Cities of London and Westminster
2010 Results:
Conservative: 19264 (52.16%)
Labour: 8188 (22.17%)
Liberal Democrat: 7574 (20.51%)
UKIP: 664 (1.8%)
Green: 778 (2.11%)
English Democrat: 191 (0.52%)
Independent: 182 (0.49%)
Others: 90 (0.24%)
Majority: 11076 (29.99%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Conservative: 15737 (48.3%)
Labour: 8074 (24.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 6329 (19.4%)
Other: 2431 (7.5%)
Majority: 7663 (23.5%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 17260 (47.3%)
Labour: 9165 (25.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 7306 (20%)
Green: 1544 (4.2%)
UKIP: 399 (1.1%)
Other: 813 (2.2%)
Majority: 8095 (22.2%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 15737 (46.3%)
Labour: 11238 (33.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 5218 (15.4%)
UKIP: 464 (1.4%)
Green: 1318 (3.9%)
Majority: 4499 (13.2%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 18981 (47.3%)
Labour: 14100 (35.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 4933 (12.3%)
Referendum: 1161 (2.9%)
Other: 980 (2.4%)
Majority: 4881 (12.2%)
Boundary changes:
Profile: The core of London, covering the most of the major landmarks, parks, shopping areas, financial headquarters and housing the main organs of the state. One can be in doubt that the United Kingdom is a largely centralised state looking at what falls under this single constituency, in the west is Buckingham Palace, the official residence of the Queen, surrounded by the royal parks. Nearby the government departments on Whitehall itself and now spreading down Victoria Street, also the location of New Scotland Yard. The seat covers Downing Street, official residence of the Prime Minister and the House of Parliament itself. Heading North there are the major shopping areas of Knightsbridge, Regent and Oxford Streets, the West End theatreland and Soho, then eastwards there are the Inns of Court, the Royal Courts of Justice, the Old Bailey and then finally the City of London itself, with St Paul`s Cathedral, its skyscrapers, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange.
The City of London is the small medieval core of the city, originally bounded by the city walls (although it includes some wards outside the line of the old physical walls). It continues to be governed as a separate local authority, the smallest in the country and the only local authority still to have a business franchise. Despite a weekday population of hundreds of thousands, there are relatively few permanent residents here, mostly concentrated in the Barbican and Golden Lane Estate.
The vast bulk of the electorate are in Westminster, covering some of the most insanely expensive residential real estate in the country in Belgravia, Knightsbridge (where the Conservative councillors enjoy an eye-watering majority of 75%) and Mayfair. Chelsea Army Barracks in the South-West corner of the seat, were sold for residential development for a huge fee in 2007, equating to something around £70 million per acre. There are dwindling cosmopolitian residential areas in Soho and social housing around Victoria and in Mayfair, but overall this is Conservative territory, with every ward in the constituency returning Conservative councillors since the boundary changes in 2002.
Along with the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the City of London is one of the few areas of the United Kingdom that are specifically guaranteed a Parliamentary seat. The Parliamentary Constituencies Act includes the provision that the entire City of London must be in a single seat, and the seat must include City of London in its name.
Current MP: Mark Field(Conservative) born 1964 in Germany to a service family. Educated at Reading School and Oxford University. Solicitor and former director of an employment agency. Kensington and Chelsea councillor 1994-2002. Contested Enfield North 1997. First elected as MP for Cities of London and Westminster 2001. Oppostion whip 2003-2005, shadow financial secretary 2005, culture media and sport spokesman since 2005 (more information at They work for you)
Mark Field(Conservative) born 1964 in Germany to a service family. Educated at Reading School and Oxford University. Solicitor and former director of an employment agency. Kensington and Chelsea councillor 1994-2002. Contested Enfield North 1997. First elected as MP for Cities of London and Westminster 2001. Oppostion whip 2003-2005, shadow financial secretary 2005, culture media and sport spokesman since 2005 (more information at They work for you)
Dave Rowntree (Labour) born 1963, Colchester. Educated at Gilberd School and Thames Polytechnic. Drummer with 1990s Britpop legends Blur. More recently drummer with the Ailerons, head of an animation company and training to be a barrister.
Naomi Smith (Liberal Democrat) Educated at Leeds University. Analyst.
Derek Chase (Green) born 1953. Educated at Oundle School and Cambridge University, then St. Mary’s Hospital, London. General practitioner.
Paul Weston (UKIP)
Frank Roseman (English Democrat)
Jack Nunn (Pirate) Charity worker and musician
Mad Cap`n Tom (Independent) Real name Tom Scott. Comedian. Despite all appearances, is not a student.
