Wimbledon

[Pete Whitehead]

It's worth pointing out that in 1945 the Wimbledon seat included the whole of the Merton & Morden UD and thus that area's substantial share of the St Helier estate. Without doubt on the current boundaries, excluding that area, Labour would not have been even very close then.

[Deleted]

Apparently this is the least deprived constituency in London by index of multiple deprivation

[timrollpickering]

Given their recent rise I suppose this is the best place to ask why Merton never followed neighbouring boroughs in the "golden crescent" and became a strong Lib Dem area in the New Labour years?

[Deleted]

Apr 2, 2020 12:34:57 GMT timrollpickering said:

Given their recent rise I suppose this is the best place to ask why Merton never followed neighbouring boroughs in the "golden crescent" and became a strong Lib Dem area in the New Labour years?

My guess would be regional identity and wanting to preserve themselves as distinctly South London rather than West or South West London or Surrey

[finsobruce]

Apr 2, 2020 12:34:57 GMT timrollpickering said:

Given their recent rise I suppose this is the best place to ask why Merton never followed neighbouring boroughs in the "golden crescent" and became a strong Lib Dem area in the New Labour years?

I suppose the difference was that the the other three boroughs were Tory with a weak Labour opposition which could never take control wheras Merton had a strong Labour party and history of victories at all levels.

[londonseal80]

Apr 2, 2020 16:15:20 GMT finsobruce said:

Apr 2, 2020 12:34:57 GMT timrollpickering said:

Given their recent rise I suppose this is the best place to ask why Merton never followed neighbouring boroughs in the "golden crescent" and became a strong Lib Dem area in the New Labour years?

I suppose the difference was that the the other three boroughs were Tory with a weak Labour opposition which could never take control wheras Merton had a strong Labour party and history of victories at all levels.

That’s a good analysis, long term the Lib Dem’s on a local level could do very well on this side of the borough at the expensive of the Conservatives. Merton could end up looking politically like Haringey in the future.

Surprised this is ranked the least deprived seat in London, this seat is not just Wimbledon where the tennis is payed, Trinity and Dundonald have gentrified massively, but still considering the plough lane part of Wimbledon Park ward still rather resembles Tooting. If you go to Morden town centre you still could easily be in East London and despite gentrification, some of South Wimbledon is still looks rather down at the heel too. I would expect Twickenham, Richmond Park, Sutton and Cheam to have lower deprivation scores then this seat but hey I don’t compile the stats so what do I know.

[Robert Waller]

The All England Lawn Tennis (and Croquet) Club: strawberries and cream, Henman Hill and Murray Mount, the purity of predominantly white clothing on court against the lush green of the impeccably manicured grass; the name Wimbledon conveys to many in Britain and beyond an epitome of genteel tradition and conservatism. What is more, the statistics of this constituency also hardly sound at the marginal end of the political spectrum. According to the most recent available Census (in 2011), among all 650 seats Wimbledon has with the highest proportion in higher managerial and professional employment, the second lowest in routine or semi routine jobs, the third highest with full time jobs, the fourth highest with degrees. A tour of ‘Wimbledon Village’ and the fringes of the eponymous Common suggests not the habitat of humble Wombles but of denizens of great wealth and privilege. Yet all of this is, in electoral terms at least, highly misleading. The Wimbledon constituency is now a marginal seat, in which all the three leading English parties have had a strong interest in recent decades.

After being held by the Conservatives since 1950, from 1997 to 2005 Wimbledon was one of the many apparently unlikely seats gained and held by Tony Blair’s brand of Labour party, the MP being Roger Casale. It was narrowly regained for the Conservatives by Stephen Hammond in 2005, and held more comfortably in 2010 and 2015, until the majority over Labour was halved to 5,000 in 2017. However in 2019 the Conservative share dropped from 46.5% to a shaky 38.4%. This time it was the Liberal Democrats who surged to provide the main threat. Their candidate Paul Kohler (previously known as the victim of a savage attack in his own home in 2014) received 37.2%, an increase of a massive 22.7% since 2017, and cut Hammond’s majority to a mere 628 votes. Therefore Wimbledon was close to providing his party with what would have been their most spectacular positive performance in the whole election.

The main reason for this spectacular advance is not hard to detect. Those demographic figures themselves suggest Wimbledon’s response to the dominant issue of the 2019 campaign. The estimate for its preference in the 2016 referendum is over 70% for Remain. The Conservatives did not do well in 2019 among well educated metropolitan voters. They lost Richmond Park , a somewhat similar seat in London’s south western quadrant, to the Liberal Democrats, by well over 7,000 votes, though the actual changes in share were far more modest than in Wimbledon, where the Labour share had previously been much higher. This was not ideal territory for either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn. Paul Kohler came much closer to success than some well-publicised defectors to his party who also stood in the capital.

