Liverpool Wavertree
2010 Results:
Conservative: 2830 (7.41%)
Labour: 20132 (53.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 12965 (33.93%)
BNP: 150 (0.39%)
UKIP: 890 (2.33%)
Green: 598 (1.56%)
Socialist Labour: 200 (0.52%)
Independent: 149 (0.39%)
Majority: 7167 (19.17%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 17060 (49%)
Liberal Democrat: 14022 (40.3%)
Conservative: 2500 (7.2%)
Other: 1207 (3.5%)
Majority: 3038 (8.7%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 2331 (6.6%)
Labour: 18441 (52.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 13268 (37.7%)
UKIP: 660 (1.9%)
Other: 471 (1.3%)
Majority: 5173 (14.7%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 3091 (9.6%)
Labour: 20155 (62.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 7836 (24.4%)
UKIP: 348 (1.1%)
Other: 708 (2.2%)
Majority: 12319 (38.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 4944 (10.8%)
Labour: 29592 (64.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 9891 (21.5%)
Referendum: 576 (1.3%)
Other: 915 (2%)
Majority: 19701 (42.9%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Luciana Berger (Labour) Born London. Educated at Birmingham University.
Andrew Garnett (Conservative) born 1971, Liverpool. Educated at St Margarets CE High School and Manchester Metropolitan University. Compliance officer. Chiltern councillor since 2006.Luciana Berger (Labour) Born London. Educated at Birmingham University.Colin Eldridge (Liberal Democrat) born 1977. Educated at St Bartholomew`s Newbury and the University of the West of England. Freelance sales and marketing executive. Bristol City councillor between 1998-2001. Contested Woodspring in 2001, Liverpool Wavertree in 2005.Rebecca Lawson (Green) Born Cumbria. Psychology lecturer.Neil Miney (UKIP)Steven McEllenborough (BNP) Kim Singleton (Socialist Labour) Frank Dunne (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 88192
Male: 47.4%
Female: 52.6%
Under 18: 22.3%
Over 60: 19.3%
Born outside UK: 6.1%
White: 92.1%
Black: 1.8%
Asian: 1.5%
Mixed: 2.5%
Other: 2.1%
Christian: 77.1%
Jewish: 1.3%
Muslim: 1.9%
Full time students: 10.4%
Graduates 16-74: 19%
No Qualifications 16-74: 33.1%
Owner-Occupied: 58.9%
Social Housing: 21.7% (Council: 7.8%, Housing Ass.: 13.9%)
Privately Rented: 17%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 28.2%
<—- imagines GetReal! choking on his coffee at such figures
_
David Alton was the MP for Liverpool Edge Hill and then Liverpool Mossley Hill during the years when the Liberal Democrats didn’t even run Liverpool City Council, yet when the Lib Dems gained control in 1998 (A year after he retired) they still couldn’t win Liverpool Wavertree when they were in control of the city.
Possible result in 2015-
Berger (Labour)- 23, 530 (63.6%, +10.5%)
Lib Dem- 9, 225 (24.9%, -9.03%)
Tory- 2, 353 (6.3%, -1.11%)
Others- 1, 856 (5.0%, -0.19%)
Turnout- 36, 964.
Majority- 14, 305 (38.6%)
I’m not as convinced as you are that the country will elect Ed Balls and Ed Miliband
but there could be a large swing in the LD/Lab areas.
An awful lot can change in nearly 3 years –
the Tories had a majority of 144 in 1983 after a desperate situation in 1981 with a 23% share in the polls still to come at the equivalent point.
Obviously there are many different factors
but my guess is the economy will gradually recover and with it the Government’s ratings.
”I’m not as convinced as you are that the country will elect Ed Balls and Ed Miliband”
Is that because you are a Tory?
The forecasts for the economy are for only sluggish recovery. Having said that, plenty of economic forecasts in the past have been rather inaccurate. I admire your optimism. I’m sitting on the fence for now.
As we saw in 1992, the state of the economy doesn’t always determine which party will win the election. Voters also ask if the alternative government would be even worse.
I think the tories are more likely to win, a la referendums, if voters are unsure whatever they say previously they will go for the safer current option.
Maybe 70-30 in my opinion on most likely to have the most seats at this point imho.
The Tories are going to have to hope and prey that there isn’t another by-election in a Tory-Labour marginal they hold in this Parliament, for whatever reason. With Corby already looking ominous for them, they can’t afford for another such seat to fall vacant in the future…
Well they won’t want to lose another seat of course but I can’t see it having much practical effect on the government since it has a majority of about 70 seats.
Is this the BNPs weakest result? A liverpool seat seems a strange place for that to occur
I have reason to believe that the BNP’s candidate here Stephen McEllenborough didn’t go down too well locally- In stark contrast to Peter Stafford in Liverpool Walton, who got nearly 10 times as many votes as McEllenborough- 1, 104. What may explain the big difference is the different nature of the two constituencies.