Dennis Delderfield (Independent) Former Common councilman of the City of London. Newspaper editor. Former leader of the New Britain party. Contested City of London and Westminster South by-election 1977.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 95608
Male: 50.6%
Female: 49.4%
Under 18: 12.1%
Over 60: 17.4%
Born outside UK: 41.8%
White: 78.5%
Black: 4.5%
Asian: 7.8%
Mixed: 3.4%
Other: 5.8%
Christian: 57.7%
Hindu: 1.8%
Jewish: 3.3%
Muslim: 9%
Full time students: 10.5%
Graduates 16-74: 50%
No Qualifications 16-74: 13.7%
Owner-Occupied: 34.2%
Social Housing: 27% (Council: 10.5%, Housing Ass.: 16.4%)
Privately Rented: 30.6%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 11.8%
“Most of the data shows that the US who have taken the approach favoured by the Labpour Party to aleviate the recession has fared much better than the UK in recent months”
Recent months being the key phrase – the continual pouring in of money gives a short term boost at the cost of greater problems down the line.
Of couse in the USA the electoral cycles is much further advanced with November 2012 being the key date not May 2015.
Its irrelevant what the present polls are as we’re not going to have another election for several years. And there’s going to be lots of water under lots of bridges during that time. At the moment Labour gets a boost becuase it is the only opposition party. If the Conservatives had won 20 more seats last year and had formed a majority government then its possible Labour would still be at 30% with the LibDems at 25%.
The ‘cuts’ haven’t yet happened but when they do the areas that will suffer most will be the urban constituencies while the areas which gain most through a rebalancing economy will be the motorway/manufacturing seats.
Which is another reason why the likes of Don Valley are much more likely to be Conservative gains than Leeds NE.
Now I don’t know what will be the outcome of the next general election but I’m confident that the Conservatives will perform relatively better in my first group of constituencies than in my second group.
Certainly everything wont be ‘hunky dory’ by 2015 but it doesn’t necessarily need to be for the Conservatives to win a majority. If in February 1980 you had predicted that in June 1983 unemployment would be 3 million and that the Conservatives majority would increase by over 100 you would have been laughed at.
‘If in February 1980 you had predicted that in June 1983 unemployment would be 3 million and that the Conservatives majority would increase by over 100 you would have been laughed at.’
You most certainly would have
I’d be interested to know of Labour’s highest share-of-the-vote durring the 79-83 elections Parliament as weren’t the SDP/Liberal Alliance making all the noise
They say a week is a long time in politics. In contrast four years is a millenium and as you say anything could happen but I still think the odds are stacked against the Tories winning a majority
I think Labour was doing well in the polls during the second half of 1979, 1980 and the first half of 1981.
1979-81.
The opinion polls now are very similar to February 1980 – exactly the same point in the cycle of the new government as now.
In fact, Labour regained a lead by the end of June 1979.
Labour was nudging around 50% by the party conferences in 1980, depending a bit on which poll you looked at.
One poll showed Labour on 56%.
The Tories did not actually do that badly throughout 1980, usually in the 35-38% range, with the odd 40, and one 32.
Labour’s ratings didn’t really start to fall until about February 1981, but were still around 41%, then high 30s.
The Tories went on eroding at the same time, but there was a lull because the SDP didn’t contest the May 1981 elections.
Then they took off in the autumn.
They went off the boil somewhat in early 1982, but the Falklands then changed everything.
From Pete’s description, both old Westminster seats would have been safely Tory certainly.
Abbey would have had the Lib Dems in a clear but distant second place. In May Lib Dems were second in both current wards thy are entirely in Abbey (St. James’s and Vincent Square) as well as in Tachbrook of which part is also in the old Abbey – though Labour probably did better in the areas in question than in the ward as a whole. In the Soho ballot box we know our parliamentary vote was strong and the bulk of the LD vote in West End ward came from there.
In St. George it’s hard to know about Knightsbridge and Belgravia as neither Labour or the Lib Dems contested the council elections there – but the Tories got 85% of the vote in 2006 and I doubt it’s much better now.
In St George, Mayfair (West End ward) is equally solid for the Tories probably with LDs a bit ahead of Labour but all way back. Warwick is Tory with Lib Dems in 2nd. Labour were second in Churchill and the lead candidate (Naomi Smith the parliamentary candidate) was only about 40 votes behind the trailing Labour candidate. On balance it would have been about neck-and-neck for 2nd and 3rd in 2010 but so far back as to be irrelevant.
