Corby gain from Conservative William Powell 0 ( 0.0%) 18,028 (33.4%) 29,888 (55.4%) 4,045 ( 7.5%) 0 ( 0.0%) 1,996 ( 3.7%) 69,252 53,957 (77.9%) William Powell Corby 342 ( 0.6%) 25,203 (44.5%) 24,861 (43.9%) 5,792 (10.2%) 0 ( 0.0%) 784 ( 1.4%) Conservative 69,187 56,640 (81.9%) -11.1% +11.5% -2.7% +0.0% +2.3% +0.1% -4.0% For many years Corby has seemed like a striking anomaly in the East Midland county of Northamptonshire. In the inter-war years the town boomed almost from nothing as steelworks were constructed to exploit the local resources of iron ore. Many workers came down from Scotland, emigrating from the grit and grime of Clydeside to rural Northants, not far from honey-coloured stone villages and Rockingham Castle. Not surprisingly, this wrought a political revolution in the area, and until 1983 Corby kept the seat of Kettering safely Labour. Then something rather strange happened. Just as Corby was finally given a seat of its own - or rather, a constituency named after it - the Conservatives gained it and have kept it ever since - albeit with a majority of only 342 in 1992. How could this happen? It should be remembered that nearly half of the electors of the seat are not in Corby town itself, but in affluent and very Conservative small towns (like Oundle, site of a famous public school) and villages. Secondly, it is possible that Corby itself is not quite as solidly Labour as it was. It is after all a designated New Town in the southern half of England, a member of a group notoriously disloyal to Labour, particularly in the Thatcher years. However Corby is still overall a more working-class seat than average, and its diligent and active MP since 1983, William Powell, seems almost certain to lose it to Labour in 1997. 2,115 5.41 9.03 60 3,729 9.55 11.17 85 2,835 7.26 11.25 65 7,300 18.69 14.70 127 337 0.86 10.45 8 1,548 3.96 2.81 141 1,301 3.33 8.01 42 8,262 21.15 15.25 139 9,777 25.03 7.13 351 1,365 3.49 10.17 34