Bethnal Green and Bow
2010 Results:
Conservative: 7071 (13.94%)
Labour: 21784 (42.94%)
Liberal Democrat: 10210 (20.13%)
BNP: 1405 (2.77%)
Green: 856 (1.69%)
Independent: 448 (0.88%)
Others: 8954 (17.65%)
Majority: 11574 (22.81%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Respect: 14491 (37.0%)
Labour: 13160 (33.6%)
Conservative: 5211 (13.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 4416 (11.3%)
Other: 1868 (4.8%)
Majority: 1331 (3.4%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 6244 (14.2%)
Labour: 14978 (34%)
Liberal Democrat: 4928 (11.2%)
Green: 1950 (4.4%)
Other: 15907 (36.1%)
Majority: 823 (1.9%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 9323 (24.2%)
Labour: 19380 (50.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 5946 (15.5%)
Green: 1666 (4.3%)
BNP: 1267 (3.3%)
Other: 888 (2.3%)
Majority: 10057 (26.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 9412 (21.1%)
Labour: 20697 (46.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 5361 (12%)
Referendum: 557 (1.2%)
Other: 8655 (19.4%)
Majority: 11285 (25.3%)
Boundary changes: Bethnal Green and Bow loses the Tower of London, St Katherine`s Docks, Wapping and part of Shadwell ward to Poplar and Canning Town.
Profile: An East End seat dominated by povery, unemployment and racial tension. The area has a long history of immigrant communities, racial conflict and radical politics, being home to Huguenots, Jews and now the Bangladeshi immigrant community. The West of the constituency is undergoing gentrification, with rising house prices in Spitalfields, and the galleries and artists of Whitechapel becoming increasingly fashionable. Despite this the seat remains one of the most deprived in the country.
The constituency covers Spitalfields, Banglatown, Whitechapel, Stepney, Bethnal Green and Bow and includes Brick Lane, renowned for its curry restaurants, the East London Mosque, Victoria Park and the Royal London Hospital. It is normally a safe Labour area, the exception being 2005-2010, when it was held by Respect, in the form of former Labour MP George Galloway.
Current MP: Rushanara Ali (Labour) Educated at Oxford University. Formerly worked in the Home Office and as an assistant to Oona King. First elected as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow 2010.
Zakir Khan (Conservative)Rushanara Ali (Labour) Educated at Oxford University. Associate Director of the Young Foundation. Formerly worked in Home Office and as an assistant to Oona King. 
Ajmal Masroor (Liberal Democrat) born 1971. Broadcaster and production consultant. Selected as Lib Dem PPC for West Ham prior to the last election, but stood down shortly before the close of nominations after being criticised for posting on the Muslim Public Affairs Committee forum.
Farid Bakht (Green)Jeffrey Marshall (BNP) 
Abjol Miah (Respect) Former drugs worker. Tower Hamlets councillor, leader of Respect group on Tower Hamlets council.Alexander van Terheyden (Pirate) Hasib Hikmat (United Voice)Patrick Brooks (Independent)Haji Choudhury (Independent)Ahmed Malik (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 101252
Male: 49.5%
Female: 50.5%
Under 18: 25.9%
Over 60: 13.8%
Born outside UK: 34.2%
White: 49.6%
Black: 5.9%
Asian: 40.2%
Mixed: 2.4%
Other: 1.9%
Christian: 35.4%
Hindu: 0.8%
Jewish: 1.2%
Muslim: 39.6%
Full time students: 10.1%
Graduates 16-74: 28.1%
No Qualifications 16-74: 35.9%
Owner-Occupied: 28.1%
Social Housing: 55% (Council: 39.3%, Housing Ass.: 15.7%)
Privately Rented: 14%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 5.7%
“Deleterious” that rather posh word should have read in my last post
It should be interesting to find out how Tower Hamlets have voted in the mayoral elections today considering the reported widespread postal voter fraud happening in the borough.
An interesting summary of the 1968 London council elections:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_local_elections,_1968
Now this was the year when the Conservatives had their greatest success, winning control of Hackney, Islington etc.
