Leicester East
2010 Results:
Conservative: 11722 (24.42%)
Labour: 25804 (53.76%)
Liberal Democrat: 6817 (14.2%)
BNP: 1700 (3.54%)
UKIP: 725 (1.51%)
Green: 733 (1.53%)
Others: 494 (1.03%)
Majority: 14082 (29.34%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 26060 (59.9%)
Conservative: 8364 (19.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 6940 (16%)
Other: 2131 (4.9%)
Majority: 17696 (40.7%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 8139 (19.7%)
Labour: 24015 (58.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 7052 (17.1%)
Other: 2100 (5.1%)
Majority: 15876 (38.4%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 9960 (24.5%)
Labour: 23402 (57.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 4989 (12.3%)
BNP: 772 (1.9%)
Other: 1538 (3.8%)
Majority: 13442 (33.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 10661 (24%)
Labour: 29083 (65.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 3105 (7%)
Referendum: 1015 (2.3%)
Other: 538 (1.2%)
Majority: 18422 (41.5%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Keith Vaz(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Jane Hunt (Conservative) Keith Vaz(Labour) (more information at They work for you)Ali Ashgar (Liberal Democrat)Mo Taylor (Green)Felicity Ransome (UKIP)Colin Gilmore (BNP)
Avtar Sadiq (Unity for Peace and Socialism) Contested East Midlands 2009 European elections for No2EU.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 91394
Male: 47.9%
Female: 52.1%
Under 18: 26.4%
Over 60: 19.1%
Born outside UK: 31.9%
White: 48%
Black: 2.7%
Asian: 46.6%
Mixed: 2.3%
Other: 0.5%
Christian: 37.1%
Hindu: 29.5%
Muslim: 10.3%
Sikh: 6.1%
Full time students: 5.3%
Graduates 16-74: 13.3%
No Qualifications 16-74: 43.5%
Owner-Occupied: 64.4%
Social Housing: 24.7% (Council: 18.2%, Housing Ass.: 6.4%)
Privately Rented: 8.5%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 7.7%
The fact that this voted Tory during an election in my lifetime makes me feel old!
On the face of it Keith Vaz had one of the best results of the night with more people voting for him in 2005 than 2001 and an increased majority. That is really surprising as I had thought Labour was having something of a bumpy ride in the Leicester area during the previous parliamentary term (for example Leicester South By Election and did they not also loose the council?)
Anybody local got any views or ideas on why he did so well?
I suspect Vaz’s performance in 2001 was less good than it should have been, in the light of the Hinduja affair; his vote fell by almost 8% that year, considerably more than that of his colleagues in Leicester South and Leicester West. The rise in his vote in 2005 may thus represent some sort of ‘unwind’.
Aidan Thomson is right. For a similar effect (but to an even greater extent) see the Birmingham Perry Barr seat, where the Labour vote collapsed in 2001 but held up well in 2005. Most of the voters willing to abandon Vaz would already have done so in 2001.
The increasing Asian population of Leicester East must have helped too.
The nature of that Asian population distinguishes it from Leicester south too. South includes the bulk of Leicester’s muslim population – I dont have the figures to hand but I think the figure is 20-25%, which is higher than the hindu population. Leciseter East is far more overwhelmingly Hindu.
The LDs already had a significant local election base in South before the by-election, both in the middle class Knighton and in the mainly white working class council estates such as Eyres Monsell. The potential which was realised in those places in the byelection was reinforced by a large swing among muslim voters in the central wards, alienated from Labour principally over the Iraq war.
Leicester East contains neither that long term local government base, nor a large muslim electorate which could be tapped. Hindus (and Sikhs) have remained far more loyal to Labour.
Indeed, Leicester East has no Lib Dem councillors at all, though they did challenge quite strongly in Charnwood and Coleman in 2003, which not coincidentally are the two wards in this constituency with more Muslim than Hindu voters. By contrast, in Belgrave, Latimer and Rushey Mead the Asian population is mostly Hindu and these wards are still Labour strongholds.
The wards with the biggest Muslim population are Spinney Hills and Stoneygate, both of which swung strongly from Labour to the Lib Dems in 2003, losing ex-council leader and future Leicester South MP Peter Soulsby his Spinney Hills seat in the process. These wards are both in Leicester South.
Thanks, this is all very interesting – I guess it goes to show that the way in which different demograhic groups vote in relation to foregin affairs and other issues is far more complex and varied than some politicians and the media claim it is.
Leicester has been making a long-term shift to the left – a 2.7% swing to Labour here in 2005. Peter Bruinvels won here for the Conservatives once in 1983.
Although hangman Bruinvels lost in 1987, the interesting thing is his number of votes increased quite heftily, from 19,117 to 22,150. He only lost because of the collapse of the SDP vote, which must have transferred across to Keith Vaz.
Surely the continuous Labour swings in this seat cannot continue indefinitely. There must be a swing in the other direction soon, especially if Vaz stands down.
If you put the recent opinion poll which gives the Conservative 52%, Labour 24% and the Lib Dems 12% then this becomes the most Southern Labour seat outside Greater London, Wales and the former West Midland metropolitan county area.
It’s doubtful Labour would lose Slough, although on those figures they might be projected to.
I think they’ll retain a number of seats such as Bristol South, Plymouth Moor View, Exeter, Slough,
and possibly Dover, something or both in Brighton,
something or both in Luton.
Certainly I hope we don’t have a vastly divided map like in the 1980s, as it’s not good for democracy.