Should a Council really name a ward after a politician, however famous and laudable, perceived by the large majority of people as being on the political right as opposed to the left? Many people these days will think of Churchill as Conservative, even though for a considerable part of his political career he was a Liberal. Perhaps it is best put the other way round – he was throughout his career opposed to Labour. In a close election it could be argued that this implicit political endorsement swung the result.
Churchill ward is named after the Churchill Gardens estate, one of the forerunners of the building spree of the 1960s – which was built after the war and named for the wartime PM.
So the ward is named only indirectly after the man himself.
To be honest I don’t think most people see Churchill as a partisan figure anyway. Anyone old enough to have voted during Churchill’s active political career is now well retired. He’s a war leader not a politician.
Will Double Summer Time be bad for the Conservatives (and LIbDems) here?
The tourist industry are agitating for the British clocks to be put in line with those in Europe so that we get longer daylight in the evenings, and of course the tousit industry is important in this constituency.
However, as I have just pointed out on the Holborn and St,. Pancras thread, putting the clocks forward would be bad for people coming to London from Europe for the day. Such people care much more about being able to get up at a resonable Coninental time and still being in London for a 10 o’clock meeting than they do about getting home in the daylight (during the evening they will be on the plane or train anyway).
My impresssion is that this artefact of clock settings encourages considerable numbers of people from the continent to come to London for business meetings when, if the clock times were the same throughout Europe, they would go to a more central location like Paris or Frankfurt.
Whilst the number of business day visitors to Centreal London, although considerable, may be smaller than the number of visitors staying for a holiday, their value is far greater. Double Summer Time could result in a lot of lost business for London, with electoral consequences for the Tories and LibDems.
This is over and above the fact that permanent Summer Time was so unpopular when it was tried in the 1970s that the experiment was abandoned as soon as was decently possible.
The electorate of the City of London in 1935 was 40,679. Today it is something like 6,537; (that is the latest local government electorate figure).
And most of the electors live in the Barbican area.
The Yes Campaign has taken over 40% of the vote in The City of London, meaning that it would appear one of the more ‘liberal’ areas of the UK.
Does this mean that Labour could have won or come close in The City of London in 2010?
It was a surprisingly strong result for ‘Yes’.
City of London referendum result, on a respectable turnout of 42.65% (the London-wide turnout being 35.37%):
46.36% (1,196) Yes
53.64% (1,384) No
Westminster referendum result, on a below average (for London) 31.53% turnout:
38.12% (15,279) Yes
61.88% (24,805) No
Pete,
The 1945 results here are interesting.
Westminster Abbey (with Covent Garden, Soho and Pimlico) was the tightest with a 28.3% majority over Labour.
Westminster St Georges (with Knightsbridge and Belgravia) was the safest with a 39.9% majority over Labour.
The 2 member City of London was very safely Tory to.
The current seat is not only made up of much of St Marylebone but also part of Paddington South.
I assume that Westminster St Georges would have remained solidly Tory in 1997 and 2001 but Westminster Abbey and The City of London could have been close calls in these years?
The Dept of Enterprise have asked each MP to nominate a manufacturing business in their constituency for a publication called ‘Made In Britain’.
I’m quite curious as to whom Mark Field will be able to nominate. Are there any possible places in the backstreets of Marylebone or Pimlico?
I’m sure there are plenty of manufacturing businesses that have their corporate headquarters in this constituency but that’s not really in the spirit of things.
The boundary changes to Westminster are interesting because the city will now be divided into three (as opposed to the current 2 constituencies).
More or less –
The wards that were Paddington will form Paddington
The wards that were St Marylebone will more or less form Camden & Regents Park.
The wards that were Westminster will form Westminster & Kensington.
The only difference is that Abbey Road (St Johns Wood) will be in Paddington instead of St Marylebone.
I accept what is said about the new boundaries for Paddington being better than Westminster North but North Kensington is now following Notting Hill in gentrification and future competition in the new Paddington constituency is perfectly plausible.
I don’t see the logic of putting The City of London in with Islington South. It has been associated with Westminster since being abolished as a single constituency in 1950.
If Bloomsbury Ward was moved from Camden & Regents Park to The City of London & Islington South then the whole of Holborn would be in one constituency (that could be named Holborn & Islington South).
In turn, Abbey Road Ward Could be moved from Paddington to Camden & Regents Park resulting in all of the former borough of St Marylebone being in one constituency.
