Halesowen and Rowley Regis
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 19219 (46.4%)
Conservative: 15079 (36.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 5148 (12.4%)
Other: 1990 (4.8%)
Majority: 4140 (10%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 14906 (36.1%)
Labour: 19243 (46.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 5204 (12.6%)
UKIP: 1974 (4.8%)
Majority: 4337 (10.5%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 13445 (34.2%)
Labour: 20804 (53%)
Liberal Democrat: 4089 (10.4%)
UKIP: 936 (2.4%)
Majority: 7359 (18.7%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 16029 (32.9%)
Labour: 26366 (54.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 4169 (8.5%)
Referendum: 1244 (2.6%)
Other: 953 (2%)
Majority: 10337 (21.2%)
Boundary changes: Minor changes to bring the constituency into line with ward boundaries. Loses a tiny part of Cradley & Foxcote to Stourbridge, part of Langley to Warley and a tiny part of Tividale to West Bromwich West. Gains part of Belle Vale from Stourbridge, part of Rowley ward from West Bromwich West and a tiny part of Blackheath ward from Warley.
Profile: A crossborough seat, taking in Halesowen from the Borough of Dudley and Rowley Regis from Sandwell. Halesown is a middle-class, dormitory suburb, consisting largely of private housing. Rowley Regis is a more traditional black country manufacturing area, dominated by terraced housing and council estates. The seat is very much a marginal – Halesowen tends to the Conservatives – in the 1990s the area returned Labour councillors but it is now back in Tory hands, while Rowley Regis tends to vote Labour (although Blackheath ward has returned Conservative councillors in recent elections).
The original Conservative PPC, Nigel Hastilow, resigned in 2007 after having said in a newspaper article that Enoch Powell had been right in his 1968 `Rivers of Blood` speech.
Outgoing MP: Sylvia Heal(Labour) born 1942, North Wales. Educated at Elfed Secondary and the University of Wales, Swansea. Former social worker specialising in drug rehabilitation. MP for Mid-Staffordshire from the 1990 by-election until the 1992 election. First elected as MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in 1997. Was a shadow health spokesman from 1991-2. After her election in 1997 she served as PPS to George Robertson and Geoff Hoon before becoming Deputy Speaker in 2000. Her sister is the Labour MP for Brentford & Isleworth, Ann Keen. (more information at They work for you)
Candidates: 
James Morris (Conservative) Director of Localis.Sylvia Heal(Labour) born 1942, North Wales. Educated at Elfed Secondary and the University of Wales, Swansea. Former social worker specialising in drug rehabilitation. MP for Mid-Staffordshire from the 1990 by-election until the 1992 election. First elected as MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in 1997. Was a shadow health spokesman from 1991-2. After her election in 1997 she served as PPS to George Robertson and Geoff Hoon before becoming Deputy Speaker in 2000. Her sister is the Labour MP for Brentford & Isleworth, Ann Keen. (more information at They work for you)
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 83497
Male: 48.6%
Female: 51.4%
Under 18: 22.4%
Over 60: 23%
Born outside UK: 4%
White: 93.1%
Black: 0.8%
Asian: 4.3%
Mixed: 1.3%
Other: 0.5%
Christian: 76.3%
Muslim: 2.7%
Sikh: 1.3%
Full time students: 2.4%
Graduates 16-74: 11.9%
No Qualifications 16-74: 38.5%
Owner-Occupied: 70.8%
Social Housing: 22.3% (Council: 18.7%, Housing Ass.: 3.6%)
Privately Rented: 3.4%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 12.4%
In 1987 the talk was of a small Tory majority and a major labour fightback. I lived in the Midlands at the time and the talk was about how many seats Labour would take from the Tories not the other way around.
The Times (London)
May 19 1987
“Mr Neil Kinnock arrives in Birmingham today to launch Labour’s general election compaign and attempt to raise the party’s flagging morale in key West Midlands marginals.
A regional Marplan poll last month putting the Conservatives 21 per cent ahead and heavy losses in the local elections show declining support for Labour in a region that many believe will decide the election.
However, a new Harris poll for London Weekend Television showed the Conservatives only 2 per cent ahead of Labour in 92 key marginals.
But Labour is still anxious about the fate of four of its marginal which would fall to the Tories with a swing of under 1 per cent.
The party has a majority of only 231 in Birmingham, Erdington, 298 in West Bromwich, East, 702 in Walsall, South, and 214 in Wolverhampton, North East, where Mrs Renee Short, the veteran Labour MP, is stepping down after 23 years.
All four Labour seats are now firmly on the target list of the Conservatives, are now more confident of holding the Birmingham seats of Northfield and Yardley, which have majorities of nearly 3,000 each.
The Guardian (London)
May 18, 1987
Election 87: Shift to right threatens Labour in Midlands
If the Labour Party wins seats from the Conservatives in the rest of the country on June 11, the odds at the moment are that it will lose seats to them in the West Midlands, where its support has taken a sudden and largely unexplained nosedive in the past few months.
The local elections have already given Labour a foretaste of the fate that may be in store for them. They showed a sharp shift to the right which cost Labour its control of Birmingham city council and left the party with fewer votes than the Tories in two parliamentary seats that Labour now holds. Wolverhampton North-east and Birmingham Perry Barr.
An earlier warning was given in the West Midlands byelection for the European Parliament, largely forgotten between the Greenwich and Truro contests, which saw a Labour majority of 14 per cent in 1984 reduced to only 2 per cent.
