The Devon ‘seats to watch’ in the 2024 general election

Ahead of Thursday’s general election, BBC South West’s Political Editor Martyn Oates has been looking at some of the seats to watch in Devon.

Crownhill Fort is one of a staggering 10 Palmerston forts, or Palmerston’s follies as they are sometimes known, in the Plymouth Moor View constituency alone.

Built in the mid-19th Century amid fears of a French invasion, and named after the prime minister of the day, they are an appropriate metaphor for this evergreen election battlefield.

Seats in the most south-west of England generally are dominated by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, but not in Plymouth.

The area’s largest city is like a little outpost of national politics, with the Conservatives going to head-to-head, with Labour as the only game in town.

And the spoils tend to be pretty evenly divided as the city seesaws between the two big parties.

At the moment, the momentum seems to be favouring Labour: the party has held the other Plymouth seat, Sutton and Devonport, since 2017 and virtually obliterated the Tories on the city council in the local elections in May.

In Moor View, it is the Tories who are inside the fort, wondering if they can hold out against the besieging Labour forces on 4 July.

Full list of candidates for the Plymouth Moor View constituency:

• Shaun Hooper – Reform UK
• Sarah Martin – Liberal Democrats
• Johnny Mercer – Conservative
• Georgia Nelson – Green
• Fred Thomas – Labour

The Tories are under siege in the South Devon seat, encompassing Totnes, Dartmouth, Modbury, Kingsbridge and the fishing port of Brixham, too.

Here, the enemies at the walls are the Lib Dems, as you would expect in the rural Westcountry.

But, unlike the perennial seesaw of Plymouth politics, the Tories have never had to share power here.

It has long been on the Lib Dems’ shopping list and they have run the Tories close in a number of elections, but they have never quite pulled it off.

Were the Tories to lose, and the Lib Dems to win, South Devon this time it would be deeply felt by both parties.

Full list of candidates for the South Devon constituency:

• Michael Bagley – Reform UK
• Robert Bagnall – Green
• Becca Collings – Heritage Party
• Anthony Mangnall – Conservative
• Daniel Steel – Labour
• Caroline Voaden – Liberal Democrats

But, probably the ultimate Conservative-Lib Dem face off is over in the east of Devon.

As a new constituency, Honiton and Sidmouth officially has no defending incumbent, but, in practice, it arguably has two.

The seat was created from parts of the old East Devon constituency on the one hand and Tiverton and Honiton on the other.

Both the former seats were traditionally solidly Tory, but a dramatic by-election two years ago saw the Lib Dems snatch Tiverton and Honiton from the Conservatives for the first time ever.

The Tories would doubtless view victory in Honiton and Sidmouth as a relief and a homecoming.

A Lib Dem win would suggest that by-election in 2022 was an omen of something more permanent and profound.

Full list of candidates for the Honiton and Sidmouth constituency:

• Jake Bonetta – Labour
• Vanessa Coxon – Independent
• Hazel Exon – Party of Women
• Richard Foord – Liberal Democrats
• Henry Gent – Green
• Simon Jupp – Conservative
• Paul Quickenden – Reform UK