”Well they won’t want to lose another seat of course but I can’t see it having much practical effect on the government since it has a majority of about 70 seats.”
I believe that at the moment the Coalition has a Commons majority of 82- Hardly seems fair that it is so large considering the Lib Dems came third nationally and are now in government with a party who couldn’t even win an overall majority.
There is a danger Labour will replace Ed Miliband and the slob cod economics so vividly and easily recalled to people by Balls.
“I believe that at the moment the Coalition has a Commons majority of 82- Hardly seems fair that it is so large considering the Lib Dems came third nationally and are now in government with a party who couldn’t even win an overall majority.”
I fail to understand your oibjection. Since no party won an overall majority it goes without saying that the government will be formed from one or more parties who failed to win an overall majority, unless you believe that the result of such an electoral outcome is that no government should be formed at all. I also would assume that you would think it even less ‘fair’ if some coalition had been formed from the party that came second and the party that came third together with whatever other odds and sods could create a parliamentary majority. Perhaps you are arguing that a Conservative minority government would have been the best outcome from the 2010 election. Many in both the LDs and the Conservatives may agree with that but I still don’t get where the unfairness is. Remeber that these two parties combined won about 60% of the vote. While that can’t be seen as a mandate for the coalition per se (since many people voting for either party did not want that outcome) it is clearly a mandate for the two parties between them having a fairly large majority of seats in parliament. If they choose to use that parliamentary arithmetic to form a coalition government with a majority then in what way is this unfair? Do you think we should have a grand coalition in these circumstances?
Pete, I thnk it is unfair because the Conservative Party are clearly still not trusted- They FAILED to win a majority, overall or outright. They were 20 seats short. That suggests that many people hadn’t forgiven them for what they did during the Thatcher years, and therefore we got a hung parliament. But no party WON the election per se, therefore I think there should have been another election. It just doesn’t seem fair that the OPPOSITION is the party that won the second largest number of the votes, while the other party in GOVERNMENT only came third nationally. If anything the Lib Dems should be in opposition with Labour and the Tories should be hanging on by the skin of their teeth with a wafer-thin majority.
But they didn’t win a wafer thin majority – would you like a system like in Greece or Malta where top up seats are created for the party which wins the most votes, which might therefore have provided the Conservatives with the wafer thin majority? If not do you just keep re-running the election evrey month until some party wins a majority? What makes you think that another election in say June would have prodeuced a different outcome from that in May?
“That suggests that many people hadn’t forgiven them for what they did during the Thatcher years”
This is really pathetic. Nobody voted on this basis in 2010 who was plausibly a possible Conservative voter. The only people who bang on about ‘the Thatcher years’ are old Labour diehards in some old mining areas or places like LIverpool and clueless student Grant types who aren’t even old enough to have lived through that time. I think we all know which category you come under btw.
If the sort of people who decide elections were unable to forgive the Tories for Thatcher as late as 2010, then its a bit of a msytery how that party won an election in 1992 so soon after she had left office. Presumably they had either forgiven them already by then or didn;t consider that any forgiveness was necessary
To use Thatcher as a political weapon in 2012 is very unfortunate.
”The only people who bang on about ‘the Thatcher years’ are old Labour diehards in some old mining areas or places like LIverpool and clueless student Grant types who aren’t even old enough to have lived through that time.”
That’s harsh. Yes I may well fall under the former but I am not an ‘old Labour diehard’ although I do come from Merseyside, which has undoubtedly influenced my thinking. I am most certainly not a ‘student Grant type’ as I am not a university student. I can tell you that I have elderly relatives who are still alive that lived and suffered under Thatcher’s control and can vouch for that. I may not be a Labour Party supporter but I can safely say that I can agree with the sentiments that state Thatcher created mass unemployment, created social divisions and created a recession that lasted well into the early 1990′s.
There were many factors behind the Conservatives’ failure to win a majority. A folk memory of Margaret Thatcher may have counted in the odd area but I am not convinced that it features prominently on any general list. I would emphasise the numerous weaknesses of the Tories’ campaign and the low electoral base from which they had to climb. Though transient, Cleggmania can hardly have helped either, not least because it sapped the Tories’ momentum for a crucial week or so. Others on here, both Left and Right, have made similar observations.
It is perhaps fair to say that UKIP may have caused problems for the Tories, but they struggled in Scotland and North East England more than anywhere else in the UK- The fact that the main party in government only has 3 seats in total in these two areas of the UK suggests they didn’t do as well as they might have. Other reasons include-Close results in certain seats which just about evaded the Tories- Mid Dorset and North Poole, Solihull, Bolton West, Wirral South, Hampstead and Kilburn, Southampton Itchen, Derby North, Dudley North and Great Grimsby would have all edged the Tories closer to an overall majority if the Tories had just polled a few further hundred odd votes or so.
