Islington North

[The Bishop]

Slight correction, O'Halloran defected in 1981 and then left the SDP the following year - standing in the 1983 GE as an "Independent Labour" candidate.

(despite an official SDP candidate also running)

[Pete Whitehead]

Another correction - It is not true that the boundaries have 'barely changed' since 1885. The seat did retain almost the same boundaries between 1885 and 1983, but three of the eight current wards (Mildmay and the Highburys) were in Islington East for most of that time (Islington Central from 1974-83)

[Deleted]

Apr 5, 2020 18:57:01 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Apr 5, 2020 12:35:00 GMT The Bishop said:

Slight correction, O'Halloran defected in 1981 and then left the SDP the following year - standing in the 1983 GE as an "Independent Labour" candidate.

(despite an official SDP candidate also running)

the reason Corbyn won so easily in 1983 was that the anti-Labour vote was split. The SDP candidate was John Grant, who had been MP for Islington Central which was abolished in that election. Since then he has of course greatly strengthened his position. Grant was an Arsenal supporter too. Nothing changes in the Labour Party, the leader continues to be an Arsenal supporter.

I believe Ed supported Leeds while David supported Arsenal

[Chris from Brum]

Gordon Brown apparently supports Raith Rovers, and Tony Blair is noted as a supporter of Newcastle Utd.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

David Cameron supports West Ham Aston Villa.

[Adam in Stroud]

Apr 6, 2020 8:54:09 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

David Cameron supports West Ham Aston Villa.

...and Burnley

[finsobruce]

Apr 6, 2020 15:51:28 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Jane Ellison said she was a Barnsley supporter when standing in that town. I met her on polling day at a polling station in the Tottenham constituency, where I was taking numbers for Labour 20 years ago, in the David Lammy by-election. She visited the station even though there was no Conservative teller, and was wearing a Spurs brooch. No doubt she supported Chelsea when MP for Battersea.

Supported Barnsley! She's from Bradford.

An unusual example in recent political history of someone who fought four different seats before getting elected to parliament.

 

[John Chanin]

I have done a profile here, as it is part of the area I said I would do.  I did it without reference to the one done by @abiezercoppe   and his is as good as mine.  In truth this is a very boring seat.  

Islington North lacks glamour. It is a very ordinary chunk of north London, with few landmarks. The main exception is Arsenal’s Emirates football ground built on the site of an old waste transfer station just off the Holloway Road, which bisects the seat from north to south. Just to the south of the stadium is the main building of the London Metropolitan University (formerly the North London Polytechnic). On the other side of the railway line north from Moorgate is Highbury. The old Arsenal ground has been redeveloped into gated up market flats (although the name of the underground station has not been changed). Highbury is the best residential area in the seat. It has the highest white population, a noticeably higher proportion of managerial jobs, and higher levels of owner-occupation in the predominantly Victorian housing. There is less social housing there too, although like inner London in general it is still substantial. As Highbury blends into Finsbury Park to the north, the housing becomes smaller, renting becomes higher, and there are more routine workers. The park itself is in Haringey, but the station - an interchange between two tube lines and the overground - is in Islington. North of here, on both sides of the Holloway Road is Upper Holloway - with lots of council housing, but better off than Finsbury Park. At the far north-east corner is Archway, on the borders of Camden and Haringey, and the bottom of the hill that leads up to Highgate. There is indeed a bridge here along the ridge, connecting Highgate with Hornsey, that forms the northern edge of the seat. This is also quite a rundown area. At the north-west corner around Stroud Green Road, this seat has a southern extension of the trendy Crouch Hill district.

Overall this seat has the 8th highest social housing in the country. Right to buy has generally had little impact in inner London - a combination of high values, poor tenants, and less than desirable properties. However where it has been exercised around half the properties have reverted to rental use at twice the council rents and a poorer repair service, under private ownership. They tend to be occupied by exactly the same sort of people who would have been council tenants in the past, and unsurprisingly tend to be dissatisfied with their lot. Private tenants form the strongest Labour group these days, at least among the white population. Perhaps surprisingly this is one of the best educated and most middle class seats in the country, despite the high levels of renting. There is a sizeable black population in this seat, but like its neighbours it has a very low south Asian population for London. And indeed this is a very safe Labour seat, unchanged since 1983. At local level there has been competition from the Liberal Democrats, who won most of the wards and took control of the council in 2002, and remained competitive in 2006, but currently all the wards are Labour with the exception of Greens in Highbury.  The MP here since 1983 is Jeremy Corbyn, long-standing left winger who was leader from 2015 to 2020. He originally won the seat in curious fashion from two sitting SDP MPs, after both defected, but Islington was reduced to two seats throwing them into competition. John Grant won the selection battle, but Michael O’Halloran, in high dudgeon, then stood as an independent, getting half of the vote of his former colleague. After this initial contest, Corbyn has received over 50% of the vote at every subsequent election. One other interesting point is that there is a Corbyn Street in Holloway - perhaps this helped him to get selected as the Labour candidate.

This seat is one of the few in north and east London to be the right size under the new rules. The Boundary Commission is therfore proposing to leave it completely unaltered.