It should also be borne in mind that Wimbledon has not been solidly Conservative in local elections either for a very long time. It consists of roughly the western half of Merton, a London borough that has been outside their control since 1989 and held with a majority by Labour since 2014. Nor is this solely due to the progressively greater Labour strength in the other half of Merton (the Mitcham and Morden constituency). In the most recent local elections in May 2018 the Conservatives only won a minority of the Wimbledon wards outright. These were the highly affluent wards sprawling up the hill from different directions towards the common – Village itself (the wealthiest of all), the appropriately named Hillside, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park.

But more of the wards within the seats have different electoral characteristics. ‘Down the hill’ towards the flatter lands of the Wandle valley, sometimes known as ‘South Wimbledon’, are to be found Abbey, Trinity and Dundonald wards. These still have very high rates of over 50% professional and managerial residents, but the housing is in more tightly packed grids and more likely to be terraced. In May 2018 each of these three three-member wards voted in split representation on Merton council – Abbey with Labour at the top over Conservatives, but the latter two led by Liberal Democrats. This was something of a harbinger of the 2019 general election advance as it was Paul Kohler who topped the poll in Trinity and, well, if the Liberal Democrats can win in Dundonald, they can be competitive throughout this seat.

Further south are three more wards which are – and feel - even less close to Wimbledon Village and Common. Merton Park is largely a planned ‘model suburb’ development on the lines of Bedford Park, developed by the property developer and philanthropist John Innes between 1870 and 1904, and now a conservation area. At municipal level It has long been a stronghold of the Merton Park Residents group, who gained all three seats from the Conservatives in 1990 and have held them ever since. West Barnes and Cannon Hill are typical of swathes of outer London inter-war suburbia, with around 40% professional and managerial residents and more like 35-40% educated to degree level, close to the Greater London average. Labour took two seats in Cannon Hill in 2018 and the Liberal Democrats all three in West Barnes, which had previously for a time been the only Merton ward where they had any representation at all.

Despite its overall demographic statistics, Wimbledon is a varied constituency. If we return to the sporting connections with which this profile started, the atmosphere around Plough Lane, to which AFC Wimbledon returned in November 2020 is very different from that of Church Road, the site of the All England Club (and, indeed, the very strong and up-market Wimbledon Cricket Club). Before the split which created the MK (Milton Keynes) Dons, Wimbledon had been a notably rumbustious team, whose best known exponent had probably been the scowling Vinnie Jones. The electoral politics here will also continue to be highly competitive. The Conservatives certainly cannot take it for granted. The Liberal Democrats may find the fading of the Brexit issue a negative, but on the positive side if they can squeeze the large Labour vote, still 23.7% in December 2019, the Conservative position looks very vulnerable. But Labour can retain hopes themselves, as socio-economic grade and educational qualifications no longer have the same import as they used to before the dealignments of recent decades. In tennis terms, the seat is at present ‘advantage Conservative’ but they have not yet won the game, and indeed a slip back to deuce is a distinct possibility.


2011 Census

Age 65+ 12.3% 563/650
Very good health 57.3% 11/650
Owner-occupied 62.4% 442/650
Private rented 27.7% 48/650
Social rented 8.1% 630/650
White 76.9% 541/650
Black 2.9% 139/650
Asian 14.2% 80/650
Managerial & professional 54.8%
(Higher managerial and professional 24.0% 1/650)
(Higher Professional occupations 19.6% 1/650)
Routine & Semi-routine 10.2% 649/650
Economically active 77.0% 9/650
Full time employee 49.2% 3/650
Part time employee 9.4% 628/650
1 car or van in household 49.6% 3/650
Degree level 54.4% 4/650
No qualifications 10.0% 648/650
Students 7.2% 273/650

2021 Census

Owner occupied 60.7% 387/573
Private rented 30.5% 65/573
Social rented 8.8% 545/573
White 71.1%
Black 3.8%
Asian 15.5%
Managerial & professional 54.3% 3/573
Routine & Semi-routine 10.8% 571/573
Degree level 61.8% 4/573
No qualifications 9.5% 568/573



General Election 2019: Wimbledon

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative Stephen Hammond 20,373 38.4 -8.1
Liberal Democrats Paul Kohler 19,745 37.2 +22.7
Labour Jackie Schneider 12,543 23.7 -11.9
Independent Graham Hadley 366 0.7

