Manufacturing is very big in this area, as is employment. The area has not been hit badly by the recession in the sense of outright job loses. However, the general income of the area has lowered due to lots of short hours. While a visitor to the area might see it as run down, its actually got the lowest unemployment and levels of economic inactivity in the whole of North Wales.

There is a tradition here of voting for the monkey with the Labour rosette, but that is slowly changing. While there has been personal empathy with Mark Tami for his personal situation, it has been noted that as an MP he has done practically nothing of value for the area.

Connected to that, the BNP are rumoured to have a commercial base in the area. Its voter base has strong socialist backgound from the old union days and is the first choice of Labour voters who feel that nobody is listening to them. The racist angle is missing though as the county is the 2nd least diverse in Wales.

The Tory support could be split by the UKIP support meaning that even after losing support to the BNP, Labour are very likely to get in. The main danger for them is voter apathy changing to a protest vote and the UKIP not getting the support they would like to get.

Personally, I will vote for the monkey who ate his rossette – always liked a rebel!

North Wales has pockets of deprivation and also poor quality public services. People from North Wales can see the clear disparity in the quality and funding of schools and ot investment in roads etc. when they visit England .
Look at the difference between the M56 Motorway and the A55 Trunk road.
Look at the difference between the A74(M) and the A55.
Wales has been treated like the Black Sheep of the Family.

From talking to people in the local area I’ve got the impression that Labour will successfully hold on to their seat here

Really?

“As for sports cars, don’t forget Lpool’s £1m apartments and Tower Hamlets’ Canary Wharf.”

But the people in this consistuency with expensive cars are affluent bourgeouise, in the others they are trendy urban yuppies.

There’s actually a closer comparison between the richer parts of this seat with the Aigburth part of Riverside than with Riverside’s £1m appartments, of which I suspect there are fewer than 10.