As others have indicated Thatcher may have accounted for the Tories’ continued dire performances in places like Liverpool and Glasgow. But whether it had any significant effect elsewhere is a moot point.
I think Thatcher must have been very unpopular in Liverpool and Glasgow because these two cities had already swung away from the Tories before the 1983 General Election.
Liverpool and Glasgow had been swinging away from the Conservatives since the late 1950s.
The fact is many Scousers should be grateful to Thatcher.
After all without her they’d need to find some other excuse for their wallowing in self-pity and steady decline compared to equivalent parts of the country.
No Richard it may be Ten to Midnight but I disagree with you. We don’t wallow in self-pity and don’t steadily decline.
Mrs Thatcher rescued this country.
She did some unpleasant things – but they were vital and necessary.
How lucky some of us were to be around when she was PM – it was inspirational.
This really isn’t the place to discuss the relative merits or demerits of Margaret Thatcher. No-one’s going to convert anyone. I personally could not disagree more with Joe, but none of you would expect otherwise, and I think we should return to more relevant discussions. I think this constituency thread has had more than its fair share of irrelevant & silly comments what with GetReal in the past and I hope we can go back to psephology – at least the discussion started on that topic, with TheResults making a prediction of the result here in 2015 which may or not be plausible.
Here here Barnaby. To be quite honest I didn’t want to be dragged into a war of words over Thatcher.
“I personally could not disagree more with Joe, but none of you would expect otherwise”
And I don’t think that bothers anyone that you have political differences with Thatcher.
Its the continual blaming of someone who left office 22 years ago for their present failings which I find ridiculous.
22 years after being knocked flat in 1945 Japan and West Germany were the second and third economies in the world.
It probably wouldn’t be fair even to blame Ed Balls for the structural damage to the economy he was key in designing for as long as 22 years
‘Its the continual blaming of someone who left office 22 years ago for their present failings which I find ridiculous.’
Not wanting toi stay off-topic but if you think that you fail to understand the impact Thatcher had – which was greater than any post-war PM except maybe Atlee
Blair must have seen something in it – given that he maintained the 1980′s Union reforms, tax cuts to top rate taxpayers and the generally laisez-faire approach to the economy
Although to be fair four straight election defeats for Labour and the press aduration of Thatcher (or rather the press barons aduration who loved her for making them richer) probably had a great deal to do with it
Barnaby’s right – we;re not gping to convert each other over this one but for me it was making the denial of compassion in politics acceptable that was were Thatcher had the biggest impact – and you only have to read the posts from those on the Right who contribute to this website to see that
To clarify my earlier post if it sounded complacent – I think the next election is open
and the range is from a Con majority to a Lab majority.
Tough decisions were definitely needed and taken during the Thatcher years – but that is the best way to care for the underdog aswell.
If you destroy successful business, you have nothing.
The post The Results put for this seat may not be far off although turnout may be higher,
and Liverpool isn’t typical of the country.
But Tim,
I think you know deep down the policy in the 1980s made sense.
‘I think you know deep down the policy in the 1980s made sense.’
yes and no
I’m one of those few people whose fairly neutral about Thatcher.
I certainly didn’t like her but I do accept that when she first came to office the UK was the sick man of Europe and needed a radical figure to change course – Thatcher did that and one does wonder what would have hapened to the UK if it had continued with the pseudo-socialist policies of the late 1960s and 70s
Still, I think even at the time there was a general consensus on that – making Thatcher’s confrontational approach completely unnecessary, which made it all too easy for her opponents to claim she was intentionally callous
Besides, the Thatcher government’s weren’t as radical or as Right wing as some Left-wing commentators claim, and every single one of her cabinets contained more One Nation Tories than in the current government
I also think her behavour after being dropped was every bit as bad as Ted Heath’s
“I think even at the time there was a general consensus on that – making Thatcher’s confrontational approach completely unnecessary”
Eh? There wasn’t even a “general consensus” within the Tory party. Half of her own cabinet in 1979-81 hated her and stonewalled against her economic policies. Do you remember “the lady’s not for turning”?
If Thatcher hadn’t taken a confrontational approach early on she would have either been defeated over the economy, the Falklands or the miners and replaced by a wet. Probably Whitelaw before 1983, Heseltine in 1983-85.
Yes, going back over it so many times,
it cannot be under-estimated that if you have a controversial program you have to act very quickly.
There really was a feeling that both the previous Governments had been destroyed by the unions and you have to signal early that you mean business.
(I hope we haven’t left it too late this time).
Even with a 1983 majority, you find in the second term
sympathy for the Government’s difficulties is already pretty much gone
and my guess is if the action wasn’t taken in 1979 the Government would probably have achieved nothing.