C Majority 628 1.2 -9.7

Turnout 53,027 77.7 +0.5

Registered electors 68,232

Conservative hold

Swing 15.4 C to LD

[Pete Whitehead]

The Wimbledon constituency is just below quota and as the constituencies covering Kingston and Richmond are over quota this was the obvious source of extra voters. Initially it was proposed to add two wards in the New Malden area (Old Malden and St James) and remove the Cannon Hill ward. The revised proposals change all this though the partisan impact of the initial and revised proposals are the same.
Instead of New Malden the two Coombe wards are to be added from Richmond Park and the Merton Park ward donated to Mitcham & Morden.
This doesn't do much to change the balance bewteen Conservatives and Lib Dems as both areas would have been close. It does though significantly reduce Labour's chances in the seat as they are very weak in Coombe.

2019 notional results - Wimbledon & Coombe

Con	22726	39.6%
LD	22654	39.5%
Lab	11652	20.3%
Oth	367	0.6%
Majority	72	0.1%

[graham]

Interesting Nowcast Survey has Wimbledon as - LD 32.7% Lab 31.4% Con 25.8%

[batman]

presumably on the existing boundaries rather than the new ones.

[graham]

Apr 30, 2023 15:40:31 GMT batman said:

presumably on the existing boundaries rather than the new ones.

Possibly so - but still useful material for Labour to include in leaflets to discourage tactical voting - and to rebut the idea that Labour's position is hopeless there

[batman]

I did see they were out canvassing yesterday.

[anthony]

Apr 30, 2023 19:30:39 GMT batman said:

I did see they were out canvassing yesterday.

They rarely (if ever) canvass outside the wards where their two remaining Wimbledon councillors cling on.

Speaking to residents every week there's absolutely no sense that Labour will get circa 30% of the vote. I am sure they will do the same as in 2019, and campaign simply to seek to stop us from taking the seat.

[The Bishop]

Labour campaigning like they did last time is one thing, but your party is now in obvious prime position to win next time and everybody knows this.

Even if my party does the same thing as then, it is unlikely to have the same effect. Though in practice I doubt if that will be the case.

[anthony]

May 10, 2023 12:17:00 GMT The Bishop said:

Labour campaigning like they did last time is one thing, but your party is now in obvious prime position to win next time and everybody knows this.

Even if my party does the same thing as then, it is unlikely to have the same effect. Though in practice I doubt if that will be the case.

Well, I agree - but we understand the local CLP is pushing to have Wimbledon designated a target, mainly because they perceive the threat of losing the Council in due course.

[nyx]

Apr 30, 2023 15:51:03 GMT graham said:

Apr 30, 2023 15:40:31 GMT batman said:

presumably on the existing boundaries rather than the new ones.

Possibly so - but still useful material for Labour to include in leaflets to discourage tactical voting - and to rebut the idea that Labour's position is hopeless there

Labour has a strong enough base, if there isn't too much tactical voting it should be quite easy to push the Tories into third place.

[graham]

May 10, 2023 12:17:00 GMT The Bishop said:

Labour campaigning like they did last time is one thing, but your party is now in obvious prime position to win next time and everybody knows this.

Even if my party does the same thing as then, it is unlikely to have the same effect. Though in practice I doubt if that will be the case.

The LDs appeared to be in prime position in Conway prior to the 1997 election yet Labour won from 3rd place. Ditto Hastings & Rye.

A leaflet from the former Labour MP for the seat 1997 - 2005 might prove helpful to the party's cause - though I see he eventually joined ChangeUK.

[batman]

indeed, I don't think Roger Casale has rejoined the Labour Party.

[anthony]

May 28, 2023 12:37:55 GMT graham said:

The LDs appeared to be in prime position in Conway prior to the 1997 election yet Labour won from 3rd place. Ditto Hastings & Rye. A leaflet from the former Labour MP for the seat 1997 - 2005 might prove helpful to the party's cause - though I see he eventually joined ChangeUK.

They might need to decide who their candidate is first. A former leader of the Council is still telling people he's going to be the MP and the current deputy leader of the Council is still telling people she will be the candidate. Indeed one resident I know is under the impression she was told last week when canvassed that the deputy leader *is* the candidate, but I think that is a mistake/misunderstanding - although who's mistake is unclear. There are a couple of activists knocking round who want to be the candidate too.

[batman]

there is, of course, a timetable for this - your tone implies that the CLP doesn't have a clue what is happening - and it will all be resolved.