.9% | 71.0% |