Conversely, it would be nice for the Tories, in my view, to gain some seats in the north not held before, or not held in 1992.
Labour currently have 14 councillors in the this seat compared to 4 for the Tories (2007 Local Elections).
I hadnt looked at the local results for Leicester before and was surprised to see how well Labour did given the national context in 2007 (increased from 20 to 38 seats and took overall control of the council). Gains seemed to come mostly at the expense of the Lib Dems.
Any specific reasons why? Was it an unwinding of a possible Iraq effect that may have been present at the previous election? If so it raises some interesting questions for how quite a few constituencies might behave at the next general election.
Coincidetally, I think Leicester council has the best way of displaying local election results I have ever seen! If only all councils did the same!!
http://www.leicester.gov.uk/elections07/results/cityresults.asp
David. The labour party took seats off the lib dems in leicester because of a split in the lib dem ranks. Some people left the lib dem group. This impacted on the ability of the lib dems to fight proper camapigns. The lib dems made a strategic mistake forming a coalition with the Tories which motivated Labour activists to camapign against them. labour cleverly talked up the BNP “threat” to get their vote out as well.
Thanks Cymrumark – Further to your thoughts there is something strange going on here. BBC said Labour’s share of vote was sharply up in the Euros across Leicester compared to 2004. Obviously massively against the tide!
Are we witnessing something more significant than what is happening at the local council politics level? Is Leicester changing long term demographically? – I am aware it is already an ethnically diverse area (though never been there in person).
At the moment it points to it producing possibly some of Labour’s best results in 2010 (though obviously Leicester South will have something of a byelection unwind).
Yes, Leicester has been changing demographically as the Asian population has risen which has made it a safer city for Labour.
It’s worth noting though that in the 2007 locals the pro-Labour swing happened in white working class wards like New Parks and Eyres Monsell as well as in the predominantly Muslim wards which had swung LD in 2003 – perhaps a rare case of convergence rather than divergence of these two voter demographics (notwithstanding the high BNP votes in the former)
Cllr Jane Hunt selected as the Conservative PPC.
david (june 8th 2009)
leicester has been changing quite fast over the past ten to fifteen years or so as the native population shrinks as a percentage, it was estimated that by the coming cencus that leicester could have a population with more non natives than natives, we will see. on the political front leicester has had a number of council over the time since it was shaken up in 1996, at this point the tories still had very few seats i think about 6 at that point by 1999 the total for labour had gone down and the tories and lib dems made gains, in my own area the conservatives uped there vote to around 42% and around 20% in the city as a whole, in 2003 that total of votes went up again for the tories to 23% across the city the lib dems on around 36/37% and labour on around 30-33%, what stoped the lib dems winning the council out right in 2003 was they could not get there vote out and in the east of the city the tories did very well in humberstone and hamilton (my area) they won over 50% of the vote.
in 2007 leicester voted labour again the tories vote stayed around the same and the lib dems crashed, labour now has around 46-50% of the vote in leicester and seams to be upto it’s only tricks again targeting communites that vote for it and not the city as a whole, yes the centre looks good but so dose my face, one improvement hear or there dose not make a good council it has to be wide spread and in areas where party x’s vote is not as high as the areas it controls, and i can only see one out come for the next local elections and that is a hung council. in the parliment seat it will be a close one 3000 to 5000 margin for labour but a strong conservative showing lib dems to do nothing.
ow by the way , i now live in the very strongly conservative frisby on the wreake council seat
Unity for Peace and Socialism, a coalition of the Communist Party of Britain and British-based members of some overseas communist parties, is standing Avtar Sadiq here – http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/layout/set/print/layout/set/print/content/view/full/87550
Colin Gilmore standing here for the BNP (making it 10 out of 10 Leicestershire seats with BNP candidates)
Lab Hold= 13,000 maj
Ali Ashgar has been selected as LD PPC here. More info on libdemsDOTorgDOTuk
He is a Nottingham councillor
Lab Hold
Maj 13 200
Lab maj 9,000
Vaz sister standing in walsall south
LAB HOLD
The declaration for this seat was shown on the BBC’s 2001 election show, the only election show I’m aware of where that was the case.
I’ve just noticed how strong the Leicester SE constituency was for the Conservatives.
The 1959 elections show that they really did have all their eggs in one basket so to speak:
NE 1431 Lab
NW 1773 Lab
SE 14630 Con
SW 2743 Lab
What would have happened in Leicester SE if it had still existed?
Something like Wolverhampton SW perhaps?
I’m not sure but I think that constituency included substantial areas which now lie outside the city boundaries. Silly thing is, I’ve just come back from having a drink in the pub with our candidate there in the 1955 election, Ted Masters, and I could have asked him to clarify that precise matter if I had known this was coming up! I was actually just talking to him about this site – he’s finally getting his computer for Christmas at the age of 83. He remains very active in the Labour Party to this day and came close to being elected to Parliament in the Melton by-election in 1956.
his first=ever* computer I meant.
I think we discussed this on another thread (most likley Leicester South). It included all of Oadby * Wigston and most of the current Leicester South excluding some areas like Aylestone which were in Leicester SW. I guess it would be something of a three way marginal these days – its possible to see it as the kind of seat which would have gone Labour for the first time in 1997 and then gone Lib Dem in 2005 (a la Bristol West, Leeds NW)
So is this constituency based on the old Leicester NE?
Yes its very similar boundaries
It was a good win for the Conservatives in 1983 in that case.