Finally, if Pembridge Ward was moved from Westminster & Kensington to Paddington, The City of London could be added to Westminster & Kensington.
I would rename Paddington as Paddington & Kensington North and ……
Westminster & Kensington as The City of London & Kensington South (on the basis that post 1965 City of Westminster is in three different constituencies).
Does the phrase “The City of London” have to appear in a constituency name? That was a rule at one point, wasn’t it?
I can’t see these proposals sticking – too much opposition from people, they will be changed.
I think it does have to be mentioned yes.
The proposals to pair the City with Islington South however appear extremely odd and perhaps is part of a desperate bid to retain additional seat in the east. The pairing of the city with the east in the assembly was also a strange decision however, and that went ahead.
I hope this particular boundary proposal is rejected and the historic link with Westminster is restored.
DoktorB – it was a rule at the previous boundary review, but it was not retained under the new rules (if I recall correctly Peter Brooke tabled an amendment in the Lords re-instating the rule but it wasn’t approved)
I’m surprised by that, Anthony. I thought they’d just removed the requirement for it to be linked with Westminster, but that the name should still be included.
I suppose though, the boundary commission would not actually fail to make mention of the City of London, wherever it was to be put?
The question now is, are the commission able to split the City of London if they so wished? Not that they would in practice, but in theory…
I could be wrong, but I don’t think there ever was a requirement for the city to be linked with Westminster. It just happens to have been since 1950
Cheers Anthony. I thought that might have been the case
Might go and look at the discussions, see if I can find the relevant vote.
It’s a shame the City can’t be split because the two housing estates could then be placed in an Islington seat and the rest of the City acreage could remain with Westminster.
Not suprisingly only 121 people in Knightsbridge & Belgravia ward voted for Ken. I’d bet that’s the lowest figure of any London ward.
I’ve only just realised that Hyde Park ward is bordered at th south by the north eastern corner of Hyde Park (Bayswater Road) and is roughly an oblong shape to the west of Edgware Road.
I always had this picture that it came down to Hyde Park Corner.
Another Great Lady represented it until 1993 (with her colleagues).
Church Street ward – to the east of Edgware Road – and a little way up Edgware Road – i.e past the Harrow Road – has a large number of council flats.
That probably is true BigD. It is a very rare example of a ward without Labour candidates in 2010, though there were I think 2 others in Westminster. There were in fact only 3 Conservative & 1 Green candidate in the ward in 2010 and it wouldn’t require looking up online to guess who won.
One of the successful candidates in that ward was Philippa Roe, daughter of former MP Dame Marion Roe.
A couple of months ago she became leader of Westminster Council.
I wonder if she has any ambitions beyond local government…
The result on the list vote in Churchill ward was one of the closest in London. The Tories outpolled Labour by the narrowest of margins. It does seem that Labour is stronger in Churchill than any of the Tory-held wards in Westminster North.
Only just found out tonight that there was a council by-election in Hyde Park ward coinciding with the Mayoral/GLA elections. Here’s the result:
Conservative 1,448
Labour 563
Green 182
Liberal Democrats178
UKIP 96
Independent 40
Turnout 33.54%.
Any comments?
I think I did see this but hadn’t paid a lot of attention with everything else – thanks.
That is a high Labour vote for that ward – I thought they only normally get about 250 votes.
Would be interesting to know how scattered those were.
I’m pretty sure the Tories got around 70% regularly in this ward when only London Borough elections were on,
but I see that in May 2010, it wasn’t so monolithically Tory.
Although Labour didn’t stand, there was a substantial Green and LD vote.
Clearly what happens is the ward is not seriously contested atall normally so nearly all of the low poll is Conservative,
but in 2010 and 2012 other important elections on brought out the anti Tory vote.
Still interested to see where these LD/Green/Lab votes come from unless they’re scattered amongst the wealthy.
Acton Heather Jane The Conservative Party Candidate 2009 Elected
Barrow Colin The Conservative Party Candidate 1903 Elected
Cridge Mark John Green Party 1,016
Crystal Peter Maurice Liberal Democrats 1393
Floru Jean-Paul Thierry The Conservative Party Candidate 1851 Elected
Mampaey Frank Liberal Democrats 845
The number of ballot papers rejected was as follows Number
0
2
0
73
0
TOTAL 75
CITY OF WESTMINSTER
ELECTION OF CITY COUNCILLORS
HYDE PARK WARD
DECLARATION OF RESULT OF POLL
Date of Election: 6 May 2010
I, Mike More, Returning Officer, give notice that the number of votes for each Candidate at the election of City
Councillors for the Hyde Park Ward are as follows:-
Name of Candidate Description
Number of Votes.