If that wasn’t enough, the regional polls carried out by Marplan for the Press Association in April showed a catastrophic result for Labour in the West Midlands. At the general election the region had voted Conservative 45, Labour 31, and Alliance 23 per cent. But the Press Association poll gave the Conservatives 47, Labour 26 and the Alliance 26 per cent. In other words, Labour’s vote was down 5 per cent, the Conservative vote up 2 per cent, and the Alliance vote up 3 per per cent since 1983.
Since then the national opinion polls have improved still further for the Conservatives and deteriorated further for Labour. In the Guardian’s Marplan poll, the Conservatives are up 3 per cent and Labour down 1 per cent since the Press Association poll in April.
In the accompanying table the latest national Marplan poll, which puts the Conservatives at 43, Labour at 29 and the Alliance at 25, is applied to eight Labour-held marginals in the West Midlands, and on that basis Labour would hold all eight with slightly increased majorities.
But in the second column the Press Association’s April regional poll is applied with an allowance for the change in the national picture between April and May, and on that basis Labour would lose seven of these seats to the Conservatives.
The seats would include Coventry North-west, held for Labour by the former chief executive of Jaguar, Mr Geoffrey Robinson; Coventry South-east, held by a Militant supporter, Mr Dave Nellist; West Bromwich East, held by Labour frontbencher, Mr Peter Snape; and both the Walsall seats, held by Mr Bruce George and Mr David Winnick.
Thanks Pete. Doesn’t seem that Hodge Hill was mentioned but my recollections seem to be fairly accurate considering it’s a long while ago. It is true that Wolverhampton NE was actually lost, but there were few problems for Labour in the other seats mentioned. Perry Barr was held by over 6,000 as I recall when the Tory defeated candidate was John Taylor.
Your recollection is good Barnaby. 1987 was the first election I followed closely but I did not pay particularly close attention to the West Midlands as I have done subsequently because it was not until the following year that I moved to the area.
I do remember though that as a staunch Conservative supporter at the time, while I did not expect the party to make net gains on top of the 1983 result, I certainly did have aspirations for the party to gain a number of seats where they had previously been close including many of those mentioned (the Walsalls, West Brom East etc).
The existance of these articles vindicates Barnaby’s recollections but does not necessarily refute Manterik’s suggestion that the sense on the ground at the time was different from that of the London based media.
In particular much emphasis in these articles, apart from the opinion poll, was on the strong Conservative performance in local elections in the West Midlands in may 1987.
We have discussed many times the strong tendency for the Conservatives to overporm in parts of the West MIdlands conurbation in local elections relative to general elections. The relatively good performances in 1991 had led me to expect a reasonable performance in 1992 and I was surprised by a number of the losses in Birmingham that year. This was not a new tendency even then as it is widely known that local Tory candidates secured an aggregate vote higher than Labour’s in Perry Barr in 1979, but Labour held the parliamentary seat and there was some notable differential performances in Coventry then too. This also needs to be taken into account for the forthcoming election where there may be again a tendency to predict a number of gains in Birmingham and seats like Wolverhampton NE based on strong recent local election performances.
I remember having a newspaprer checklist on 1987 election night – I suspect it was from the preceeding Sunday Times.
This checklist gaves bands of seats of similar majorities.
There was only one band for an increased Conservative majority – this would have included those Labour seats with a 1983 majority of under 100 such as Erdington and Wolverhampton NE.
There were multiple bands of Conservatives seats though linked to diminshing overall Conservative majorites down to a hung parliament.
In these Conservatives bands were Northfield, Yardley, Selly Oak and even Hall Green.
The talk in the last weeks of the election campaign was all about how much the Conservative majority would be reduced by. Now there might have been some airey fairy talk when the campaign began of what seats the Conservatives might gain if Labour fell apart but I don’t think there was any serious expectation that Labour seats with majorities of 3000+ (Coventry NW), 5000+ (Hodge Hill) or 7000+ (Perry Barr) were ever at risk of being lost. If they had been Labour would have been below 100 MPs.
Which seats was Halesowen in before 1950?
It was in Stourbridge
Conservative Home reporting that Sylvia Heal is standing down. Source Birmingham Post.
Sylvia Heal is indeed standing down – confirmed on her website.
That makes two deputy speakers standing down.
And it means there will be two new Deputy Speakers in the next Parliament. Anyone want to guess who they’ll be?
And will Haselhurst remain Chairman of Ways and Means?
Assuming Bercow is re-elected, then:
1) The two new deputy speakers will come from Labour (or Lib Dems). As to who they’ll be – I’ve got no idea…
2) Sir Alan Haselhurst would (in my opinion, ridiculously) be ineligible for the position of Chairman of Ways and Means because the Commons passed a motion last Thursday (4th March) that made provisions for the electing of deputy speakers. This motion included the following paragraphs:
” (i) two candidates shall come from the opposite side of the House to that from which the Speaker was drawn, the first of which candidates will be Chairman of Ways and Means and the second, Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means,
(ii) one candidate shall come from the same side of the House as that from which the Speaker was drawn and shall be First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means”
This means that (again, assuming Bercow re-election) the spread would be:
Speaker – Con
Chairman of W+M – Lab/Lib
1st Deputy Chairman of W+M – Con
2nd Deputy Chairman of W+M – Lab/Lib