This seat nestles below the two Reading constituencies, to the east of Newbury, with its southern boundary on the border with Hampshire. It has been since 1987 the seat of twice-failed Conservative leadership challenger John Redwood.
The principal town in the seat is Wokingham. It still retains the character of a small market town, with a rich collection of buildings and its historic street pattern. Although in the suburbs there is much light industry, the town’s main function is still to act as a shopping and servicing centre for the surrounding area.
This constituency in many ways epitomises the Thatcherite dream: a huge proportion own their own homes with an accordingly small number of council tenants: there was much private development during the 1980s. Furthermore, more people own cars here than anywhere else in the country, and it has one of the highest proportions of voters in the upper social classes.
This was one of only 13 seats which the Tories won with over 50% of the vote in 1997.