If Elected the Word
‘ELECTED’ appears against
the number of votes
(D) being unmarked or void for uncertainty
(B) voting for more candidates than entitled to
(C) writing or mark by which voter could be identified
And I declare that :
P.O. Box 240
Westminster City Hall
Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6QP
Printed and Published by the Returning Officer
Mike More
Returning Officer
are duly elected Members for the Hyde Park Ward
Dated 7 May 2010
(A) want of an official mark
(E) rejected in part
Heather Jane Acton, Colin Barrow and Jean-Paul Thierry Floru
There are one or 2 less desirable enclaves in that ward, even the odd council property, but it is for the most part a very prosperous area. It goes far enough north to take in Paddington station & the pleasant Paddington Basin development. I was working in the ward a while & got to know it a little.
I reckon not seriously contested is the key reason – around 2006 I was trying to get better understanding of the incredibly low turnouts in some very prosperous parts of central London.
It is strange that we see such large differences though – the Lib Dems weren’t ridiculously far off winning the seat in 2010.
Not that I want to give them ideas.
The 2010 result would be easier to explain if this seat was in Westminster North
where a big Labour push to hold on
would have left their votes with nowhere else to go in the local elections without a candidate
so it’s bizarre given Hyde Park is not in that seat.
Not quite sure what you mean. It is very unusual for Labour to fail to contest wards nowadays in London & I can’t recall any other boroughs where it happened in 2010. It would have been surely more inexplicable for a Westminster North ward to have been left uncontested, but perhaps that’s what you mean anyway.
BBC Broadcasting House is in West End ward in this constituency, but I am not sure what other wards it has been in
West End ward (Mayfair) was gained by Independent(s) in 1978 (held until 1990)
campaigning against Red Light district.
Census results, white British, 2001 / 2011:
City of London: 68.3% / 57.5%
Bryanston & Dorset Square: 46.0% / 32.2%
Churchill: 56.9% / 39.9%
Hyde Park: 38.9% / 27.1%
Knightsbridge & Belgravia: 51.0% / 36.7%
Marylebone High Street: 49.4% / 37.2%
St James’: 59.9% / 45.1%
Tachbrook: 63.8% / 53.7%
Vincent Square: 54.5% / 45.9%
Warwick: 62.2% / 50.3%
West End: 50.9% / 37.2%
TOTAL: 54.0% / 41.0%
White overall, Cities of London & Westminster:
2001: 78.5%
2011: 68.5%
“One Hyde Park was developed by the Candy brothers and the Qataris and was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, the current incarnation of the once-idealistic Richard Rogers practice. The 86 flats start at £20m; a penthouse sold in 2010 for £140m. The building is an aesthetic, planning and social catastrophe. An inaccessible, menacing fortress looming over Knightsbridge, it symbolises the dark wealth of the entitled elite who have claimed the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea as their own. But it is just one big sign of a ruthless landgrab among many little ones.”
ht tp://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2013/02/age-entitlement
Have to say I completely agree.
From the Knightsbridge side the building looks hideous. The site is too narrow for a “dark fortress” hence it encroaches right on to the pavement.
I’m sure the views are great but the prices are crazy.
The concepts of ‘metropolitanism’ and ‘overclass’ are becoming mainstream.
But what do I rant about when everyone else is ranting about them?
Mark Field echoing my thoughts:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/02/from-markfieldmp-1.html
We’ll all be moving to Gainsborough soon
I’d be interested to know how many lower-middle class people live in this constituency. You could probably fit them in a taxi.
You might fit them in, but they couldn’t afford the fare
I’d have thought that there would be some in Churchill ward though that’s likely to have more working class residents thanks to the social housing around Pimlico. This must be the only ward in the constituency that Labour still have any chance in. Whether they will gain it or not in next year’s elections is hard to say and the housing benefit changes will certainly not help.
From comments both at the other place and here (in particular how HH has changed), what I’m hearing in the outside world and that article by Mark Field it seems that a tipping point has been reached.
There is a widespread grievance that the corporotist state and the globalized world is persecuting ‘people like me’ and resulting anger because “I haven’t done anything wrong”.
We are undergoing a process of change and most people in this country believe they are on the losing side.
There will be an electoral benefit for any politician who is able to tap into this zeitgeist and any who fail to show the right empathy will lose elections.
Cameron and Osborne simply look wrong for the age, they look like people who are gaining from globalisation not like ‘people like me’.