‘Eh? There wasn’t even a “general consensus” within the Tory party. Half of her own cabinet in 1979-81 hated her and stonewalled against her economic policies. Do you remember “the lady’s not for turning”?’
I’m not talking about just the early years but her whole period in office
For example, most people (certainly a majority) believed the Unions had waaay too much power – as Joe says they destrotedtrhe two previous governments – but did she really have to ‘set up’ the miners with their militant leader Arthur Scargill to prove her point
I take the Will Hutton line that whilst some of what she did was beneficial to the country in the long term – her confrontational manner of doing it made it possible for her opponents to questuon her motives and easy to paint as someone who was almost seeking to stick two fingers up at the weak, poor and vulnerable – the real losers of the Thatcher years
Tim, I don’t think Thatcher set up a fight with the NUM. She knew that closing the mines was in the national interest and that the NUM would react with hostility towards that. They had to make preparations such as coal stockpiles because she knew there was a chance things could tern nasty. After all, it was inadequate preparations for a strike that brought down the Heath government and lead to the 3 day week a decade beforehand.
I think there is some truth in what you say Tim, although it must be remembered that Scargill was spoiling for a fight every bit as much as Thatcher, just that he was far less tactically astute than her. Looking back it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that he blundered into a trap.
One argument in favour of the tactics employed by the Tory government against the miners is that for the beast of militant trade unionism to be truly slain the NUM had to be made an example of. A tactical victory for the government was not enough. The gibbetted corpse of the NUM had to be placed on display for all to see. The cost to the Tory Party of this approach was to create a lasting impression of the party as being cruel and uncaring in the minds of large numbers of voters.
More generally I think the party in the 80s was so utterly convinced of the rightness of the reforms that were being brought in that insufficient effort was expended selling them to those who were sceptical. There was a sense that anyone who didn’t like it, well tough tits.
This wasn’t too damaging when the party still had a reputation for economic competence. A party can get away with not being liked if despite that it is respected for looking after the country’s financial wellbeing. When the Tories lost that reputation for competence after the ERM debacle the reputation for harshness that the party had unnecessaryily aquired during the 80s made the fall from grace that much more spectacular.
This leads into why those who say the party had no need of a detoxification strategy are wrong. Denuded of its reputation for economic competence the party had no choice. Reaquiring that kind of reputation in opposition is simply not possible. The party instead had to strive to, if not be liked then at least not be disliked.
Although the Cameron strategy ultimately fell short in terms of winning enough extra votes to deliver an overall majority, I think it should be remembered that it did succeed in making voters less likely to vote tactically against the party. Detoxification was an important part of that.
But militant unionism is not cured – what about the NUT.
And unlike miners, they are not tradtional people.
Miners and their families had real courage.
Do you think the average teacher would have the balls to stay out on strike with no pay for 18 months? No way.
To strike for 18 months with no pay is not courageous it is lunacy.
How can putting your own family through such misery possibly be courageous. It is extremely selfish actually.
Well a willingness to do that would be the only way a strike could bring down the government.
Otherwise they can easily starve you back to work after a couple of weeks.
The public sector unions have plenty of mouth but no balls, which is why they will never pose the threat that the miners did.
i think that assesment is spot on Kieren
Scargill was indeed spoiling for a fight and got a harder one that he could have possibly imagined
As Adam has said, there was indeed a strong case to make for closing a large proprtion of the unprofitable mines – but again Thatcher seemed so convinced of her case that she didn’t even try and sell it to the country – in a way you could imagine David Cameron trying to
Again, she didn’t need to be that confrontational
Kieran, the miners strike might have added to the so called ‘nasty party’ image of the Tory party in some parts of the country, but in many areas she’s either been forgotten about or is still regarded as a saint. After all, many people saw the NUM as being the enemy of the state and believed that Thatcher was right to do what she did in slaying the,
Enemy of the state many be too stronger term, but public opinion was on the side of the government, so that suggests that a majority of people believed that the NUM were an unwelcome force that the government had to deal with.
I just heard from a journalist in Liverpool, that turnout is 3% there at the moment!
I’ll have to double check whether he meant in the PCC elections, or in local by-election.
Liverpool did have a 6.9% turnout in a council by-election back in about 2000.
I assume postal votes these days should surpass that poor effort.
IIRC there was something like an 11% turnout for a Euro by-election in Merseyside in the late 80s or early 90s.
The PCC elections I’d assume – which easily tops the list of useless, whacky, mad and nonsensical ideas the government have cooked up
Apart from my father, I don’t know of one person who intends to vote in those elections – a complete waste of time and money in the government’s ludicrous attempts to copy America
Even if it did work over there – and therte’ds a lot of evidence to suggest it doesn’t – thinking they could make it work on this side of the Atlantic is exactly the type of thing you’d expect from arrogant posh boys who don’t know the price of milk