The vagaries of 1995 boundary changes produced few greater shocks than the redrawing of Staffordshire Moorlands. The seat then held by Conservative Sir David Knox with a healthy majority was originally earmarked simply to lose two wards to the new seat of Stone.
But after the public inquiry, the Assistant Commissioner decided that the heavily Labour supporting community of Kidsgrove, to the west of Moorlands, should not be split in half as had been proposed. Kidsgrove, with its 19,000 voters was instead transferred whole into Moorlands. Compounding Tory woes was the loss of the rural wards of Alton and Kingsley from the south-eastern edge of the old seat.
The result was that the formerly safe Tory seat yielded an easy win for Labourís Charlotte Atkins in 1997, a victory which would most likely have been achievable in the new constituency even without the great pro-Labour swing of that election.
The seat is centred around the market town of Leek, which contains picturesque reminders of the areaís industrial past, but extends much further to incorporate Biddulph and Kidsgrove whose mining history and present industry provide a modern bedrock of traditional Labour support.