Census data: owner-occupied 31% (560/573 in England & Wales), private rented 27% (50th), social rented 40% (8th).
                      :White 67%, Black 15%, Sth Asian 4%, Mixed 7%, Other 7%
                      : Managerial & professional 55% (15th), Routine & Semi-routine 19% (520th)
                      : Degree 49% (12th), Minimal qualifications 25% (536th)
                      : Students 8% (87th), Over 65: 9% (553rd)

	2010	%	2015	%	2017	%	2019	%
Labour	24,276	54.5%	29,659	60.2%	40,086	73.0%	34,603	64.3%
Conservative	6,339	14.2%	8,465	17.2%	6,871	12.5%	5,483	10.2%
Liberal Democrat	11,875	26.7%	3,984	8.1%	4,946	9.0%	8,415	15.6%
UKIP/Brexit	716	1.6%	1,971	4.0%	413	0.8%	742	1.4%
Green	1,348	3.0%	5,043	10.2%	2,229	4.1%	4,326	8.0%
Others			112	0.2%	383	0.7%	236	0.4%
Majority	12,401	27.8%	21,194	43.0%	33,215	60.5%	26,188	48.7%

[John Chanin]

Apr 14, 2020 16:07:00 GMT @abiezercoppe said:

Apr 14, 2020 13:59:27 GMT John Chanin said:

Islington North lacks glamour. 

Thank you for overview, John.

I have to agree with you that for the most Islington North lacks glamour, particularly compared to the borough's other seat. Nevertheless, I've lived in the Stroud Green area of the seat for a couple of years now, and I have grown to love it. Along the Stroud Green Road there is now a great selection of shops, cafés, and restaurants - and perhaps one of the best pubs in north London, the Faltering Fullback (albeit in the Hornsey and Wood Green seat). 

There are definitely some nicer parts to the seat as well. Tufnell Park is rather nice, which I believe is where the new Labour leader lives, as is Crouch Hill. You could argue that the seat also incorporates the southern edges of Highgate - the epitome of glamour - depending where your boundaries for it lie. 

I lived for a while in Tufnell Park, but over the border in Camden.  I also worked for Islington Council for many years.  Your part of the borough is very nice, and has gone up in the world over the last 25 years.  But it is only a small part of the seat, unlike Hornsey & Wood Green which I will probably do tomorrow.

[Deleted]

The last Tory Councillor in this seat was Clive Blackwood (serving from 1992 to 1998). He represented Quadrant (covering the northern part of Highbury East).

[Robert Waller]

2021 Census

Owner occupied 30.7% 558/573
Private rented 31.7% 55/573
Social rented 37.7% 8/573
White 61.9%
Black 14.5%
Asian 8.5%
South Asian 4.6%
Managerial & professional 46.5% 25/573
Routine & Semi-routine 14.5% 534/573
Degree level 57.6% 10/573
No qualifications 13.6% 492/573



2011
Owner occupied 31.5% 560/573
Private rented 28.2% 52/573
Social rented 40.3% 8/573
Managerial & professional 44.3%
Routine & Semi-routine 14.1%

Asian 8.0%

Degree level 48.8% 12/573
No qualifications 16.6% 500/573

[elinorhelyn]

How a Corbyn independent run would go: the lefty young white middlle class types would go with Corbyn. But the multiethnic council estate vote would stay with Labour therefore a Labour candidate would win.

[batman]

One distinctive feature of this seat which is worth mentioning is that it is the most compact, i.e. smallest in area, constituency in the UK.

[batman]

Feb 3, 2023 16:15:55 GMT elinorhelyn said:

How a Corbyn independent run would go: the lefty young white middlle class types would go with Corbyn. But the multiethnic council estate vote would stay with Labour therefore a Labour candidate would win.

That may well be mostly true, though I suspect Muslim voters in many cases will be tempted to vote for Corbyn, depending on their background & circumstances, knowing that it's very unlikely they'd let in a Lib Dem, Green or Tory.

[john07]

Feb 3, 2023 19:49:08 GMT batman said:

Feb 3, 2023 16:15:55 GMT elinorhelyn said:

How a Corbyn independent run would go: the lefty young white middlle class types would go with Corbyn. But the multiethnic council estate vote would stay with Labour therefore a Labour candidate would win.

That may well be mostly true, though I suspect Muslim voters in many cases will be tempted to vote for Corbyn, depending on their background & circumstances, knowing that it's very unlikely they'd let in a Lib Dem, Green or Tory.

I suspect that Corbyn might prevail but it would be very difficult seat to call.

An Eddie Milne type situation?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

As a former party leader, Corbyn lacks Eddie Milne's sense of being the outsider against the machine, and his criticisms of the leadership are centred on a debate about his failings rather than the corruption of the party establishment.

Also Eddie Milne's deselection and the foisting of a London-based middle class ex-Cabinet member as official candidate were carried out a matter of days before the election. The situation with Corbyn will have been brewing for four years before the likely general election date.

[olympian95]

Whitehall Park is in this seat I think and is a very desirable area.

I do fancy Corbyn to manage one election win here as an independent..he will attract national support from ex Labour lefties who can't stand Starmer and see this as a vehicle to get one back on him.

[The Bishop]

Yes, that's quite possible.

Its also still quite conceivable that he doesn't run at all, not least to avoid putting the friends he still has in the PLP and local party in a difficult position. And this becomes more likely if Labour's proposed replacement is at least vaguely acceptable to him.

[elinorhelyn]

Feb 9, 2023 11:12:18 GMT The Bishop said:

Yes, that's quite possible.

Its also still quite conceivable that he doesn't run at all, not least to avoid putting the friends he still has in the PLP and local party in a difficult position. And this becomes more likely if Labour's proposed replacement is at least vaguely acceptable to him.

That's why I've always said the best solution to the Corbyn problem is to have someone from the left of the party replace him, Tarry perhaps??

[olympian95]

Yes that is a possibility - but I think his ego will win the day and he will go for it.