Wolverhampton South West
2010 Results:
Conservative: 16344 (40.7%)
Labour: 15653 (38.98%)
Liberal Democrat: 6430 (16.01%)
UKIP: 1487 (3.7%)
Others: 246 (0.61%)
Majority: 691 (1.72%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 17542 (43.7%)
Conservative: 15289 (38.1%)
Liberal Democrat: 5388 (13.4%)
Other: 1911 (4.8%)
Majority: 2252 (5.6%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 15610 (37.5%)
Labour: 18489 (44.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 5568 (13.4%)
BNP: 983 (2.4%)
UKIP: 1029 (2.5%)
Majority: 2879 (6.9%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 16248 (39.7%)
Labour: 19735 (48.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 3425 (8.4%)
UKIP: 684 (1.7%)
Green: 805 (2%)
Majority: 3487 (8.5%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 19539 (39.9%)
Labour: 24657 (50.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 4012 (8.2%)
Other: 713 (1.5%)
Majority: 5118 (10.5%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Paul Uppal (Conservative) born Birmingham. Contested Birmingham Yardley 2005.
Paul Uppal (Conservative) born Birmingham. Contested Birmingham Yardley 2005.
Rob Marris(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Robin Lawrence (Liberal Democrat) Wolverhampton councillor since 2007.
Amanda Mobberley (UKIP)
Ray Barry (Equal Parenting Alliance) Retired civil servant.2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 81714
Male: 48.9%
Female: 51.1%
Under 18: 20.7%
Over 60: 23.2%
Born outside UK: 13.8%
White: 74.8%
Black: 4.4%
Asian: 17.4%
Mixed: 2.4%
Other: 0.9%
Christian: 64.3%
Hindu: 4.4%
Muslim: 3.6%
Sikh: 8.2%
Full time students: 7.3%
Graduates 16-74: 21.7%
No Qualifications 16-74: 29.9%
Owner-Occupied: 68.1%
Social Housing: 18.9% (Council: 13.4%, Housing Ass.: 5.5%)
Privately Rented: 9.9%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 10.9%
Sorry ment Wolverhampton NE not SE
CON GAIN
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Simon Latham. Simon Latham said: Wolverhampton South West http://bit.ly/adNwXH Local Labour MP Rob Marris should be re-elected at this marginal seat #seatstowatch #ge2010 [...]
The non-white vote nearly saved Labour, but not quite. Demographic change hasn’t really helped Labour here either in the way it seems to have done in Brum and the formidable Tory vote in Tettenhall (and to a slightly lesser degree in Penn) has clearly come out.
Congratulations to Paul Uppal great guy but Barnaby quite right – they saved Labour in Walsall South.
The amount of activity and money that the tories seemed to have spent on this seat not an overwhelming success but that should be more a reflection on the tories fighting it as if Cameron the candidate not Paul Uppal. Uppal will make a great MP and will be re-elected with a much bigger majority either in 6 months, 12 months or 4 years.
“THE GOVERNOR
But will the turnout be lower in moderately strong Labour wards?
April 18th, 2010 at 8:40 am
BARNABY JL MARDER
Maybe slightly, it often is – but less likely in a marginal.
April 18th, 2010 at 9:38 am”
In the local elections where the overall turnout was almost identical (as one would expect) turnout was over 70% in the Tettenhalls and in Penn and only 55% in St Peters and 63% in Graiseley. If turnout had been uniform and assuming the extra votes in the inner city wards had voted in the same proportions as those who did vote, Labour would have held on here. Another problem for Labour is that the electorate in those wards has fallen – the electorate in the four subrurban wards were all over 9,000 but less than 7000 now in St Peters. Finally Labour’s support in St peter’s is far less monolithic than in the past.
While they have made Park safe (in general eelctions) and made some inroads into the Tory middle class wards, they seem to have lost some support in St Peters compared with 20 years ago. This loss of support has been to the benefit of the Liberal Democrats and it would be reasonable to assume that student votes are responsible for this. the LD share is now double what it was in 1997 and 2001 while the Tory share is about the same. Ironically, though the suburbs did obviously come out for the Tories, Labour continued to poll respectably in Penn and Merry Hill. They lost the seat because of the loss of votes to the LDs and to abstentionism in their inner city heartlands.
In the local elections the Conservatives were about 3,000 ahead of Labour on aggregate but with an almost identical number of votes. Labour polled 2,000 more in the general election than in the locals almost entirely at the expense of the LDs so a fair amount of split-voting, but not as much as in previous elections and not enough to safe Labour here.
The reason that Graisely and St. Peters are much smaller wards is because under the last boundary review – undertaken in 2002 the then Labour run council told the boundary commission that the population in those wards would grow (in contrast to the previous 40 year trend of depopulation). This enabled the Labour party to keep councillors in small wards that would previously have been merged. The same is true of other wards in the city which the Conservatives now gain from.
Really the whole boundary review of 2002 should be undertaken again, as it is a farce that 800 votes will elected a councillor in one part of the city while 1600 votes will come second in others. Equally wards with 11,000 voters have the same status as wards with 7,000 voters.