Battersea
2010 Results:
Conservative: 23103 (47.35%)
Labour: 17126 (35.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 7176 (14.71%)
UKIP: 505 (1.04%)
Green: 559 (1.15%)
Independent: 155 (0.32%)
Others: 168 (0.34%)
Majority: 5977 (12.25%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 16608 (40.6%)
Conservative: 16273 (39.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 5992 (14.6%)
Other: 2055 (5%)
Majority: 336 (0.8%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 16406 (40%)
Labour: 16569 (40.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 6006 (14.6%)
Green: 1735 (4.2%)
UKIP: 333 (0.8%)
Majority: 163 (0.4%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 13445 (36.5%)
Labour: 18498 (50.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 4450 (12.1%)
Other: 411 (1.1%)
Majority: 5053 (13.7%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 18687 (39.4%)
Labour: 24047 (50.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 3482 (7.3%)
Referendum: 804 (1.7%)
Other: 377 (0.8%)
Majority: 5360 (11.3%)
Boundary changes:
Profile: A London seat in the Conservative flagship borough of Wandsworth. As well as Battersea itself the seat stretches South to include half of Clapham Common and part of Balham. Once a reliable Labour area Battersea underwent gentrification in the 1980s as young professionals split over from Chelsea. As well as affluent areas the seat does still contain some very deprived areas such as the Winstanley Estate. The North of the constituency contains Battersea Park, the power station and New Covent Garden market.
Current MP: Jane Ellison (Conservative)
Jane Ellison (Conservative) Martin Linton(Labour) born 1944 in Sweden. Educated at Christ`s Hospital School and Pembroke College, Oxford. Worked as a Guardian journalist before his election. Served as a PPS since 2001 to, amongst others, Peter Hain (more information at They work for you)Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat)Guy Evans (Green)Christopher MacDonald (UKIP)
Tom Fox (Independent) Runs a garden services business.Hugh Salmon (Putting the people of Battersea First)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 87685
Male: 47.9%
Female: 52.1%
Under 18: 17%
Over 60: 12.4%
Born outside UK: 26.2%
White: 78.1%
Black: 12.5%
Asian: 4.3%
Mixed: 3.3%
Other: 1.9%
Christian: 63.9%
Hindu: 1.2%
Jewish: 0.6%
Muslim: 4%
Full time students: 4.9%
Graduates 16-74: 49.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 15.9%
Owner-Occupied: 46.9%
Social Housing: 28.6% (Council: 17.7%, Housing Ass.: 10.9%)
Privately Rented: 21.1%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 8.4%
It is in fact only two wards from Battersea (Balham and Northcote) and three each from Tooting and Streatham. The Wards from Battersea and Tooting are pretty solid for the Tories (but even yet not approaching Chelsea & Fulham proportions) while the three wards from Streatham as has already been said are very weak for the Tories with the exception of Clapham Common which is only moderately weak
Surely most of the LD vote in Stretham is looking for an alternative to Lab so should go blue
Nonsense.
Most of it is trendy media professionals etc who became disillusioned with Labour from the left. Look at Labour’s majorities in Streatham in 1997 and 2001 and try to say that these people weren’t mostly former Labour voters. The Tory vote in Streatham has not existed for a very long time and it is not coming back.
Agree with HH….Streatham will need years more of the type of change that is very slowly overspilling from Wandsworth (borough) before the Tories can become competitive here again.
While I would imagine that by 2015 the number of Tory voting folk here will probably see an increase due to slight demographic change the LD votes will return to Labour. The Tory voters that kept this seat marginal 20 or so years ago have moved further afield helping the Tories to stack up votes in Surrey instead.
Labour are very safe here Joe
Thanks Pete – looks like quite a competitive seat for future elections
The decision to align Battersea with Vauxhall certainly seems like a crude exercise of number crunching rather than any desire to create a cohessive constituency
Hemelig is right about Streatham – like many of its neighbouring seats to the South – Croydon North for example – demographic change has rendered the seat unrecognisable from its former Tory guise and I’d suspect that a great many voters who helped the Lib Dems challenge Labour in 2010 were ex-Labour voters themselves
Hi LBernard-
“Streatham will need years more of the type of change that is very slowly overspilling from Wandsworth (borough) before the Tories can become competitive here again.”
A bit of gentrification has spilled over into the Lambeth bit of Clapham (Clapham Common ward), but it still remains quite grotty in totality. The key difference is the huge amount of high-rise council housing which, being managed by left-wing Lambeth council rather than Tory-run Wandsworth, there is no chance of it being sold off and gentrified en masse as in Battersea.
