Halesowen and Rowley Regis
2010 Results:
Conservative: 18115 (41.19%)
Labour: 16092 (36.59%)
Liberal Democrat: 6515 (14.81%)
UKIP: 2824 (6.42%)
Independent: 433 (0.98%)
Majority: 2023 (4.6%)
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.
Current MP: James Morris (Conservative) Director of Localis.
James Morris (Conservative) Director of Localis.
Sue Hayman (Labour)Phillip Tibbets (Liberal Democrat)Derek Badderley (UKIP)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%
Even more unsurprising, Mrs Hayman is a Unite member.
“Labour will select their candidate from an All Women Shortlist, as is the norm where the outgoing MP is a woman.”
So presumably then that will mean that there will be a lot of safe Labour seats in the country that will FOREVER only ever be represented by women Labour MPs?
Birmingham Edgbaston has had a woman MP unbroken for around 50 years now-and they didn’t need an AWS!
But if Labour are going to replace male MPs with an AWS and NEVER replace a retiring woman MP with a man, then this is going to create women only constituencies in many parts of the country…unless the electorate bugger up Labour’s system, or unless they change the system in the future.
There have been a few examples where female Labour MPS have been replaced by men – Crawley, Aberconwy, Warrington South and Sefton Central to name 4
although these seats are all Tory targets, and at least 2 are certain to fall.
‘It was in Stourbridge’
Stourbridge was only created in 1918 – which seat before then?
Cons Gain= 100 maj
CON 3000
Lab Hold
Maj 500
Con maj 1,500
Another seat where lack of incumbency could just swing it. CON GAIN
Is this the first time part of Sandwell borough has had a Conservative MP?
No it isn’t. The Oldbury & Halesowen seat still existed when Sandwell was created & had a Conservative MP. In 1974 the seat was divided between Warley West (Sandwell) & Halesowen & Stourbridge (Dudley). Of course before Sandwell was created it happened, not least when the Tories gained Smethwick.
The rather similar Oldbury & Halesowen seat had a Conservative MP from 1970 to 1974 (John Stokes), although his tenure of that seat didn’t overlap for very long with the existance of the borough of Sandwell
snap!
I was going to mention Smethwick too lol
A majority of 2,000 probably means this seat would have gone to the Tories even if Sylvia Heal had stood again. Few MPs have a personal vote of more than 1,000 votes according to what I’ve read in various books.
‘[Halesowen] was in Stourbridge’
Stourbridge (or at least its first incarnation) was only created in 1918! Which seat before then?
It was in Worcestershire Mid, or Droitwich
I’ve noticed two things aobut the seats in Black Country that the last boundary commission failed to notice.
1) All of the seats in Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell have very small electorates.
2) There are now two cross-borough seats (Halesowen and Rowley Regis and Wolverhampton South East).
When the boundary commission create seats that cross the boundary between two counties they are only allowed to create one cross county seat. I know that rule does not apply to metropolitan boroughs, but it is entirley possible to get seats that are close to the quota by having just one black country cross borough seat.
Also, If you add together the electorates of all the seats in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley, you get closer to the quota by having 9 seats instead of 10 and only having one cross bourogh seat. So this soleves both problems. The 9 seats in have in mind to eliminate these anomalies are:
Wolverhampton North East
Wolverhampton South West
Dudley North and Bilston (the cross borough seat)
Dudley Central
Dudley South and Stourbridge West
Halesowen and Stourbridge East
Tipton and Rowley Regis
West Bromwich and Smethwick
Wednesbury and Great Barr
What were the wards of the old Halesowen and Stourbridge seat from 1974 to 1997?
Some of these questions are not straightforward because of ward boundary changes. I know that the 1983-97 boundaries included the then wards of: Halesowen N, Halesowen S, Belle Vale & Hasbury, Hayley Green, Lye & Wollescote, Pedmore & Stourbridge E, Wollaston & Stourbridge W, Norton.
I seem to recall Robert Waller mentioning that Quarry Bank was moved from H&S to Dudley East in 1983 but this wasn’t probably the whole ward but part of the ward moving as a result of ward boundary changes
I presume the 1983-97 makeup of H&S that Pete lists was all Dudley Borough wards
Yes, Harry, all of them.
Thought so, as the present separate seats are a mix of wards from several districts I was wondering if the arrangements then were different
I’ve always wondered about the pre 1997 boundaries in this part of balck country.
I asume that the old Halesowen and Stourbridge seat had an electorate of over 80,000. Am I correct?
I also asume that Dudley East and both the Warley seats had extreamley small electorates. Warley West may have been less than 50,000.
Also, surley Dudley West would have had more than 80,000 electors and I dred to think how small Wolverhampton SE was before Coseley East was added to it.
I still believe it would have made more sense for the last boundary commission to have allocated 3 seats to Sandwell, 3 to Dudley, 2 to Woverhampton and to have a cross-borough Dudley North and Bilston seat. There surley wouldn’t have been that much public oposition to that since Coseley East is now in Wolverhampton SE and it would have roughly the same boundaries as the pre 1974 Bilston seat. There could have been some oposition to splitting Stourbridge though, and to the East Park ward moving into Wolverhampton NE.
From the R&T Media Guide To The New Parliamentary Constituencies (1995), old seats:
Dudley East: 76,207
Dudley West: 87,611
Halesowen & Stourbridge: 78,566
Warley East: 52,763
Warley West: 58,024
West Bromwich East: 57,983
West Bromwich West: 58,554
Wolverhampton North East: 62,353
Wolverhampton South East: 57,072
Wolverhampton South West: 68,192
And while we’re at it:
Aldridge-Brownhills: 63,920
Walsall North: 69,894
Walsall South: 66,338
Solution:
Walsall and Sandwell: 6 seats @ 71,246
Dudley and Wolverhampton: 6 seats @ 71,667
Why didn’t they do that? Your guess is as good as mine…
Well I’m genuinely horrified by the way the boundary commission have created two cross borough Dudley/Sandwell seats.
I’m also shocked by some of the other Black County seats.
But, I’ve always been opposed to these boundary changes, and I guess it’s somthing we’ll just have to learn to live with.