But how did Labour manage to hold 57 out of 60 councillors in Tower Hamlets (with the other 3 being communists).
Why were no Independents elected, as they were in Newham?
Would there have been any Conservatives elected if they’d actually stood candidates in more than a couple of wards?
And why was the Labour tradition so much more resistant to a protest vote in the riverside East End than the inner East End? The docking tradition perhaps?
I’d say so Richard. If you look at the 1931 general election debacle, almost all the Labour wins came in areas noted either for dockers or miners, so that there were no wins in seats in present-day Hackney but there were in the present Tower Hamlets and Newham. Just about the only exception I can find is Newcastle-under-Lyme where Josiah Wedgwood was so popular I don’t think the Tories actually stood against him, though there may be one I’ve overlooked.
Thanks, this is an interesting link.
The East End did resist the swing best.
It seems like very traditonal Labour areas (but not those where the demographics were changing – e.g. more owner occupation) were those which stayed loyal.
This could sometimes be pockets of support even where swamped by Tory councillors around them.
Near full slates of Tory councillors in Haringey is not something we are likely to see again.
I don’t think the 1931 election results are available anywhere on the internet at present which is why I’m currently entering them for the Keele Election Database, (although I haven’t actually had time to work on it for a while).
Leeds South East was a non-docks, non-mining constituency which Labour won in 1931. Walthamstow West was an example from London. Not sure whether Bristol East was dominated by the docks at the time?
Sheffield Attercliffe was lost by Labour only by 165 votes, with 2,790 going to the Communist candidate.
The historical home of Jewish people in the east end of London is now only just above the English & Wales average:
Tower Hamlets: 0.50% [1,283 / 254,096]
England & Wales: 0.47% [263,346 / 56,075,912]
ht tp://bit.ly/TVXx84
As far as I know there are no longer any Kosher butchers in the borough though at least a small number of (I think only Orthodox) synagogues survive. Of course at least a few of the wealthy incomers to the borough are Jewish & have probably helped to maintain the existence of those synagogues that remain. My mother originated from the borough, and lived in Sidney Street before her family moved to Stoke Newington where the Jewish community is of course nowadays thriving & if anything even increasing, though I’d be interested in census figures for Hackney.
It’s interesting to note that Bethnal Green was a Liberal-Labour battleground until 1945, more so than the old boroughs of Stepney & Poplar where such opposition that Labour encountered was more likely to be Communist in many areas. Bethnal Green wasn’t a docks area & it had rather fewer Jewish residents than Stepney; to this day it retains a larger white population than much of the rest of the borough of Tower Hamlets.
Peter Golds who is leader of the Conservative group on TH council (and sometimes has posted on this site and other places) is one prominent member of the small Jewish community here and he represents Blackwall ward which is of course outside the traditional area of Jewish settlement and Barnaby is probably right that most now are city workers living in that kind of area rather than the residual population of the original East End Jewish community. I think the Brick Lane bakery is still going strong in Spitalfields ward (perhaps my favourite fast food joint, if it can be described as such) but doubt that many of the employees live in that area now which is overwhelmingly Bengali.
Re: Hackney – the Jewish proportion has risen since 2001 from 5.3% to 6.3% but given the overall population has risen quite a bit this actually represents a quite large numerical increase from under 11,000 to over 15,000
Hasidic Jews of course have large families so the increase in Stamford Hill sn’t unexpected.
Yes – we need the Chasidim to make up for the likes of me, who have married out of the faith!
15,000 Jews living in Hackney represents about 5% of the total Jewish population of the UK, perhaps more.
263,346 total in England & Wales so the Hackney total represents just under 6% of that. Hackney also accounts for the small increase from the 259,927 recorded in 2001
There you go – without the Chasidim, we’d all disappear……
Christ was born here – oh no, hang on – that was Bethnalhem, not Bethnal Green, sorry.