As to the rest of Streatham, I’m sorry to say that there is absolutely no chance of it gentrifying even marginally along the lines of Wandsworth. Even if the political conditions were favourable – and as described above they are not – key geographic factors also work heavily against Streatham being attractive for city professionals.
Most important is that Streatham isn’t on the tube, and its rail service is slow, infrequent and mostly heads to Victoria which makes the city quite hard to access. Absolutely key to the gentrification of Clapham and Balham has been the Northern Line running right through it.
So I’m afraid the future for most of Streatham is a continued decline into squalor as the few remaining middle calss families move out. Indeed in some ways it is a direct by-product of the gentrification of Wandsworth, as the poorer former residents have to move out somewhere. Many will have come to Streatham.
Even the Clapham wards in Lambeth have not seen much change in electoral results. Take Clapham Town ward for instance which will be in the proposed new seat. Areas like the old town near the common wouldn’t look out of place in the Wandsworth area and it is certainly much more desirable then it used to be. However, the Tories have struggled to get councillors elected here. They just about managed to get one in 2002 but he lost his seat in 2006. He failed to get elected last year along with his fellow candidates while the incumbent Labour councillors were returned with increased majorities. Even Clapham Common ward has a Lib Dem along with its 2 Tories and Labour still performed fairly well so they could well gain a seat here next time.
The point about the tube is an important point and also explains why much of inner south London will remain poor territory for the Tories. Areas like Streatham, Dulwich, Croydon and much of Lewisham only have direct and slow access to Victoria although some parts also have quicker access to London Bridge where city folk can transfer to the Jubilee line for Canary Wharf. Even so, problems with crime and poor schools will cancel out this slight advantage for these people.
Ethnic composition of this seat in 2011 compared with 2001
White 73.5 / 78.1
Black 12.2 / 12.5
Asian 5.8 / 4.3
Mixed 5.0 / 3.3
Other 3.5 / 1.9
White British 35.0
Interesting: so white non-British must be 38.5.
Those Battersea statistics are somewhat surprising. I would have expected the black population to have fallen by more than that and I certainly did not expect a fall in the white population. Not sure why there’s been an increase in Asian and mixed demographics either. Nevertheless, the ethnicity demographics are certainly much more stable than other inner London seats nearby and I suspect that the Tories will be sitting pretty here for some time to come now.
No sorry – ignore that last figure. I copied the template from the previous one I’d posted on (Hayes & Harlington I think) The White British here is actually 54.8%
“Not sure why there’s been an increase in Asian and mixed demographics either”
I’m guessing ‘yuppies’ of that demographic – you see something similar in eg. Surrey Docks
Census results, white British 2001 / 2011:
Balham: 68.4% / 64.7%
Fairfield: 69.0% / 60.0%
Latchmere: 51.7% / 38.5%
Northcote: 74.1% / 65.8%
Queenstown: 56.9% / 43.2%
St Mary’s Park: 62.4% / 50.0%
Shaftesbury: 73.5% / 64.2%
TOTAL: 65.1% / 54.8%
Pete posted the white overall figures above.
” As to the rest of Streatham, I’m sorry to say that there is absolutely no chance of it gentrifying even marginally along the lines of Wandsworth. Even if the political conditions were favourable – and as described above they are not – key geographic factors also work heavily against Streatham being attractive for city professionals. ”
Now while I can understand Streatham going downhill over the last generation but how did it get to be so middle class and respectable in the first place?
Streatham itself still isn’t all that bad, although it is a long way downmarket of where it was 30 years ago.
In 1983 a big chunk of Brixton was added into the constituency, with another big chunk being added in 1997. Half of the constituency today isn’t what you would strictly call Streatham.
I would expect the Tories would have held Streatham in 1992 on the pre-1983 boundaries.
There are signs that Streatham is getting better. Some more upmarket outlets are opening within the area and it is becoming more popular with young, single people since it is cheaper than Clapham or Balham. Tories may see an improvement in their vote share over the coming years but they will never do as well as they used to here.
“I would have expected the black population to have fallen by more than that”
Although this is a seat which has moved over to the Tories quite strongly recently there are still a number of council estates which are now home to a more recent African population. Maybe this explains that while the number of Black Caribbeans has probably declined the number of Black Africans has probably increased slightly.