Dudley North
2010 Results:
Conservative: 14274 (36.98%)
Labour: 14923 (38.66%)
Liberal Democrat: 4066 (10.53%)
BNP: 1899 (4.92%)
UKIP: 3267 (8.46%)
Others: 173 (0.45%)
Majority: 649 (1.68%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 15727 (43.2%)
Conservative: 11582 (31.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 3871 (10.6%)
Other: 5195 (14.3%)
Majority: 4145 (11.4%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 12874 (31.1%)
Labour: 18306 (44.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 4257 (10.3%)
BNP: 4022 (9.7%)
UKIP: 1949 (4.7%)
Majority: 5432 (13.1%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 13295 (34.5%)
Labour: 20095 (52.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 3352 (8.7%)
BNP: 1822 (4.7%)
Majority: 6800 (17.6%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 15014 (31.4%)
Labour: 24471 (51.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 3939 (8.2%)
Referendum: 1201 (2.5%)
Other: 3183 (6.7%)
Majority: 9457 (19.8%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Ian Austin(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Graeme Brown (Conservative) Contested Ashton-under-Lyne 2005.Ian Austin(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Mike Beckett (Liberal Democrat) Educated at Goldsmiths College. Malcolm Davis (UKIP) Dudley councillor until 2007, having initially been elected as a Liberal Democrat. Led opposition to the building of a Mosque and community centre in Dudley
Ken Griffiths (BNP) Transport manager. Contested West Midlands 2009 European election.Kevin Inman (National Front)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 78681
Male: 48.8%
Female: 51.2%
Under 18: 23.3%
Over 60: 23.1%
Born outside UK: 4.9%
White: 90.4%
Black: 2%
Asian: 5.9%
Mixed: 1.4%
Other: 0.4%
Christian: 76.8%
Hindu: 1.1%
Muslim: 3%
Sikh: 1.5%
Full time students: 2.6%
Graduates 16-74: 11.2%
No Qualifications 16-74: 41.6%
Owner-Occupied: 64.1%
Social Housing: 28.6% (Council: 24.9%, Housing Ass.: 3.7%)
Privately Rented: 3%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 16.3%
Con maj 1,000
Nelson Mandela donated 1/3 of his salary to charity. I do not think he did this as a stunt. I have worked in the charity sector and am used to tireless work and living frugally. The pledge is an example of leading by example. As to the result of the election this is up to the people and I offer to serve at their pleasure…
National Front: Kevin Inman
Source: http://www.national-front.org.uk/election2010.htm
CON GAIN – might change my mind on this one before polling day though
quite a good result for Labour, again showing the importance of first-time incumbency. Stourbridge had too small a Labour majority for it to make much difference. Labour will be very relieved at holding here.
I’m not sure why it took them more than 15 hours to declare the result when the margin of victory was 649 votes, which is small but not tiny.
The Labour vote held up here.
Tories advanced about the average.
I didn’t spot this result until some time over the weekend – I rather assumed the Tories would take it,
but it’s clearly one of the lower swing seats in the region.
A very very mixed picture in the West Midlands – slightly disappointing I think for the Tories but mainly because of expectations.
As Richard indicates on other threads, this election more than any other desperately needs some objective analysis of seat types because it varies a lot within regions.
I hope David Butler will publish a book.
Interesting with the minor parties – BNP vote halved, whilst UKIP almost doubled. Any explanations?
“I’m not sure why it took them more than 15 hours to declare the result when the margin of victory was 649 votes, which is small but not tiny.”
From the local paper:
The evening started peacefully, after verifying results, the count finally got underway around 1am, but problems soon start surfacing around 4am.
It looked like a full result was going to be given, with rumours circulated Labour’s Ian Austin had retained his seat.
The election officers sent home the counters shortly after, but then Conservative candidate Graeme Brown began questioning the results, and around 5.20am claimed 2,000 Tory votes were missing.
A frantic search began as officers began searching through the compiled voting slips, with over 100 Tory votes being found in the UKIP box.
Following much deliberation, which at times got heated between the nervous candidates and the returning officer, a call for another recount was made.
The recount will now take place at 2pm this afternoon, with the local elections following immediately after.
Thanks for that Andrea,
explains quite a lot.
I did think the Tories would take this, but thinking about it this doesn’t include the solid Tory voting blocks that Dudley South does. It seemed that both seats had behaved fairly similarly from 1997 but perhaps the Dudley West by-election had continued to influence the result in Dudley South. Kingswinford exercises a far bigger influence in Dudley South and has far higher turnout than the more Labour inclined areas. Here it is only really Sedgley which is solid for the Tories and that is far from monolithic – Gornal is Tory leaning but the eastern wards are pretty solid for Labour.
Of course the large vote for UKIP here (and the BNP) could have been crucial. To answer Tonyotim’s question, the BNP used to very active here and had a councillor in Castle & Priory ward some time ago but they did not even contest that ward this time. The councillor in question was Simon Darby who is a leading member of the BNP and presumably much regional effort by the party would have been focussed here in 2005 when he was the candidate. This time he had gone off to fight in Stoke and the BNP did not even contest Castle & Priory this year. meanwhile UKIP are well organised and active here and this is the only Met borough which has an elected UKIP councillor (in St James ward) and he was the UKIP candidate here.
Clearly the right-of -the-Tories vote could have been decisive. It is a moot point whether in the absence of UKIP and BNP candidates, or with weaker support for both, voters would have opted for the Conservatives instead. I guess with more robust policies on Europe and immigration the Conservatives would have been able to appeal to such voters as they did in the 1980s, but then this may have cost them some support amongst more liberal middle-class urban types, and prevented them from winning some other seats…
.. like Birmingham Edgbaston
Thanks for that Pete. That makes it clearer.
Also the Labour MP (Ian Pearson) retired (at the age of 50) in Dudley South.