Only six wards in London saw a decline in the overall non-White share of the population, but three of them are in this constituency. Weavers was down 1.5%, Whitechapel down 4.0% and Spitalfields & Banglatown down 14.8% – by far the biggest drop in London and possibly in the country
Pete – Where were the other three wards?
Hackney – Stoke Newington Central
Haringey – Seven Sisters
Lambeth – Ferndale
All were only down slightly – between 0.5% and 1.5%
There were another five wards where the increase was less than 1% – two more each in Lambeth (Clapham Town and Larkhall) and Hackney (Cazenove and Dalston) and Balham in Wandsworth
An important point is that the population of London as a whole rose by about a million from 7.172 million to 8.174 million, (although it’s believed the 2001 figures were not particularly accurate in London, underestimating the true population). So when the white British and/or white overall percentage declines it often means the absolute numbers haven’t changed that much.
Effectively two clusters representing increasingly trendy parts of the capital particularly for 20/30 somethings. A Whitechapel-Spitalfields-Shoreditch-Dalston-Stoke Newington-Stamford Hill corridor and a Stockwell-Clapham-Balham corridor along the Northern line.
Census results, white British 2001 / 2011:
Bethnal Green North: 44.1% / 36.4%
Bethnal Green South: 31.4% / 23.8%
Bow East: 65.2% / 47.7%
Bow West: 62.8% / 47.7%
Mile End & Globe Town: 47.8% / 34.8%
St Dunstan’s & Stepney Green: 39.1% / 25.9%
Spitalfields: 22.4% / 25.9%
Weavers: 42.9% / 36.0%
Whitechapel: 27.9% / 24.5%
TOTAL: 42.1% / 33.6%
White overall, Bethnal Green & Bow:
2001: 49.6%
2011: 46.9%
White other:
2001: 5.6%
2011: 11.6%
Bangladeshi:
2001: 36.8%
2011: 33.4%
Is there any reason why Bow is still so White British?
Surely it wont have attracted many yuppies as its so far east and so far from the riverfront.
Yet it still has Eastenders like demographics.
RE: Bow. Victoria Park is very attractive and the housing bordering it carries a premium. Very popular with trendy and affluent left leaning voters of all ages. Lauriston Village on the north side of Victoria Park in LB Hackney forms a local nucleus of trendy shops and eateries.
Further south in Bow West ward is the sought after Tredegar Square Conservation Area.
Also there are some quite exclusive apartment developments such as the Bow Quarter in Bow East ward.
Bow also has a great deal of council housing and housing association properties, many of which are home to your more traditional Eastender. The council have also placed White British, and to a smaller extent Black Caribbean families into Bow from other, more Asian, parts of Tower Hamlets which goes some way to explain why the figures show a much larger White British population in the two Bow wards than Bromley next door. Although there has almost ceertainly been ‘white flight’ out of Bow this is balanced out by a more middle class White Brit moving in as EvergreenAdam explains very well.
Another small factor with Bow is that when its White British residents used to move out they would have gone to places like Ilford, Barking, Dagenham, Romford and those with a bit more money – to Loughton or Chingford. Places like Ilford and Barking no longer appeal to your Eastender done good so this may have helped to keep more White British residents in the area, especially if they rely on London for work and don’t fancy a long commute from places like Thurrock or Basildon.
Yes the perception I have had for a while is that Bow is now the most white-dominated part of this constituency, which is often portrayed as if it were totally Bangladeshi-dominated (not least by Galloway when he was the MP here), quite incorrectly. Bethnal Green was still mainly white not much more than a decade ago but has seen a large increase in its non-white (both I suspect Somali & Asian, mainly Bangladeshi) population in this time. The decline in the proportion of Bangladeshi residents in the seat overall, however, is quite striking & I wonder if it can be explained purely by the increase in the amount of total housing.
I’d say the gentrification of the area, especially around Spitalfields, is a major factor in the decline of the Bangladeshi population. The proximity to Shoreditch will have encouraged this. As the area has got more expensive, these residents may have decided to move to East/West Ham or Barking.