Comments on: Dagenham and Rainham

By: LBernard

LBernard — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 07:45:16 +0000

How else could East London be redrawn John? I have been trying to redraw the East London boundaries myself…but so far am proving hopeless at it!

Maybe Pete may be able to suggest alternative East London seats?

The people of Brooklands and Mawneys are not going to be happy being in a seat called Dagenham at all! To saw West Romford away from the rest of the town just does not make sense to me.

By: John Chanin

John Chanin — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:01:42 +0000

Agree. The Commission’s proposals are unnecessarily radical in East London. They only needed to add a couple of Redbridge wards to either Barking or Romford to get seats of the right size, with shuffling of a ward or two in Havering/B & D.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:11:17 +0000

It would be an accurate description which itself reveals how flawed this seat is. It reaches virtually into the centre of Romford, touching the inner ring road. There is no need whatsoever to break up Romford in this way and I’m sure there will be vigorous objections from that area to being put into a seat called Dagenham North!

By: LBernard

LBernard — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:51:47 +0000

Dagenham and Romford West could be a possible suggestion.

By: LBernard

LBernard — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:59:36 +0000

I imagine a closely fought contest here between Labour and the Conservatives. i agree Pete, a new name is needed for this seat.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:39:38 +0000

The names of the propeosed constituencies as well as the boundaries are pretty silly here. Why is Barking renamed as Barking & Dagenham when it actually loses most of the parts of Dagenham currently included?
The only part of the new seat which is Dagenham would be River ward. This ‘Dagenham North’ will include almost all of Dagenham, but it also reaches well into Romford, virtually to the town centre. This is one of the proposals which is ripe for challenge.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:29:47 +0000

Yes I think thats probably right. The two Romford wards tend to have been the most Labour areas now in that seat and would have been pretty evenly balanced in more normal years and quite strongly for Labour I guess in a year like 1997. Brooklands (on somewhat different boundareies) was I think the base of Arthur Latham, former Paddington MP and later Labour leader of Havering council.

By: Dalek

Dalek — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:15:20 +0000

Notionally Dagenham North is more marginal than the current and more affluent Dagenham & Rainham.

Could this be down to Andrew Rosindell’s personal vote in the Romford wards? He has transformed Romford from being a Labour seat into one of the safest Tory seats anywhere.

Could the Romford wards move back in Labours favour without Rosindell’s personal support, and consiquently mean that in real terms that Dagenham North is not really so marginal?

By: LBernard

LBernard — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:05:04 +0000

Again this would be an interesting seat to watch at the next GE. I dont think 10 years ago anyone would have predicted the massive demographic change that has taken place here, the rise (and fall) of the BNP and the Tories making substantial gains in a traditionally solid Labour area. It futher supports the notion that the Conservatives are now being percieved as the party of the WWC, however not by all. I would almost certainly say the local Conservatives need to get their act together to attempt to start winning council seats, particularly in Chadwell Heath and Rush Green – and actually challenge the Labour council who holds all 51council seats in the borough. If the Tories could secure some of the Becontree estate votes (those votors who swiched from Labour to the BNP) maybe placing more right leaning figures to fight for them that would make this seat even more interesting.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:54:45 +0000

Indeed but I do wonder how the figures may have changed since 2001. This seat was 91% white then and Enfield North was 86% white but this was a long time ago now and there has been massive changes in some of these areas. Enfield North took me by surprise as I hadn’t had occasion to visit the area recently and hadn’t really been aware the extent to which it was starting to resemble Edmonton. It is possible the same process has been underway here.
Another thing to note of course is that while in Enfield North Labour’s share of nearly 40% does represent a very big increase compared with the 1980s, their share here doesn’t (it is slightly above what they would have won in 1987). The difference is that the Conservative share is much lower and you have nearly 15% voting for UKIP and the BNP – voters who would have likely been attracted to the Conservatives in the 1980s (and still can be in other circumstances now, such as in the Mayoral election when this seat was easily carried by Boris Johnson). An election fought on AV would be interesting with the 2010 configuration of party support repeated